Thursday May 11, 2006 E3 Report: Grindin' Gears (of War)
I’ve been a bit skeptical recently about the Xbox 360 and its future, given that there just aren’t enough good games being pumped out for it to keep it at its peak. However, I think that may change awfully soon. Epic Game’s Gears of War has been the looming game that many people are interested in but it is still quite a ways from release. I took the initiative to head to the behind-closed-doors press showing of Gears of War and I am thoroughly amazed and excited for its future.
We were given a demo showing that pit myself and 7 other journalists from around the world up against each other in a 4v4 head-on deathmatch. I must say that not only was the game considerably fun, but almost every aspect, from its graphics, sounds, gameplay, and interface were polished to perfection.
It was a small and simple map, aptly named mp_traffic, with a bunch of blown out cars scattered along an intersection. Two teams, the Cog and the Lotus fought against each other with a set of 4 weapons: pistol, shotgun, machine gun, and a smoke grenade. Although the smoke grenade isn’t the fourth weapon, the gnarly chainsaw mounted to the bottom of your machine gun certainly is. There are a very wide range of possibilities of movement that are considerably unique. Run forward and press A and you do a specialized crouched-run; find a car and press A and you jump next to it for cover; rolling is standard to help dodge the barrage of bullets coming your way; it is even possible to combine using the cover of a car and rolling from one car to the next to progress through the map. Normally there aren’t crosshairs visible, but pull the left trigger and you get a futuristic set to help you eliminate the opposing forces. And yes, when you are close enough, hold B and your chain fires up, sending a quick rumble in the controller, and saws the foes body completely in half.
I wasn’t sure what to expect of the grungy futuristic third-person shooter before checking it out, but that has certainly changed after getting some hands on time with it. It is incredibly smooth even with very detailed graphics. The fighting is quite intuitive and best of all fun. Although there isn’t an endless weapon choice, the four you start with and few others found on the ground certainly are strong enough to let you fight in your personal favorite manner. Microsoft (and Epic’s) choice to show off this multiplayer feature at E3 is exactly what they need to really establish Gears of War as possibly a Halo-replacer, or as I’m sure many prefer, a hold over until Halo 3 finally gets released. To be that entertaining of a game that quickly in a room of journalists – that is a sure fire win for Gears of War and the Xbox 360.
- Written by Alex Billington
