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Thoughts On Gears of War for PC (Part 1)

While this is the first article here about Gears of War, I already rambled a bit about the game on Part 3 of my article on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I suggest checking it out first.

With that out of the way, I’ll start off by saying yes, the game did change things up a bit. It’s kept the pace up but it’s provided a lot of different gameplay types to keep things interesting. It’s also a really difficult game. I play most games on the highest difficulty available and can beat them without dying too often. “Hard” isn’t really that hard on most games. Not so in Gears of War.

The only other game in recent memory that really kicked my ass was Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. That game was punishing. FarCry was also a tough game. Gears of War feels the same way. I’m constantly dying. All three of these games have one common thread too. No quicksave feature. FarCry, Lost Planet and Gears of War all rely on a checkpoint system. I hate checkpoint systems and I’ll tell you why using a situation from Gears of War:

In Act 3, the Darkest Before Dawn chapter – there’s a spot where you and Dumb (Dom) split up to take on two paths inside of a Kryll cave. No problem with that. You take the right path and Dumb takes the left path. Dumb runs to his death in about 10 seconds and waits for you to clean out all of the exploding Wretches and Locust Drones. You kill the first wave and move on. No checkpoint. You take on a second wave of Drones and Wretches. This time Wretches seem to appear behind you, requiring you to leap around a lot to avoid dying from their explosive death. You prevail and move on, only to encounter a third wave of Drones and Wretches dropping from the ceiling. The drones are rushing towards you with shotguns and the wretches keep exploding at your feet. You kill most of them, but one of the last few Wretches explodes too close to you and you die.

Is it truly imperative that I start ALL THE WAY back to before the point where Dumb and I took separate routes? Is that really necessary?

Another good example is in Act 2, the Lethal Dusk chapter where hungry Kryll will pick you apart the second you step into an unlit area. You might spend 5 to 10 minutes killing all kinds of drone soldiers and Wretches only to accidentally step into a shadow while leaving the area, to be killed, losing all of that progress.

If you’re going to use a checkpoint system, it needs to happen immediately after every battle. In Gears of War, when you kill every enemy on the screen, it plays this dramatic gong-like sound that lets you know the battle is over. THAT’s where it needs to save your progress. Being forced to replay a difficult battle that took several tries to beat, because something stupid happened between there and the next checkpoint is not fun.

I demand quicksave to be in all games. I don’t care if some people abuse it, saving after every shot, absolving any fear of death in the game. Don’t ruin the game for me.

That aside, ACT 1 was pretty good. The fight that took place inside of an empty water fountain was the most difficult…until I learned where all of the Emergence Holes that the Locust were coming through were. Once I had that info I just tossed grenades over there and destroyed the holes the moment they appeared, changing that battle from 10 minutes of insanity to 30 seconds of, “Oh…”.

The voice acting and sound design is very good. All of the characters voices sound appropriate and the dialogue is often laced with jokes that are actually funny. The various non-enemy characters you meet out in the world are also very believable and developed – you can figure out a lot about the secondary characters almost the second they start talking.

ACT 2 was the most fun and the most frustrating, simultaneously. I’ve since turned off double-tapping, as it’s caused me to unintentionally leap to my death far too many times. It’ll register me inching forward or to the side as me wanting to leap into the shadows to be eaten by Kryll. Instant-death aside, the Floor Made Of Lava style gameplay was exciting. Jumping from lit area to lit area, trying not to touch the shadows while fighting off enemies is something I don’t recall doing in any other recent game. I also think Dumb has a Kryll fetish, as it was difficult to stop him from repeatedly dying in the shadows.

The look of Gears of War is great. What I can see of it, at least, as the game is often very dark and also very hectic – there’s not a lot of time to look around. But, what I do see in between battles is very nice. This is definitely a great looking game. The frame rate consistent and smooth too. I’m running it on maximum settings, DX10 mode at 1920×1200 resolution and the FPS is solid all the time.

In ACT 3, the chapter Coalition Cargo needs to be made into a ride at the Universal Studios theme park. Seriously. It’s essentially a Pirates of the Caribbean type ride, with guns. Each cart could sit 6 people. Four carts going down separate tracks with various points of convergence. Everyone gets a laser light gun and you get to blast all kinds of creatures as you fly through this decrepit industrial factory. It would be awesome.

Finally, the music in the game is top notch if not a bit too bombastic and overly dramatic. I feel the same way about the orchestrated score in Super Mario Galaxy too. I mean, I’m totally into orchestral music – I make it myself – but I think these games need a more electronic music skew in them that sounds as futuristic as their settings are. There is some of that, but I don’t feel it’s enough. The music is by Kevin Riepl, who I last remember doing music for, Quake: The movie, an online project released by Tritin films. I honestly haven’t heard anything from him outside of Quake: The Movie and Gears of War. But yeah, the music is definitely good, if not always fitting.

I’ll let you know how Acts 4 and 5 turn out once I’ve played them. I’m looking forward to the extra chapter that’s exclusive to the PC version of the game in Act 5 – I want to fight that Brumak!