Gears Of War for the X360 was one of the console selling titles, personally I loved it! Typically, console ports suck. Moreover, following the footsteps of greatness is never easy so you’ll forgive my trepidation while reviewing the PC version. It’s been two days, and 18 hours… and I have one word for you—awesome! The controls on the X360 were nice (a rarity for third person shooters on any console) and the mouse totally rocks. Now headshots are only limited by weapon recoil and a twitchy arm. The gameplay is as frenetic as the X360 version, and with five new levels GOW has something for you even if you’ve played it on the console.
Marcus Fenix, ex-con and ex-COG (Coalition Of Governments) special forces, and his team are up against the locust horde—a race that have mysteriously emerged from the very bowels of the earth through worm holes.
Your mission is to plant a very large explosive device at the core of the hordes hives, deep, deep underground. Fire fights are unavoidable and why the heck would you want to? Fenix is the classic grunt—all muscle and abuse, and he’s as likely to make worm kebab with his assault rifle as he is likely to make grub salami with his chainsaw. In fact, this weapon (the under-barrel mounted chainsaw) makes for some of the goriest and squishiest moments in the whole game, where you get to melee the locusts if they get too close. The enemy ain’t smart, but they are fast, and fearless, as well as a little on the juicy side…yum-yum.
GOW is all about combat, team tactics, and proper use of strategic points like cover, machine gun nests, even elevated positions. There ain’t no live heroes in this game…The locust horde takes many forms from the grunts, who are man-like, a little taller, to the boomers—slightly larger rocket wielding grunts, to much larger enemies like spawners. Combat is never boring, and you can actually melee an enemy with a spiked grenade…watch ‘em run and go pop…voila, lovely red paintjob.
Rating : 9/10
Developer : Microsoft Game Studios
Publisher : Epic Games
One of the things I really liked was that GOW never at any point feels like a console port, and having played the X360 version, I never once felt this was second best. The graphics are better, and appear naturally sharper and with more detail, due to the higher resolution a PC is capable of. Note that this is no Crysis, and this is the only area where GOW lets down a bit…it just hasn’t got enough eye-candy for us PC freaks. With nice visuals, an extensive multiplayer component where you can partake in battles online and rank yourself, and a deep storyline that we’re told will be concluded later (shhhh!) GOW is one adrenaline load you shouldn’t miss. Indulgence is the best form of worship…so get this and play it now…
| Gaming PC |
| XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Windows Vista Ultimate x64 |