Gears of War

[retrojc]

I'm writing my thesis, so I could do with a break....

I've just given up on this after about 4 hours of play. I cannot believe that something as bad as this either got through the QA process or (perhaps worse) managed to garner significant critical acclaim.

What's wrong with it? Let me make a list:

1. Your squadmates AI is knackered. They run around getting themselves injured and (worst of all) getting in the way of your shots. They also offer contradictory instructions like telling you to flank an opponent even when there's no cover where they're telling you to go so it's basically a suicide mission.

Never had this issue myself, but I don't listen to AI

2. The colour pallete means that from a distance the enemies are indistinguishable from your team-mates, a problem I can't believe wasn't picked up in playtesting. They also take a ridiculous number of hits before they go down, meaning fighting a group larger than two seems to take an age. One of the first enemy types you come across is manning a machine gun turret which means they can kill you in a couple of seconds if you pop your head over the parapet, while themselves remaining behind a barrier so you can't hit them. Fighting these guys ends up as a lengthy game of peek-a-boo that's no fun at all.

No. Gears is meant to be a tough game, none of this few bullet down crap. The game is also very easy, I found it easy anyway. Maybe you should have played Dark Void first then played Gears - you'd love Gears. The colours, I again didn't have this issue, and I like that enemies blend in in a distance; it heightened my experience and how much i paid attention.

3. The checkpoints are ridiculous. Sometimes it checkpoints every few seconds, sometimes you have to get through several really hard bits before it saves. It took me ages to get through one battle only to be killed by a lone grub who wandered up behind me (there's no radar so I couldn't see him coming) and being sent right back to the start.

Should there be a radar?
checkpoints are used in games to help counter difficult areas, they might be out here and there, but they can also be logic based; for example sometimes a checkpoint can only be triggered if there are no enemies looking at you etc or within a area of you, so if you're running through an area, this could be why.

4. The controls are terrible. Having the same button for 'run' and 'snap to cover' is ludicrous - every time you're running, your character is automatically trying to snap to every wall you get within six feet of because he thinks that's what you want him to do. This often results in death because there's always something shooting at you.

I liked the controls, I admit there are more buttons to know that your standard platformer, but I don't have a problem with them. I never have had an issue with snapping to walls when running though..

5. The storyline is boring and the characters are all unlikeable idiots. Also the game is insane
ly repetitive - I was expecting some puzzle sections or something but no, it's just 'cover, shoot, cover shoot'.

Somepeople like to shoot; that what this game is for. Get your friends online, ramp up the difficulty and have a blast. I think the story is okay to be honest, better than most shooters.

I paid 99p for the game and £2 for GoW2 (a game that will likely stay on my shelf unplayed forever, since I have no desire to play it but there's no point trading it either in given its absurdly low value) and I still feel like I was ripped off. So will anyone stand up and defend this wretched piece of crap?

I think for £1 you got a bargain, I can't think of many games like Gears which is as polished that can be picked up for £1. You make a good point though, why did 360 game prices plummet? so few have held their value. That future rarities thread does talk about that. I did get into a debate with hydrox(?) about Nintendo games and value not so long back, but I am picking up first party Nintendo games on wii and ds for sub £5 now, so I don't think Nintendo are immune to this either.

[Negative Creep]

I don't agree that the first Gears is an easy game, especially if playing by yourself. Normal gave a tough but fair challenge whilst Insane could be brutal (especially the fight against RAAM), although the lower difficulties were toned down in later games and Gears 3 on casual pretty much plays itself. I never once had a problem picking out who was on my side since the AI stays close to you (unlike Call of Duty, where I was forever hitting the wrong people or getting shot by someone I thought was on my side) and they are colour coded in multiplayer. I also liked the "destroyed beauty" motive of the game world and found the lore quite interesting, even if Gears 3 raised more questions than it answered. Horde mode was a great addition to Gears 2, which can bewen evidenced by the amount of games that have copied it.

One thing I never really liked though was competitive multiplayer, since everyone adopts the roadie run/roll/shotgun tactic that took most of the fun out.

[crusto]

I liked gears.

[outdated_gamer]

It was the first game I played on the 360. My thoughts? Good-looking tech-demo (first "big" Unreal Engine 3 game) and a breath a fresh air among console shooters (3rd person, emphasis on cover - I wish not every 3rd person shooter that followed would attempt to rip it off though) but I was turned off by the stiff, "tank" controls, the monotonous feel (very brown and grey game with lots of bloom and blur), the un-interesting story, the repetitive fire fights, ect. So I did not bother finishing it and sold it. Never checked out the sequels.

[gman72]

I'm writing my thesis, so I could do with a break....

I've just given up on this after about 4 hours of play. I cannot believe that something as bad as this either got through the QA process or (perhaps worse) managed to garner significant critical acclaim.

What's wrong with it? Let me make a list:

1. Your squadmates AI is knackered. They run around getting themselves injured and (worst of all) getting in the way of your shots. They also offer contradictory instructions like telling you to flank an opponent even when there's no cover where they're telling you to go so it's basically a suicide mission.

Never had this issue myself, but I don't listen to AI

2. The colour pallete means that from a distance the enemies are indistinguishable from your team-mates, a problem I can't believe wasn't picked up in playtesting. They also take a ridiculous number of hits before they go down, meaning fighting a group larger than two seems to take an age. One of the first enemy types you come across is manning a machine gun turret which means they can kill you in a couple of seconds if you pop your head over the parapet, while themselves remaining behind a barrier so you can't hit them. Fighting these guys ends up as a lengthy game of peek-a-boo that's no fun at all.

