Released on 17/11/2006

• Gears of War Review

  Cocked, locked and ready to rock...

  Anticipation is a fickle mistress. How many times have you spent weeks, months and even years eagerly and impatiently waiting for the second coming of the electronic entertainment messiah only to have all your hopes dashed come release day? Too many, because the higher the preconceptual pedestal, the further the fall.

  I’ve had to force this thought into my mind time and time again recently, as the pre-release hype for Gears reached fever pitch. Forums, blogs, gaming news sites and even mainstream news outfits were getting caught up, whipping up a storm of expectation that surely nothing could ever match up to. After all, nothing can ever be perfect.

  Bear that in mind, please.

  Gears of War is not perfect. There, that’s my attempt at expectation management. If you enter into this expecting perfection, you will be disappointed, and your disappointment will only be amplified by that expectation.

  waist deep in chunks of Locust, trying desperately to find the grub hole and a grenade to plug it

  What Gears of War is however, is one of the best shooters I’ve played in recent years. It may not do anything particularly new (one of the most prominent criticisms levelled at it) but it does what it does so incredibly well that you won’t mind. You will have played games that have elements of Gears years ago and taken individually, you’ll probably be able to find examples of each that are executed as well as or better elsewhere, but taken as a whole, Gears surpasses pretty much everything that has come before.

  The cover mechanic, for example, is something that is becoming more and more popular in action games now, most notably in the latest iterations of the Tom Clancy series’, and truth be told the system of pulling the left trigger in Rainbow Six: Vegas is better than that on show here.

  But that doesn’t matter. When you’re waist deep in chunks of Locust, trying desperately to find the grub hole and a grenade to plug it, utilising cover is simple, intuitive and effective enough for it to quickly become a reflex action.

  Absolutely beautiful

  That reflex would be useless however, without the level design to back it up, which incidentally, isn’t a problem. In fact, the design and aesthetic of the environment is practically impeccable. The areas that you fight through, aside from being absolutely beautiful, feel so natural that you don’t think about it while you’re playing. In the middle of a fire fight, you won’t have to actively hunt for cover; you’ll instinctively know it’s there.

  While essentially it’s a very linear game, with the player being funnelled towards each encounter with little opportunity for deviation, you’re moving between environments so rich in detail, character and variation that the linearity is certainly not your primary concern, if a concern at all.

  This is in no small part thanks to the power of Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), the beast of a graphics engine that powers everything you’ll see on screen. There’s no denying that graphically Gears is truly stunning. I’ve played a lot of games here in the office, and I’ve had a lot of people walk past and have a quick glance at the screen, but I’ve never had so many people stop, watch for a few minutes and then walk away in awe.

  jaw-droppingly, tongue-lollingly beautiful

  It’s jaw-droppingly, tongue-lollingly beautiful. And not just because of the unprecedented level of detail that is achievable with UE3 and the previously untapped power of the hardware. A large part of it is thanks to the design and style of the architecture, which manages to be alien enough to be fascinating, but familiar enough to give you a real hook into the world. You’re not fighting through shiny, cliché sci-fi facilities or some nameless generic alien landscape; you’re clawing through the ruined streets of a once flourishing, prosperous civilisation that is in a very real way, recognisable. You can feel a connection with the world, and that draws you even further into the action.

  Ah, the action. Only really touched on so far, but really, it’s why you’re here.

  Something else entirely

  I’ve been hunting for other ways of putting this, as it simply does not do it justice, but there’s only really one word to describe what goes on inside the beautifully constructed world of Sera. Intense. But it’s not the kind of everyday, bog-standard intensity that a lesser shooter might try and deal out to you. This is something else entirely. This is the kind that will leave you with a thousand-yard stare. This is emotional. This is desperate. This is fierce. This is tooth and nail. This is Sparta.

  I don’t think I’ve ever sworn with such genuine anger, fear and desperation on hearing the dead mans click that indicates an empty clip (I really did swear too, people looked around disapprovingly and everything.) It really does pay to keep an eye on your ammunition no matter how hectic the firefight. It’ll also pay to practice your reload technique, as a well timed second press of the button will result in an “active reload”, which is much faster and if done at exactly the right moment will give your weapon an additional damage boost. Time it badly however, and it’ll mean a longer reload than if you hadn’t tried to be flash in the first place. And like finding cover, this will quickly become second nature.

