Prós:
-Gráficos e sons EXCELENTES!
-Bons personagens.
-Jogabilidade fluida e viciante.

Contras:
-IA desbalanceada, seus amigos são burros e os inimigos são bons.
-Avançar da história e gameplay muito repetitiva.
(Simplesmente o melhor jeito de usar uma motosserra nos games)

Really great score, John Williams-esque. Great sound design, love the release of tension when a room is clear. The characters have a surprising amount of charm given their appearance and the kind of game it is, and while the immediate experience of the world is largely ugly hallways, the larger concepts are intriguing. The core combat has an interesting rhythm and I definitely prefer it to, for example, Halo. The game is paced pretty well, never letting the player go too long without acquiring a new weapon or meeting a new enemy.

Encounter design is hit or miss, and going off-script is gravely punished even on the easiest difficulty. The game itself though has absolutely no problem going-off script; the AI partners' pathing is terrible, and on multiple occasions scripted events (doors opening, cutscenes starting after fights, etc) simply wouldn't happen until long after they were clearly supposed to. Certain artistic elements of the game's visual design are interesting, but the classic idiosyncrasies of the Unreal 3 shooter aesthetic are just technically atrocious.

I played the og Gears game. It was a bit fun and a bit annoying at the same time. I felt this game have the most variety of gimmick levels in the trilogy and I somehow liked most of them. But I didn't enjoy with the rest of the things that much

In one level you ride a minecart, in one level you use a satellite gun to rain lasers, in one level you must use light effectively to stay alive from shadow bats, in one level you ride a... damn vehicle(I didn't like that one) etc. and I had a lot of fun with their variety of interesting premises for levels, also I liked that it always stick to it's serious tone to the point this game could be my favourite in the trilogy but it still have so many annoyances.

In this game, any auto guns are worthless. I played this game on hardcore and enemies just don't die to the body shots, they don't even stumble of your shooting compared to the sequels, they just continue to run like nothing happened and because of that every fight takes too long to the point of boring you. So you have to use heavy weapons mostly and also headshot with them to be able to minimize the time you spend on shooting enemies. I was wondering If they didn't test the enemies themselves and I understand what the hell is going on when I arrived to the vehicle section of this game.

Why? Because this vehicle needs two person to operate. How do you operate you ask without getting crazy when playing that section solo? With playing co-op of course!
So with co-op way, auto weapons actually have purpose with assisting, so no gun fight takes a damn 10 minute I assume. I only can assume because I decided to play this game solo and as a result some sections was pretty infuriating. For example I can't count how many times I died in that damn vehicle section or in minecart or in train etc. Oh also checkpoints are really few. This results with, you dying to a one shot shotgun or rocket or grenades and so it ends up resetting the whole wave arena fight of course. But I think my patience improved a lot with playing ps1 games so I actually beat this game, I was even gonna respect it's difficulty but I still hate the one-shotting attacks, so... unfortunately no. It wasn't that of a good time.

Another thing I can say is, it's movement mechanics are really hard to get a grasp on. Because when you initiate running or rolling or getting to cover, you really have to think twice because getting out of that or animation to finish takes time. First I didn't like it, but it managed to give me the feeling that I am a hulking tank, so I actually started to enjoy it. I also realized that if I take analog stick to opposite direction and then press the run button, character does a 90 or 180 degree quick turn so this knowledge actually made the game more fun for me.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for the cutscenes nor the characters. Other than pre-rendered cutscenes, every in game cutsceney looks ROUGH and clunky. Good thing is they are pretty short but they sometimes manage to take me out of the scene sometimes so... In my opinion this game would be better without them. Also characters aren't more than cliche grumpy angry soldier guys.

Yeah that was my own journey with this game. I can't say it was a bad time but I can't say it was good either. They balance it for me so... this is the result. If you like super serious and dark shooter vibes you are gonna enjoy this game. But in my opinion, if you want to get entertained of this game, don't play on solo. Play with someone. Otherwise you can go crazy like me in some sections and your experience can get soured as a result like me

It is late 2006.
You're a 13 year old boy who got an Xbox 360 with this game for Christmas.
You play it nonstop and beat it in a single day.
You think it's peak gaming.
You proceed to go online to call Nintendo games "gay" and say something along the lines of "rated T for terrible, rated M for manly".
You high-five yourself for being so cool and witty.
You finish your day by listening to Breaking Benjamin and masturbating to Megan Fox.