No. Gears is meant to be a tough game, none of this few bullet down crap. The game is also very easy, I found it easy anyway. Maybe you should have played Dark Void first then played Gears - you'd love Gears. The colours, I again didn't have this issue, and I like that enemies blend in in a distance; it heightened my experience and how much i paid attention.

3. The checkpoints are ridiculous. Sometimes it checkpoints every few seconds, sometimes you have to get through several really hard bits before it saves. It took me ages to get through one battle only to be killed by a lone grub who wandered up behind me (there's no radar so I couldn't see him coming) and being sent right back to the start.

Should there be a radar?
checkpoints are used in games to help counter difficult areas, they might be out here and there, but they can also be logic based; for example sometimes a checkpoint can only be triggered if there are no enemies looking at you etc or within a area of you, so if you're running through an area, this could be why.

4. The controls are terrible. Having the same button for 'run' and 'snap to cover' is ludicrous - every time you're running, your character is automatically trying to snap to every wall you get within six feet of because he thinks that's what you want him to do. This often results in death because there's always something shooting at you.

I liked the controls, I admit there are more buttons to know that your standard platformer, but I don't have a problem with them. I never have had an issue with snapping to walls when running though..

5. The storyline is boring and the characters are all unlikeable idiots. Also the game is insane
ly repetitive - I was expecting some puzzle sections or something but no, it's just 'cover, shoot, cover shoot'.

Somepeople like to shoot; that what this game is for. Get your friends online, ramp up the difficulty and have a blast. I think the story is okay to be honest, better than most shooters.

I paid 99p for the game and £2 for GoW2 (a game that will likely stay on my shelf unplayed forever, since I have no desire to play it but there's no point trading it either in given its absurdly low value) and I still feel like I was ripped off. So will anyone stand up and defend this wretched piece of crap?

I think for £1 you got a bargain, I can't think of many games like Gears which is as polished that can be picked up for £1. You make a good point though, why did 360 game prices plummet? so few have held their value. That future rarities thread does talk about that. I did get into a debate with hydrox(?) about Nintendo games and value not so long back, but I am picking up first party Nintendo games on wii and ds for sub £5 now, so I don't think Nintendo are immune to this either.

Spot on, retrojc.

[theantmeister]

One thing I have noticed in cover shooters now, like, say Tomb Raider, is how aggressively the AI tries to flush you from cover. I can't remember being flushed from cover even once in Gears. Once you find a spot, you are pretty safe. I prefer it that way, really. Getting a grenade tossed at me while I'm trying to reload is not my idea of fun.

[killbot]

Okay, I'm going to give it another go tonight. Maybe turn the difficulty down a notch to see if it helps me learn the play mechanics a bit better with the pressure off a bit.

[crusto]

I would, I really enjoyed it back when it came out. I loved the section with the berserker type enemy, quite tricky.

[felgekarp]

What difficulty have you been playing it on killbot?

All this gears talk makes me want to play some horde again, anyone up for a session at some point?

[killbot]

What difficulty have you been playing it on killbot?

All this gears talk makes me want to play some horde again, anyone up for a session at some point?

Hardcore. Didn't want to drop to casual, but the game does allow you to set the difficulty for each session rather than tying you into the option you start the game with. So I could drop the difficulty for a bit then up it again when I'm more confident.

[rossi46]

Not being an experienced shooter fan, I found the original Gears too hard and gave up. I got the 2nd one and liked it much more. Recently I picked up GoW 3 and am in the middle of it right now. I love it.

But surely if you find even half an hour of enjoyable time in these two games, then, for £2.99, it's not that bad a deal. Imagine if you'd bought them both for full price.

[killbot]

Not being an experienced shooter fan, I found the original Gears too hard and gave up. I got the 2nd one and liked it much more. Recently I picked up GoW 3 and am in the middle of it right now. I love it.

But surely if you find even half an hour of enjoyable time in these two games, then, for £2.99, it's not that bad a deal. Imagine if you'd bought them both for full price.

In fairness I may have been a bit hard on it - when I wrote the original post I was tearing my hair out after an hour of getting nowhere with it. I do think it's a very overrated game but in hindsight not as bad as I indicated above. I think it mainly stems from disappintment as I was really looking forward to finally playing the game after years of being curious about it (I didn't have an Xbox until recently and the PC version is really hard to find).

[felgekarp]

What difficulty have you been playing it on killbot?

All this gears talk makes me want to play some horde again, anyone up for a session at some point?

Hardcore. Didn't want to drop to casual, but the game does allow you to set the difficulty for each session rather than tying you into the option you start the game with. So I could drop the difficulty for a bit then up it again when I'm more confident.

I think I played through the first one on casual, I did try the second one on insane but it was no fun at all, so yeah drop kt down a notch and hopefully you'll get a bit of fun out of this.

[killbot]

I'm finding it better on casual, definitely. I don't know if the game is just really tough but 'easy' on this feels like 'normal' on most games. I'll probably stick with this difficulty for a bit and then try going up a notch again later to see if I've honed my skills any more.

I do wonder whether after the Wii being my main console for several years part of the problem is going back to a 'normal' joypad (though I did recently play through CoD: Ghosts using the Wii U Pro Controller which is pretty similar to an Xbox pad, and I have very occasionally used a wired 360 pad on my PC, so I'm not completely rusty).

[felgekarp]

If your having fun/enjoying it then just stick with it on easy, I play the majority of my games on easier settings purely because I want to have fun playing them not spend hour after hour being frustrated, that's what I go to work for!

I agree with you about the pad as well, although the 360 one is my pad of choice, I've got myself a 360 style one for the PS3 as well.

Oh and definitely give gears 2 a try as well.