  A brilliant, brutal and bloody last resort

  And the chainsaw bayonet! What a brilliant, brutal and bloody last resort that is. You almost have to let out a war cry every time you fire it up and charge headlong into the Locust horde. Actually, screw the “almost”, you have to. It’s your duty.

  But I said it wasn’t perfect.

  Like everything, Gears is not without its problems. While the back story of Sera, and how it came to be the desolate, uninhabitable waste that it is now is well constructed and convincing (it’s well worth reading up on), the actual plot of the game itself is weak, and while it does a reasonable job of leading you through it does fall into the category of sci-fi generica. Hand in hand with this goes the dialogue, which just cannot get any more ridiculously macho; it’s basically testosterone in the written form. It’s hilarious in places, but it really shouldn’t be.

  "Special"

  The AI as well, while generally quite good erring on the side of basic it can sometimes be a bit…”special”. For example, on more than one occasion I’ve seen a Locust Drone walking calmly away from me while I carefully placed the best part of a whole magazine into the back of his head, no retaliation, no sign of intelligence at all.

  These are the kind of minor issues that can quite easily be blown up into huge problems by unrealistic expectation, but it’s important to remember that they are but a couple of very small spanners in the cogs of a machine that otherwise works extremely well. Yes, it’s disappointing that they rear their ugly heads in a game as exceptionally polished as this, but there is so much on offer here that the few flaws that it does have are almost negligible.

  Gears of War. So much more than the sum of its parts.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • Undeniably beautiful.
  • Some of the best fire fights I've ever had in a game.
  • Genuinely intimidating and convincing enemy.

  

  • Story has an air of style over substance.
  • AI, while generally decent, has issues.
  • Little connection with the character and history of Marcus Fenix.

  You can also check out the Gears of War Multiplayer Review!

  Review by: Iain Thomas
  Version Tested: Xbox 360
  Review Published: 17.11.06

  Published: 17/11/2006

• Microsoft to acquire Epic?

  The vice-president of games developer Epic has responded to speculation that his company may be an acquisition target for Microsoft.
  
  Video game magazine GamePro recently suggested that Epic, the company that created Gears of War may be bought by Microsoft for $1 billion (£500 million) this year.
  
  When asked for comment by Develop, Epic VP Mark Rein said: "I have not seen the actual GamePro article but if they're going to make predictions about us selling Epic we would prefer if they started at $2 billion, because we don't want anyone thinking that we're cheap."
  
  Epic, which is also the proprietor of the Unreal Engines that power many successful games, is based in North Carolina. Other games include Jill of the Jungle and Epic Pinball.
  
  In previous interviews, Rein has failed to rule out the possibility of a takeover, so a Microsoft acquisition may yet come to fruition.
  

  Published: 20/02/2008

• Microsoft plays down impact of HD DVD demise

  Although the rival next-generation PlayStation 3 console stands to benefit from the demise of HD DVD, Microsoft has said it is not concerned that sales of the Xbox 360 will suffer much.
  
  Toshiba has conceded defeat in the next-gen DVD format war, which will give a boost to Sony's Blu-ray, and the PS3 (which comes equipped with a Blu-ray player).
  
  However, in a statement Microsoft said: "We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace."
  
  The firm argued that "it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best-selling games in the industry".
  
  Premier titles available to Xbox 360 owners include Halo 3, the latest instalment in the well-known space combat series, and Gears of War.
  

  Published: 20/02/2008

• Gears of War 2 due out this year

  A sequel to the hugely popular Gears of War has been announced.
  
  At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft officially revealed that Gears of War 2 would be available this November, as an Xbox 360 exclusive.
  
  A trailer was shown but it didn't include any shots of gameplay, or reveal how the story would progress.
  
  However, some hints were given as to the game's graphical development earlier in the conference, IGN reports.
  
  Tim Sweeney of Epic Games spoke of improvements to the Unreal Engine 3, which will be used to create Gears of War 2.
  