What I'm getting at is, game's ok.

Hacía mucho que no revisitaba Gears of War, y era tan complicado y frustrante como lo recordaba. Todo lo que rodea a esta obra refleja precisión métrica y a ejercicio experimental: les desarrolladores están aprendiendo a hacer un juego de tiros basado en coberturas y nosotres estamos aprendiendo con elles. Eso hace que el juego se haga difícil de juzgar. Personalmente, creo que la base es muy sólida, pero el equilibrio no se ha alcanzado. El modo informal es insultante de lo fácil que es, y el Elevado parece el modo Locura. Me agobia la idea de volver a jugarlo para la versión remasterizada. Por otra parte, el modo historia es anodino y aceptable, con mucho postureo masculino y semper fidelis. Soy yo, o la manera de luchar de los Locust (apareciendo de improviso desde cualquier parte y siendo impredecibles y monstruosos) evoca a la imagen que tenía Estados Unidos de los terroristas?

------------------------------

It's been a long time since I'd played Gears of War, and it felt as complicated and frustrating as I remembered. Everything that surrounds this work feels precise and experimental: the developers are learning to make a cover-based shooting game and we are learning with them. That makes the game difficult to judge. Personally, I think the foundations are solid, but the balance hasn't been achieved yet. Casual mode is insultingly easy, and Hardcore plays like Insane mode. I shudder at thinking to play it again for the remastered edition. On the other hand, the story mode is bland and serviceable, with a lot of masculine posturing and semper fidelis. Is it me, or does the Locust's way of fighting (appearing out of nowhere and being unpredictable and monstrous) evokes the image that the United States had of terrorists at the time?

(CAMPAIGN ONLY)

Its showing its age a lot more than Gears 2, especially in comparison to Ultimate Edition, but...god damn the game is still fun. What it obviously lacks in scale compared to its sequels, it makes up for in spades with consistency and pacing. All five acts of the story (except maybe 1 and 4) feel very distinctly their-own in terms of visuals, level design, and atmosphere, and the game does an excellent job keeping itself varied without forgetting why you bought the game, to shoot alien guys. Act 2 is the standout: As night falls, a horde of the bat-like Kryll swarm the sky, and they kill you near instantly if you stay in the dark for long. So mid-combat you'll need to light up specific safe areas by shooting bombs, whilst also avoiding being overwhelmed by the locust horde. Later in the game you ride minecarts in a cave system, effectively turning it into a rail shooter but still letting you take cover.

Basically, its a very "small" feeling game that implements variety in a way that really really works, never once bogging the game down (thats a lie, theres one chapter at the end of Act 2 sucks) and instead just being plain fun throughout.

The Co-op is pretty fun too, I really like how its a lot more lax due to the ability to revive your teammate. You can sink a lot of time into grinding out every shootout in the single-player strategically: What guns do you bring, which do you swap mid-fight, when do you use your Frags, what enemies do you prioritize...but you can also just turn the volume down and beat it at a lax but still challenging pace with your bud!

Overall, I really love Gears as a franchise, but out of the original trilogy I still think Gears 1 reigns supreme.

Um shooter muito divertido, com gráficos a frente de seu tempo e uma gameplay supreendente. Gostei bastante do combate e das mecânicas de gameplay.
A história é meio enrolada, mas é aceitável, levando em conta que faz parte de uma franquia enorme.

A única coisa que não gostei foi que o jogo acabou muito rápido, quando eu pensei que estava na metade já tinha acabado, bruh.

7/10, provávelmente o pai dos TPS.

Gears of War is a great shooter that's just fun all around. The guns feel great to use and the gun variety is decent, although it could be better, the enemy designs are cool, the movement feels really damn good and tactile and the level design is great and it's very fun to make your way through the different levels of this game. The story does bring it down a bit as it is fairly uninteresting with pretty nothing characters and a pretty underwhelming ending, however, this is still a great game and an absolute blast to play through.

