It’s not something you can easily touch up, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. All of this was dismissable when the first game out, but in the wake of its sequels, which attempted to give the Cog/Locust conflict a little more gravity (with mixed results), it’s all the more reason to shake your head at some of the tropey, simplistic adventure game comedy-of-errors situations that force you to shoot more Locust. Its story moves too fast, jumps from one locale to another in order to give you a new environment to shoot in, hints at too much and offers too little in order to truly captivate in any way. The first Gears of War is one of the most brazen examples of how the stories in games are often context for gameplay.
Though the ducking, shooting, and reloading in the original Gears still feel great, the story, the background lore, and the “destroyed beauty” theme the series trumpeted throughout its existence all feel wasted in a way, and it’s never more apparent than in the plot of the first game. Image Credit: Microsoft What you won’t like Ultimate Edition developer The Coalition knew just what to touch up and what to leave alone, and while it isn’t the impressive showcase for the Xbox hardware it used to be, the remake manages to look just as great as it did then, even if not everything’s in the right place. Multiplayer runs at a solid 60 frames per second, too, which is actually a little jarring at first as you hop between campaign (which still runs at an uneven 30) and multiplayer, but I eventually got used to it. There’s no changing back the original game’s graphics and that might upset some purists, but just about everything touched on visually has changed for the better. The single-player cutscenes changed the most, and you’ll notice it, too - characters’ faces have been reanimated (Dom, the perennial co-op partner, has a different facial structure now) some are wearing different clothes, and several scenes have been re-shot. Every level, both in single and multiplayer, looks like you remembered it, though going back and looking at comparison shots shows you just how much has changed. It might be a little strange to give a game that was touted as an HD showcase for the Xbox 360 a facelift, but Gears of War needed it. It goes to show how timeless they can be when combined with some excellent funneling and intersecting hallways. These original maps are also among the best in the series, with the game types like Warzone, Blitz (a faster version of king of the hill) and Team Deathmatch are some of the most classic multiplayer modes you can have. But even someone without good aim can hold their own with weapons like the Gnasher, the Lancer’s chainsaw bayonet, and sticky grenades allowing players to use good awareness and positioning to outsmart those with faster trigger fingers. You have your traditional weapon types like machine guns and sniper rifles. And the adrenaline rush of being the last person on your team in a Warzone (the survival, round-based game mode) match and mounting a combat can still give you shivers.Īnd though the original Gears of War doesn’t have the array of weapons fans have gotten used to, it’s far from boring. These maps flow from claustrophobic to expansive seamlessly, with choke points and ways to circumvent them aplenty.
The press and media multiplayer sessions I played solidified a strong impression: multiplayer Gears’ mix of twitch reflex and methodical sneaking can still eat your nights away. And with Gears of War 4 still a year and change away, giving the original game’s fine-tuned gunplay a chance to shine on new consoles is a great idea.
These shootouts are as tense and fun as ever (especially on higher difficulties), weapons like the Torque Bow and Hammer of Dawn as novel as they were on release. Gears of War is almost 10 years old, and its gunfights are still as good as many games out this year. Gears of War highlights just how important feedback is in creating the sense of “feel” in games the Lancer machine gun makes Locust bleed in exaggerated spurts, making it powerful a point-blank Gnasher shotgun shell shatters enemies into spongy bits with the gross sound effects to match, making it clear how strong the weapon is up close. But few of the games inspired by the original Gears of War utilize the formula as well as developer Epic Games did back in 2006. Gears’ gameplay is still as fresh as everīy now, you’ve probably pressed a button to stick to cover, held the left trigger to peek over it, and the right trigger to shoot out of it thousands of times. Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews.īut the degree to which Gears has acted as a base for other games only makes how well the original game, the Ultimate Edition of which hits stores tomorrow, holds up all the more impressive.