  He said that "ambient occlusion technology" would be used to improve the creation of shadows, by taking the geometry of objects into account. This results in improvements that are "drastic", IGN stated.
  
  Fans of multiplayer gaming will also be pleased to hear that other improvements in the engine will allow for hundreds of characters to be in the same environment at one time - opening the possibility for massive battles.
  
  The original Gears of War was the fastest-selling game of 2006.
  

  Published: 22/02/2008

• Microsoft: Xbox 360 sells 18 million units

  The Xbox 360 next-generation video game console has sold around 18 million units, according to Microsoft's John Schappert.
  
  Mr Schappert, who delivered the company's keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, told Eurogamer: "I think that we've sold 18 million, the last time I've checked. 18 million hardware units worldwide."
  
  The Xbox 360's success has been driven in part by top-selling titles such as Gears of War, but the console is facing stiff competition from the Nintendo Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3.
  
  Mr Schappert conceded that the Wii, which sold more than 20 million units in just one year, is "a nice little machine". However, he stressed that it was different to the Xbox 360.
  
  "When you pick up an Xbox 360, it is to play games with a standard input device," he said.
  
  "You want to play Halo, you want to play your favourite sports game. I think that - bar none - we've got the best machine to play those games on. We've got higher-rated titles than the competition on that."
  
  Other top-selling Xbox 360 games include Assassin's Creed.
  

  Published: 25/02/2008

• Global video game market set to top 30bn by 2012

  A new report by Global Industry Analysts indicates that the worldwide video games market is set to exceed $61.9 billion (£31.4 billion) by the year 2012.
  
  The market will grow at a rate of more than 7.5 per cent over the 2001 to 2012 period - a figure that clearly illustrates their immense popularity.
  
  As well as this, the console video game sector dominates the market, with a share of 54 per cent this year. This is being driven by popular titles such as Gears of War.
  
  As well as this, video games are likely to move closer and closer to the film and television world.
  
  "As video game graphics improve in resolution and rendering speed, and film and television move into the digital arena, the gap between them gradually closes," said Global Industry Analysts in a statement.
  
  "Actors, storylines, and cinematic norms are making their way into video games, with the result that quite a few of the well-known series, titles, and franchises are often included in both."
  
  Next-generation features, included in consoles such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, are helping to drive sales of video games.
  

  Published: 27/02/2008

• Next-gen Turok proves successful with gamers

  The latest instalment of Turok, the dinosaur-hunting first-person shooter, has proved popular with gamers.
  
  Many had believed that the franchise, initially popular when it was released on the Nintendo 64, had gone the way of the tyrannosaurus rex. Turok Evolution was not particularly well received.
  
  However, Josh Holmes of Propaganda Games told Game Daily that the Xbox 360 version had been a success.
  
  "We are very satisfied with Turok's performance in the month of February," he said.
  
  "We knew that we had delivered a game that would resonate well with shooter fans and our sales goals for the product were set high as a result. The game has so far exceeded those goals and we are thrilled with both the sales of the game and the reaction from fans."
  
  It was created using the Unreal Engine 3 - also used for Gears of War - and features vocal acting from Ron Perlman, Timothy Olyphant and Powers Boothe.
  
  

  Published: 28/03/2008

• Gears of War 1 Story and Characters

  Sera

  Sera is a planet like Earth, similar in climate, geography and size. For the humans on Sera, Imulsion the golden, viscous liquid that runs underground is their primary fuel source, essential to survival.

  But Imulsion isn the only thing beneath the surface. The core of the planet is a porous, open place. Called "the Hollow" by humans, it is home for dark and dangerous creatures and the source of the ensuing nightmare.

  Emergence Day (E-Day)
  Emergence Day marked the end of an era, and the beginning of a new kind of war. In the dark of night, a new enemy the Locust crawled out from underground and launched a full-scale attack. Millions of humans were slaughtered in a matter of hours. Military leaders had to stop the genocide. They made a brutal decision. They ordered their soldiers to scorch the earth.

  The plan worked, but at a terrible price. The attack stopped the enemy and it also killed thousands of innocent civilians. Survivors made a final stand on Jacinto Plateau. The Locust will not stop. They continue to wage war against the humans. They dig tunnels beneath the Plateau, searching for their prey. With every passing day, mankind loses more ground. Their situation is desperate.