Edit: I lowered it half a star because I feel like it fuck you.

Gears of War é sem sombra de dúvidas um dos jogos já feitos… E é isso. Pra ser bem sincero ele consegue sair dessa ideia de ser só mais um jogo de tiro em terceira pessoa e se destacar no meio da multidão, mas, se eu parar pra somar os pontos negativos aos positivos da minha experiência, ele sai em um evidente 0 a 0.

Particularmente eu acho absurdo a construção de mundo feita pela Epic Games aqui. Tudo parece minimamente crível. As armas, graças a parte sonora e ao sistema de reload delas, soam mecânicas (no sentido literal da palavra). Os ambientes devastados e a gameplay frenética trazem uma sensação de guerra muito hollywoodiana - superando (pra mim) a maior referência sobre o tema que eu já tive no mundo dos games, Halo 2.
A trilha sonora é simplesmente muito boa. Tal qual Star Wars, é uma OST que se utiliza muito de trombones, trompetes e bumbos pra compor e ampliar a sensação de aventura mesclada à ação frenética dos combates.
Voltando a falar da ambientação visual, é impressionante como conseguiram mesclar super bem o tiroteio dos brucutus dos filmes dos anos 80/90 (como Rambo e Terminator), com elementos de horror, que horas flerta com o torture porn/gore e até surrealismo de algumas obras do gênero, e hora se utiliza de subterfúgios da ficção científica pra não só compor a atmosfera densa do jogo, mas ainda consegue atualizar esses elementos outrora datados, pra um mundo moderno (de quase 20 anos atrás… Mas ainda válido pros dias atuais).

De forma geral, é conhecido que esse jogo é bastante inspirado em Resident Evil, e em alguns momentos ele se inspira até de mais. Em um jogo de horror com elementos de ação (como são boa parte dos jogos da franquia da Capcom), ter cenários mais claustrofóbicos em momentos de ação aliado a uma mira relativamente lenta (em comparação com jogos de tiro em primeira pessoa) é bom, agora em um jogo de ação com leves elementos de horror só tornam a experiência frustrante (o que se intensifica em dificuldades acima do casual). Em momentos de combate em que tem muitos inimigos atirando de longe e ao mesmo tempo os Wretches (minions menores que por sinal são muito parecidos com os Grunts de Halo) estão indo atrás de você, essas mecânicas de gameplay tragas de Resident Evil só servem pra piorar a experiência de jogo.
Já que eu citei o combate, ele funciona super bem na maior parte do tempo. Na dificuldade Hardcore (que foi como eu zerei) o jogo propõe um desafio bem gostoso. Em contrapartida, o que prejudica mais ainda a gameplay é a burrice artificial dos companions. De verdade, eu pensei muito em dropar desse jogo logo no começo justamente porque em quase todo combate do ato 1 eu morri tentando reviver os personagens de apoio. Sendo que, a “inteligência” artificial do Dom, em específico, ao longo dos 5 atos só foi piorando, ao ponto de que em muitos momentos no meio do tiroteio, ele ou se jogava no meio dos tiros ou simplesmente saia do cover e desligava, e se mantinha exposto até o último inimigo. Na luta final ele foi um gigantesco estorvo, até o momento em que o Boss resolveu simplesmente bugar em cima do corpo caído do Dom e parar de me atacar.
Por mais que eu tenha elogiado parte da direção de arte do jogo, na minha visão, esta envelheceu extremamente mal. O jogo se utiliza muito de uma paleta acinzentada tanto nos personagens (primários e secundários) quanto nos ambientes, com pouquíssimos momentos de um leve contraste com elementos em vermelho, preto, laranja e/ou marrom. Isso faz com que seja comum (mais para o começo do jogo) confundir os bonecos com alguns elementos do cenário e até os da sua equipe com os inimigos. Isso se intensifica com o fato de que a modelagem de todos os bonecos ser muito parecida entre si, mudando apenas suaves detalhes, que durante a gameplay se tornam despercebidos, causando essa confusão relativamente recorrente no início do jogo.
Pra mim, o principal problema desse título vem dos checkpoints. Jogando no casual, imagino eu que não é muito problema, mas em dificuldades mais altas, em que morrer é relativamente comum, ter esses auto saves mal posicionados é um gigantesco incômodo. Foi comum eu morrer no final ou até logo depois de uma luta e ter que fazer o combate todo de novo porque o jogo só gravou meu progresso antes da luta. E isso só piora, já que muitos combates se iniciam com cutscenes ou até diálogos in game em que personagem é forçado a caminhar de forma lenta, ou seja, se seu último checkpoint foi pré tiroteio e você morreu no final ou logo após e o jogo não salvou, além de lutar tudo de novo você vai ter que ver a mesma cena até você prosseguir até o próximo save point. E eu não sei se pareceu claro, mas não tem forma de save manual, fazendo com que todo o seu progresso seja totalmente dependente da boa vontade dos devs.

