Respect Sakura

So it’s been two weeks with Gears of War. I have a confession to make - I bought into the hype. I watched trailer after trailer, interview after interview, I believed everyone who said it was going to be the greatest anything ever, and silenced my ears to the doubtful, sceptical, and those full of disbelief. I became a True Believer, and devoted myself to the cause.

I should know better. I’m from the early first person shooter era, for christ’s sake. I was playing against people I’d never met before in DOOM and Quake, before anyone ever heard of the phrase “online multiplayer”. I’d been regularly visiting LANs before even we knew there was a three letter acronym for it (in fact, due to our singular game playing habits, we called them “DOOMfests” and “Quakefests”, and started not with RJ45 and switches, but null-modem serial cables and BNC). We’ve believed in the hype, and we’ve been let down so many times, that we’re jaded beyond belief.

Nonetheless, I bought everything that Epic and Microsoft spoonfed me about Gears of War, and even preordered the sucker - something I rarely, if ever, do. It’s been two weeks since I got my hands on the game. Did it deliver? Was everything made of bullshit?

I come here today, with eyes unclouded by rampant fanboyism, to tell you that this game fucking rocks harder than ever dreamed possible and then some. CliffyB and the boys at Epic really did pull it off. The single player and coop experience is just perfect, and the gameplay itself is addictive and fun. Team VS is all kinds of awesome, and is probably set to replace Quake 3 and Natural Selection’s role as my primary team orientated multiplayer game of choice. Considering the age of those two, it’s saying something.

I’ve heard one of the Shadowrun developers mention that their idea of a great game is one that’s easy to learn, difficult to master. Gears is the epitome of this. The controls are dead easy to pick up, but the notion of cover, active reload, and general tactics makes it more than just an arcade style mindless shooter. The gameplay matches the mindblowingly awesome graphics, and makes this not just the game of the year - but the game of this decade so far. There’s just nothing else that comes close which can match it on single player, coop, multiplayer gameplay, and sweet, sweet graphic fidelity. It kicks the ass of PC games on graphics and gameplay, it’s that good.

This is the game you buy an Xbox 360 for, or justify being an early adopter for. It’s the game you buy a widescreen LCD/HDTV for. It’s the game your fancy pants Dolby 5.1 speaker setup has been crying to produce audio for. Granted, the game isn’t perfect - there’s still a small bug or two here or there (voice lobby bug, for example), and there’s a couple of gameplay elements that you may not agree on (Horizontal splitscreen, as opposed to vertical splitscreen for widescreen displays. :wtc: ), but even if these things aren’t patched or looked at, the game is still all manner of awesome and a hell of a lot of fun. That’s really all there is, at the end of the day. I had fun playing this game, and I’m still having fun with it. I’m sure that with multiplayer, I’ll continue to have fun for a long time to come.

Halo 3, Shadowrun, and Lost Planet have a pretty high bar to reach.