Gears Of War

I've got to admit, I never really looked forward to this game. I was more intrested in buying COD3 when it was released but due to all the hype, decided to bankrupt myself by getting this as well. All the reveiws had been amazing and the Americans on my friends list were going mad about it.

Its not often I fall in love with a videogame. It certainly hasn't happened on the 360 up till now. But this just beats everything I've ever played. Its gone straight to the top of my favourite games of all time overtaking classics such as Goldeneye, Legend of Zelda and FFX.

From the moment I turned it on I knew it was going to be good. The first level on games is usually a bit of a chore, trying to teach you everything. Gears of War doesn't. You learn how to play the game without even realising and within minutes, the controls are second nature. The cover system is absolutely fantastic, allowing you to weigh up your options without getting shot. Do you lean out and fire. Do you roll out of cover to gain a better angle? Do you switch cover? Do you just charge out of cover towards the enemy's and try and take them all with the shotgun. Or do you blindfire. Talking of blindfire, I feel it is the first time a game has finally nailed blindfire on the head. For once, its effective without making it too easy to kill everything. I can't think of another game where blindfire works quite so well.

Moving on through the game, you realise just how amazing the graphics are. In game, everything looks so damn realistic, like a war has been going on for more than a decade. The cutscenes are also fantastic, with the lip sync done perfectly so it actually looks like their talking. None of this miming done by several other games where the character speaks but doesn't actually move his mouth.

The storyline is absolutely brilliant as well. Many shooters can't admit to having a good storyline (PDZ i'm looking at you) but GOW keeps you intrested throughout. The interaction between the characters is fantastic and often makes you chuckle as they throw sarcastic and witty comments around like nobody's business. The levels are all amazing as well. Consisting of 5 acts, I can only complain about Act 3, set in a factory/underground caverns. It wasn't a bad act but compared to the rest, it just fell short in my opinion but Act 4 completely redeems it.

The weapons are also absloutely brilliant. The chainsaw on the underneath of the lancer is a masterstroke, the shotgun is unbeleivably powerful from short range, the grenades are fantastic(escpecially when "tagging") and the sniper rifle is also spot on. The reload system for all the guns is also brilliant, adding some skll factor to the game. When reloading, a little bar comes up which you need to stop in a specific area. Getting it right will allow a quick reload whereas failing will cause your gun to jam, gaining the enemy a precious few seconds to move without fire. It works perfectly and may be a future feature that many games in the future use.

Online, GOW is also amazing. Maps such as Gridlock and Mansion are masterpeices with guns scattered in awkward places where breaking out of cover to get them involves an element of risk. Success however can easily swing a game. There are 3 modes, Warzone, Assasination and Execution. Warzone is your standard game mode with everyone with one life. The team that kills all of the other wins. Assassination is a Protect the President style game with each team having a leader they need to protect or they lose the game. Execution is like Warzone except you can only kill enemy's with close range kills. This leads to lots of chainsaw action, curb stomping and grenade tagging. The coop mode over live is also perfectly done, allowing you to invite a mate into your game at any time you need help doing a section, without any pauses or reloading of the game.

Overall, this isn't just the best game on the 360, its the best game on any platform currently. If you've been waiting for a killer game as a reason to buy a 360, this is it. If you've been waiting for a PS3, don't. Resistance:Fall of Man and COD3 may be good games, but compared to this, they're nothing. If Halo 3 is going to take the title of best game on the 360, its going to have one hell of a job beating this.

This is the first item I've ever bought from amazon that inspired me to write a review, that in itself should speak volumes considering the thousands of pounds I've spent on amazon over the past 5 years.

Gears of War is the 6th Xbox 360 game I've purchased, bought Just Cause, Ghost Recon AW, Burnout Revenge, Oblivion, Chromehounds previously. Those 5 games were ok, but left me with this vaguely dissatisfying feeling at having shelled out so much money on the console and the games, and there was always this nagging voice at the back of my head berating me for wasting my money on this console.

Well that voice just got stabbed in the face and torn apart by a Locust grunt.

Gears of War is simply amazing. Every second I play it I am in awe, in terror, on the edge of my seat. Most games I play I take the gung ho approach and just charge in all guns blazing. Not Gears of War. I find myself terrified of open spaces, of dark areas, of anything that looks peaceful and safe. I know that as soon as I'm feeling secure, the Locust will attack and I'll find myself in the middle of a terrifying hail of gunfire, inhuman screams, yells of victory, warnings of enemies flanking me, and that's just from my teammates! Never in my life have I played a game that made me feel so completely immersed in its world. From the jaw dropping visuals to the excellant sound and the fantastic battle music that builds slowly as more and more enemies come charging at you, covering each other, throwing grenades, keeping your heads down while their comrades try and flank you.

Some of the game innovations are wonderful. Dancing from cover to cover is effortless and highly intuitive. Quickly ducking around the corner and capping a grunt with your sniper rifle then ducking back as a hail of gunfire splatters all around where your head was a half second ago... talk about adrenaline pumping. And the reload system, I don't know how they thought of it! Most games you run out of ammo, you reload, and that's it. In GoW you can just let the gun reload normally sure, but that takes time. Instead time it right and pull off a quick reload, or time it perfectly and get a damage boost reload. They took such a simple thing as reloading your gun and turned it into another adrenaline pumping task that needs to be mastered or you risk jamming your gun for several seconds. Simply brilliant.

Beautifully, wonderfully, horridly fantastic. One of the best games I've ever played on any console or on PC. I'm confident saying there wont be anything out to beat this for a long long time, and since I haven't even tried multiplayer or seen it in HD yet, that's a heck of a claim!

I am now happy that paying so much money on my xbox 360 was indeed not a waste. To have never played this game (at night, in the dark, with the volume pumped WAY up) would be a crime against the very spirit of gaming.

I've completed this twice now with both a friend in split screen and online using a headset and the fun just doesn't stop, jumping into cover and giving covering fire as your ally moves forward, or holding out in a room using blind fire to keep the enemy from rushing you, the action is just of the highest quality you could ever expect from a computer game, it feels as if your in some kind of epic movie. the main story is pretty long, clocking in at around 12ish hours and it flys by. Even when you have completed it a few times it still brings you back for more, even as I type this at work, all I can think about is getting home and spending another 4 odd hours helping somone with thier storymode over xboxlive. If you have not already got this, you seriously owe it to yourself to buy it NOW, if you don't have an xbox360 then you need to break the biggy bank as this will not be released on any other format.