Ao meu ver, Gears of War é um jogo de muitos altos e baixos, sendo os baixos não decepcionantes mas frustrantes. Claro com uma visão de alguém de 2023 esses defeitos se tornam mais evidentes, mas em comparação com os demais jogos de 2006 e trazendo uma ótica daquele ano, Gears ainda é um bom jogo no geral e vale a pena experimentá-lo mesmo depois do remake de 2015 feito pela The Coalition.
Mas como eu to aqui pra te trazer a minha experiência e não pra te convencer a jogar o jogo, Gears of War ainda é um produto inerente à sua época. A gameplay é divertida, mas beira o confuso, nada intuitiva e em alguns momentos nada fluída. A intenção da direção de arte é realmente muito boa, com elementos geniais tragos de outras franquias da cultura pop, mas em vários momentos exagerada demais em um contexto já exagerado. A história é legalzinha mas nada muito desenvolvida. Eu sinto que, esse jogo foi totalmente construído pra ser experienciado em multiplayer, e por mais que ele permita jogar solo, eu enxergo que muito das frustrações que eu tive com esse título, se resolveriam jogando em dupla (principalmente a parte da IA dos companions). Não só isso, mas muitos dos problemas aqui tragos vêm de que, esse foi um pontapé em algo totalmente novo pra sua época, e que eu não duvido que foi resolvido nas 5 sequências que esse jogo teve até 2023.
Em 5 anos em que tenho o Xbox como minha plataforma principal, por algum motivo eu negligenciei Gears, e jogando essa primeira aventura do Marcus Fenix eu me arrependo de nunca ter dado uma chance antes, pois tal qual o que Half Life foi pra mim a alguns meses atrás, o primeiro jogo pode não ter clicado 100% pra mim ao ponto de o tratar como um grande clássico, mas deu um ótimo empurrão pra eu querer ver o que as sequências destes (Gears e Half Life) trazem de inovação em gameplay e história pra suas respectivas épocas.

My last review covered Resident Evil 5, the game tasked with officially succeeding a landmark title in gaming. But that task took three whole years and a new console generation to bear fruit, a timespan so huge it allowed hundreds of games to deliver their own takes on RE4's incredible groundwork in the meantime. The combined successes of Halo, RE4 and Call of Duty set the stage for blockbuster gaming's future – a future of cinematic, ebb-and-flow, health-regenerating, tension-filled cover shooting action. A future that, the longer we've been in it, the more its become derided. "Hide-and-seek" shooters have effectively dominated the gaming landscape to a boiling point, forcing either complete reinnovation or stagnation in the franchises still using it. It almost seems as if the cover shooters that have stuck around for any long period of time only do so due to putting so little emphasis on it, from Uncharted's big focus on high-octane spectacle and story to Resident Evil's joyride of horror setpieces and ever-changing core gameplay formula. A game focused solely on making the best cover-shooting action possible just doesn't seem sustainable for a brand anymore, with the ones still stubbornly holding on getting labeled as stale and tired. The age of pure cover shooting is, for all intents and purposes, ending.

Which puts the original Gears of War in a very strange spot, doesn't it? Its arguably the franchise that truly kicked the formula's use into high gear, the game cited by Uncharted's developers and more as the direct source for their own gameplay. Its held as one of Xbox's most popular and critically loved franchises, yet as the times have changed, Gears has stuck to its guns – Gears 2, 3, 4, and 5 have kept the foundation laid down by the game that started it all, despite all the games it influenced having now grown tired of it. The reputation of Gears of War now seems to be that of a stagnant time capsule, a franchise not able to move on into the modern day and forever haunted by the smell of Doritos and mountain dew.