  An [Anti]Hero Rises
  Emerging into the chaos, Marcus Fenix is rescued from a deserted military prison by his friend and comrade Dominic Santiago. A disgraced former war hero and the son of a legendary scientist, Marcus dons arms seeking personal redemption as he leads his ragtag fire team into the fray. Once looked upon as the perfect soldier and harbouring the skeletons of his past, he may now be humanity last hope...

  Characters

  Marcus Fenix
  Son of the famed military scientist Adam Fenix, Marcus established a reputation as a brilliant soldier during the Pendulum Wars, earning numerous field promotions and decorations. He was on a fast track to an outstanding military career until the war with the Locust Horde.

  When the Horde breached Jacinto Plateau defences, Marcus defied orders, opting instead to try save his father, who was under siege at East Barricade Academy. He was too late. Marcus was charged with dereliction of duty and was sentenced to 40 years in Jacinto Maximum Security Penitentiary.

  Four years into his sentence, the Horde overtook the penitentiary but Marcus was rescued by his best friend Dominic Santiago, so that he could rejoin the fight against the unstoppable Locust Horde.

  Dominic Santiago
  Dom is a vocal, colourful and yet practical soldier. He loyal to a fault, especially with his friends, and has no patience for those that think of themselves first.

  Dominic has always believed in his country and his leaders, but his faith has been slipping in the face of this endless war. Dom lost his wife in the Emergence Day cataclysm. For him, the fight against the Horde is deeply personal.

  By testifying in Marcus' defence, Dom prevented an execution, but was forced to accept the heavy judgment the military tribunal handed down to his childhood friend. Never forgetting, Dom seized his first opportunity to save Marcuslife, and convinced Lieutenant Minh Young Kim to enlist Marcus into his squad.

  Minh Young Kim
  Lieutenant Kim is a proud, dedicated and ambitious soldier, a by-the-books believer in all things COG. To Kim, the Coalition of Organized Governments is humanity only hope for survival and feels that it is an honour and privilege to serve as a Gear.

  Kim moved quickly through the ranks, but after a run of bad luck he was left leading the misfits of Delta Squad. Feeling undervalued and overlooked, Kim has something to prove.

  Only the strength of Dom faith and the scarcity of experienced soldiers convinced Kim to consider bringing former prisoner Fenix into his squad.

  Augustus Cole
  Cole, aka "The Cole Train", is an adrenaline junkie and former professional thrashball player. He craves action, and prefers to take the most direct path to the Locust Horde in any situation. What he lacks in finesse, he makes up for in raw energy.

  Along with his child-like enthusiasm and charm, Cole is supremely confident in his own abilities to overcome anything, regardless of the odds and he hasn been proven wrong yet.

  Cole and Damon Baird have served together for years, and he treats Baird as he would an older brother with a younger brother license to torment.

  Damon Baird
  Despite being a reluctant and cynical soldier, Baird excels at the military life. Baird is perfectly capable of being a successful officer, but has never been promoted due to his poor attitude, short temper and his unwillingness to take on any responsibility.

  Baird's greatest strength is his intelligence. He not only fights the Locust, but he studies and observes them as well. He the closest the COG have to an expert, and when Baird tells his comrades to be quiet and listen, they know it is in their best interest to do exactly that.

  Baird's only motivation is self preservation. He willing to do whatever it takes to get through the war alive even march along side a troublemaker like Fenix.

  Locust Horde
  Intelligent savages, these pale, thick-skinned humanoid beasts will not stop until they've taken their rightful place on the surface of the planet. They have one goal: eliminate all humans.

  We don know what they are... Most scientists believe theye a mutated version of Sera's native life forms. A minority claim they're aliens. Ask any Gear and they'll tell you the Locust come straight from hell itself.

  

• Bulletstorm challenge modes unveiled

  Bulletstorm challenge modes unveiled

  Gears of War 3 isn't the only game Epic's working on at the moment. The developer is also working with People Can Fly to create Bulletstorm, a blisteringly over-the-top shooter with a sci-fi setting and some truly crazy guns. We've already heard about the Skillshot system, which sees the game rewarding players for inventive mayhem, and now Epic's spilling the beans on the new challenge modes, too.

