A brutal experience. In that sense it is probably equivalent to the feeling of the Gears themselves as they fight against the endless horde of Locust, but it was an exhausting experience to me playing through this game. Every victorious encounter and pop-up telling me I had reached a checkpoint was met mostly by a big sigh of relief, rather than a victorious fist-pump.
I assume this game must be a blast to play with a friend; Gears of War really seems to dig its team mechanic, but it mostly winds up being frustrating as Dom, Baird, and Gus are not exactly...useful. They'll distract enemies, but offensively they won't really do much good and they'll die quickly, leaving you to have to go revive them. Nobody revives you when you go down though...
That's all coupled with the fact that the Locust are brutally tough. Your bullets heal them, in fact, or that's what it seems like at least, as you unload bullet after bullet into their bodies or heads, after which you'll duck back in cover to reload and recover some health. There's a nice flow to the combat, and as I said, the difficulty of it makes sense in-universe, but it also never felt satisfying to me. The shotgun was about the only weapon that could give that 'oomph' to enemies that I was looking for, but even then really only on one type of enemy.
Gears of War gets criticized for being one of those games that killed colour for a while, and while I totally get it, I also think this game looks really good. I have to imagine it must've been a kind of 'first time Final Fantasy X' moment or something to see this in 2006. Obviously the graphics are dated now, but it's very clear that the quality is still there, and that it was impressive on release.
I'm not sure I could recommend playing Gears of War nowadays if you don't have any nostalgia for it. It could be interesting from a history perspective, as an Xbox 360 exclusive, the cover mechanic that this game seemingly brought to the fore,... but the genre has evolved, and it might be more enjoyable to play any of those games than it would be to go back to this one. But if you love a tough challenge, this could be a really good option.
I assume this game must be a blast to play with a friend; Gears of War really seems to dig its team mechanic, but it mostly winds up being frustrating as Dom, Baird, and Gus are not exactly...useful. They'll distract enemies, but offensively they won't really do much good and they'll die quickly, leaving you to have to go revive them. Nobody revives you when you go down though...
That's all coupled with the fact that the Locust are brutally tough. Your bullets heal them, in fact, or that's what it seems like at least, as you unload bullet after bullet into their bodies or heads, after which you'll duck back in cover to reload and recover some health. There's a nice flow to the combat, and as I said, the difficulty of it makes sense in-universe, but it also never felt satisfying to me. The shotgun was about the only weapon that could give that 'oomph' to enemies that I was looking for, but even then really only on one type of enemy.
Gears of War gets criticized for being one of those games that killed colour for a while, and while I totally get it, I also think this game looks really good. I have to imagine it must've been a kind of 'first time Final Fantasy X' moment or something to see this in 2006. Obviously the graphics are dated now, but it's very clear that the quality is still there, and that it was impressive on release.
I'm not sure I could recommend playing Gears of War nowadays if you don't have any nostalgia for it. It could be interesting from a history perspective, as an Xbox 360 exclusive, the cover mechanic that this game seemingly brought to the fore,... but the genre has evolved, and it might be more enjoyable to play any of those games than it would be to go back to this one. But if you love a tough challenge, this could be a really good option.