This entire tale of moving on with the times breaks my heart, because the reason Gears of War never moved past its initial gameplay foundation, is because its a damn near perfect foundation.

(Yes, its finally time to talk about the game itself!)

The most common issue I've experienced with cover shooters, both inside of Gears and out, is that there's little to no tension to be found when both parties are just sitting in a camp taking potshots at each other. Part of what makes shooting so interesting in games is how you manage your own position in relation to the enemy alongside having to aim, but when it essentially just becomes a waiting game – either for the enemy or your own health – there's no engagement left anymore beyond pointing and clicking. The issue here is simple: If both camps can get away with just sitting safely in their bunker until they win, there's no reason for either of them to want to move out. The brilliant thing about Gears of War is that, in contrast, it feels like EVERY design choice is made with the idea of making you want to further approach the enemy. The series' most iconic weapon, the chainsaw-riding Lancer, is the perfect demonstration of this. Despite being the go-to long range Assault Rifle of the game, it takes an entire magazine of bullets to down a single average enemy Locust, who usually come in hordes of a dozen and can take cover just like you. Yet get close to one, and you can use that beautiful chainsaw to destroy any single foe with a delicious glorykill animation. No ammo cost, no cooldown, no conditions. The only drawback to using it is that it requires you move right up to the danger yourself.

What Gears is saying through this design is that you can usually survive by staying safe, unloading Lancer bullets into enemies one by one... BUT you'll be showered in rewards and dopamine the more you dare to assert your dominance over enemies. The game commends long-range play, but celebrates close-range play. The controls also feed into this: You're not an acrobatic speed demon, but can still sprint, dodge roll, and most importantly enter cover from several feet away by sliding into them. It creates a genuinely brilliant balance, where the ability to go fast is limited only by your skill and ability to assess your situation, yet the movement controls themselves are so simple – they only use one button – that anyone can start experimenting with them whenever. And what gives the game's best firefights so much excitement is that you're not the only one affected by all the design above. Enemies, too, come with shotguns, Lancers, and a carnal wish to come as close to you as possible. That's one of the main reasons why I think the auto-regenerating health actually works for Gears, as the intensity of battle means that you often need to actually earn those calm moments of regenerating health back, find those pockets of time when nothing is approaching you. If you sit in cover for too long, the enemies will start advancing, and before you know it you'll be swarmed.

This entire rock-solid foundation is what Gears as a franchise has been using for 16 years now, and I hope you understand just what makes it so appealing compared to the cover shooters that later wound up stagnating the formula. But then...what is it about the first game in particular that makes me think of just it so fondly?

I mentioned it briefly earlier, but the game has a very uniquely spooky vibe, which is where the RE4 influence is felt the most. The actual story of the game really doesn't matter so much as the world it sets up, one completely void of hope, where everyday people hate both the Locust monsters and the tyrannical government that allowed them to emerge to begin with. It's commendable that despite having "of War" in the title, Gears doesn't really celebrate the act of warfare, yet also doesn't try to make you feel guilty for participating in it. Marcus Fenix, our protagonist, never feels sociopathically trigger-happy or like a patriotic soldier, because he's essentially forced into his position, and lets his bitter distain for the government be known at every turn. He's a bitter grump with a dark sense of humor, which contrasts really well with the rest of the crew keeping their chin up more often. He wants humanity saved as much as anyone else, but won't shy away from pointing just how much everyone has fucked up to get to this point.