  According to Eurogamer, the challenge modes run alongside the main campaign. Only two offerings have been revealed so far, but they both sound like classics. Echo sees the developer carving the game's campaign levels up into little sections and tasking you with blasting through them as quickly as possible while earning as many points as possible, while a new Anarchy mode is a Horde-styled game, which has up to four players facing off against wave after wave of oncoming AI. The twist, however, is that you have to despatch your enemies in imaginative ways to bring on the next wave, so that means finishing them off with a group whip attack, or all piling on the gunfire at once for a combo-kill.

  Sounds good? It's not long until release now. Bulletstorm will be hitting the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 22, 2011. Bam.

• Gears of War Kinect takes shape?

  Everyone knows that Epic brilliantly brutal Gears of War series is headed into the land of motion control with a Kinect instalment, and a recent report on Kotaku has suggested some interesting new details.

  
  

  According to the news website, Gears of War Kinect will be an on-rails shooter, with the game taking control of movement in order to let players handle the headshots and chainsawing. Grisly!

  
  

  The website reporting that an early demo of the game used key moments from Gears of War 2 to demonstrate the tech and mechanics, but it not yet certain whether that was just to give a sense of how the game will play. The one thing you can be sure of is that Epic don make bad looking games, so expect something that will blow you away.

  
  

  Gears of War Kinect was rumoured to be unveiled at last year Video Game Awards in December, but it didn make it onstage. According to Eurogamer, Epic filed a trademark for Gears of War: Exile last month, meaning we may now know what the finished game is called.

  
  

  Then there the little matter of Gears of War III, of course. It due out form the Xbox 360 towards the end of this year, and it looks absolutely unmissable.

• Gears of War was supposed to be "more thoughtful"

  With the Gears of War trilogy now behind him, creator Cliff "Cliffy B" Bleszinski has spoken out about the direction the series took. Those bull-necked ultra-macho tough nut soldiers we followed for so long weren't supposed to be quite so brutishly masculine, it seems.

  "If I were to pass Gears off to another studio, and they came back with a pitch of having a double-edged chainsaw, and the characters are more buff, and now you can pull off someone's head and s*** down their neck, and they had a character that makes Cole look tame... I would look at them and say no, you're going in the exact wrong direction," the B-man told Penny Arcade.

  Instead, he always imagined evolving the characters in "more of a Christopher Nolan way". The goal was to emulate Steven Spielberg's World War 2 drama Band of Brothers rather than the steroid-injected cartoon heroics of Predator. "That's one of the things that, in hindsight, if I could go back and change I would," mused B-Diddy.

  But fans responded to the bulked-up heroes and their action movie banter, so the developers gave the fans what they wanted, even though Cliff believes "a little bit of heart got lost" in doing so.

  "It became a negative stereotype in this generation," he said of Gears' violent bombast. "I want to be smarter about that in the future."

• Time magazine picks the 100 best games ever

  Respected American journal, Time, has ventured into digital waters to list what it considers to be the top hundred video games ever made. The result is a suitably eclectic mix, presented in chronological order stretching from the 1970s all the way up to the 2010s.

  All the retro arcade classics you'd expect are in there - Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man and more - while Nintendo's core franchises dominate the 1980s as consoles made their way into US homes. Mario and Zelda are among the only games to appear in more than one guise. The original Super Mario Bros and Mario 64 both make the grade, as does the original Metroid and its 2002 first-person sequel Metroid Prime.

  Resident Evil and Tomb Raider join the list in the 1990s, and are still going strong today. Resident Evil 6 launched recently, while Lara Croft is being relaunched in 2013.

  More recognisable names also pop up as the list draws closer to 2012. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, Portal, Gears of War and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion are all held up as examples of classic modern gaming.

  Just two games from the last few years have been deemed worthy of a place. Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City are the lucky pair. Notable by their absence are current big hitters such as Assassin's Creed, Borderlands and Uncharted.

  Is Time placing too much importance on the past? Would you pick any of these for your top 100?

  Published: 16/11/2012

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