I think the overall pacing is also a huge part of why this first game really lands with me. Despite its limited pool of weapons and enemies (8 and 6 respectively), the game is still entirely about its shooting gameplay. Instead of breaking the pace up with vehicles or platforming, almost every firefight in the game has something about it making it stand out. For instance, Act 3 takes place in the Locusts' home caves, leading to stuff like shooting enemies in a moving minecart, or the spooky abandoned mining base above ground with ambushes at every corner. Act 2 is easily my favorite – vampyric bats called Kryll devour anyone who stays in the dark for too long, including in the middle of firefights. This means that as you're fending off Locust, you also need to find ways to literally light a path ahead, usually by shooting explosive tanks tucked away in nooks around the arena. Its extremely impressive how much confidence the game has in its core gameplay, that it never feels the need to break it up with dumb minigames or side activities completely detached from it. All the variety in the game still exists WITHIN the excellent gunplay, and there aren't many games I can think of that succeed at that. The closest the game gets to breaking the pace up with something else is when characters talk between segments, which'll sometimes force you to slow down to focus on the dialogue. Given the dialogue is written so well, and that conversations tend to be as snappy as possible with little fluff, these really aren't as intrusive as you might think. If anything, they're the perfect tiny breather you need inbetween firefights.

The original Gears of War is at its absolute best when it feels like a big strategy game played in real time over-the-shoulder. When maps are laid out in a way that lets you approach them in a zillion different ways, when you need to manage enemies far off and close by, big and small, your own health and the health of your teammates...and when you finally figure out how to make all the pieces fit using whatever tools you happen to have available to you, without dying once, it feels bloody fantastic. Be it the Imulsion Rig in Act 3, the stairs to the Fenix estate in Act 4 and then later the horde-esque defending of that same house later in the story, or the many encounters with the terrifying one-shot Boomers, the game keeps finding ways to engross you in absolutely mastering its combat. The problem then, as discussed before, is that its sequels, the genre and rarely sometimes even the game itself, seems to want nothing to do with that.

Yes, a big selling point for the series and genre as a whole ever since this game released was the ability to play through the entire campaign in co-op. Having the exact same game available to you in cooperative play doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but it can’t be overstated just how much that affects the fundamental design of the games in this series. If the single-player story is about tactically managing yourself and your relation to a slew of different enemy positions, weighing the pros and cons of which weapons to bring and which enemies to approach, then co-op slices all of those decisions in clean half. Two persons means two full sets of weapons for every situation, two meatbags drawing enemy attention in different directions, and – crucially – twice as much firepower against those enemies. After having played the entire series in singleplayer, getting to play this original game in co-op really opened my eyes to just how much duller the experience becomes once the tension of dying is almost entirely sapped away. That, of course, isn’t exactly helped by the literal revival mechanic that co-op exclusively features, basically ensuring that as long as the two players communicate, progress would eventually be guaranteed. It was surreal, seeing each of those legendary fights I described just a moment ago, some of which took me up to half an hour of genuine strategic planning and execution, breezed through in the second attempt.

I don’t want to make it seem like I think co-op ruins the game or was poorly thought through, because its evident it was something the developers were aiming to design the game around from early on, shown evidently in how the level design has tons of clever cooperative moments scattered throughout. But it changes the entire dynamics of play from an intense, masterfully designed tactical shooter, to something you play with your pal over a bowl of popcorn and casual conversation. As the Gears of War entries went on, and more shooters were released to chase its coattails, this second playstyle seemed to become the desired ideal, reaching a boiling point with Gears of War 3’s entire campaign being woefully designed around four person cooperative play. And while Gears of War 3 is a fantastic, well-produced, entertaining and beautifully directed end to the trilogy, it’s also a game with a whole new enemy type specifically designed to one-shot players with little warning, so that any of their three co-op buddies can revive them. This design meant that even in the single-player, now the AI has to act as a substitute for co-op players and work to revive you too. What once was an option select between two playstyles, to play either seriously on your own or casually with your friends, has effectively become just one.

That tactical brillance of the original Gears of War has technically not gone away, as even the developers seemed to have realized how the third game was a step too far and reverted back to the more traditional design of the first two games come Gears of War 4. And thankfully, for those few nerds out there like me, every game in the series includes an option to reload each individual firefight from the start, allowing me to at least simulate a challenge like the original game had. It’s because of this that I’m able to appreciate the design brilliance still left in games like Gears of War 4 and Gears 5, enhanced greatly by just how polished and robust the combat has become over the years. But just that I have to fight to recapture that feeling at all – that the industry has simultaneously oversaturated yet completely distanced itself from the kind of shooting gameplay that Gears of War established so perfectly…while I do find it kind of funny, I also just find it kind of sad.

[Play Time: 4 Playthroughs (Original/Co-op/Ultimate/Ultimate Co-op)]
[Difficulty: Hardcore]
[Key word: Overshadowed]

I’m gonna offer a bit of a different opinion on the franchise’s 2006 start. Having played this game many years after its initial release, I can plainly see some cracks in the facade that I think make it age worse than it could have. First let me preface, for the time this game was a milestone of gaming no doubt. The graphics and advanced cover system were the most fleshed out than previously seen in older games. My problems with the game are more apparent after the passage of time, when innovative graphics can no longer make up for other issues. Gears of War, as it exists today, is a fundamentally derivative game that offers some mild amusement from its gratuitous blood and bullets gameplay.

To begin, the story blows chunks. You don’t have to be an elitist to not care for the overplayed macho, grittycore aesthetic that permeates this game like year old milk. If anything that alone is perhaps the biggest marker of age for this game. It’s every apocalyptic military story ever told, just done infinitely more boring with characters I cringed at everytime they talked. There does exist a sweet spot between embarrassingly bad and charmingly stupid, it’s just this game gets nowhere near it. And it’s not to say I have a vendetta against the era of stupid action shooters of the mid and late 2000s. I used to terminally binge the Army of Two games on the PS3, and believe me when I say those were not getting any writing achievements.

I couldn’t find an ounce of humor, intrigue, or heart anywhere near Fenix and pals. All that matters is that you’re generic badass number 49028, you have a voice to rival pounded gravel, and are tasked with saving the world from aliens by planting bombs in a bunch of random places. All the while you have to babysit some goofball squad members freshly picked up from your local MW2 Lan party. Actually that makes it sound more fun than it is. It’s more like a squad of robots who were made to act like what they thought frat boys acted like. And babysit is the right word, because no matter the difficulty your squad mates insist on sharing a single brain, and will go down quicker than you can roll your eyes in annoyance. It’s like I’m back playing COD zombies with my younger cousin with how often I have to go pick them up.

Now despite my exaggerated frustration this is not an indictment on the game as a whole. I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of stinker stories. If I tune out the dialogue it’s really not so offensively bad. It’s digestible and provides the barebones pretext for why you’re blowing up everything in sight. What really matters here is the gameplay, everything else is more cosmetic than anything in a game like this. And I’m….. lukewarm on the combat.

The cover system is a lot like the general movement of the game. It has a very heavy weight to it. And it is most certainly not up for debate as to whether you’ll use it a lot. If you don’t liberally use cover you will go down startlingly quick, even on the easiest difficulty. Add on that every enemy is a bullet sponge and you’ll be spending most of your time playing whack-a-mole with the enemies as you go from cover to cover. As bad as that sounds It only really becomes a slog when you die and have to do a section all over again. Still, for such an emphasized mechanic I wish they touched up the cover system a little more before calling it a day. For one thing a way to go around a corner in cover without leaving it would have been welcome.

Oddly enough, the very idea of such a heavily emphasized cover system goes a bit against the design philosophy of the rest of the game if you ask me. We’re these roided badasses and we have to constantly hide and take potshots? Screw that, give me some dynamite and a minigun and let me go ham. But hey, It’s a novel gimmick and the deepest use of it I’ve seen so far, so I won’t complain too much. Heck, I even started to kind of dig the cover system when I wasn’t being shot at from thirty different directions. It just takes a bit to get used to the heft of your character. The bosses are okay, but I hated the vehicle sections. Unneeded and unpolished vehicle sections are something that ought to be left in the past. I mean who creates a vehicle that can only power driving OR the light turret? Bad engineers, that's who.

To recap, Gears of War’s story, world, and characters were enormously lame while its gameplay and cover system grew on me ever so slightly. Sure, I still wish the cover wasn’t so pivotal or momentum breaking at times, but I can be more forgiving for the first entry in the franchise. For 2006 this is a great looking action title that no doubt influenced a great deal of games in its wake. While I find it hard to believe anyone can utterly adore this game and not be drowning in nostalgia, I’ll give respect where it’s earned.