December 7th, 2007

Gears Of War

Shooter games gain more and more popularity these days, especially those that have latest generation graphics effects and dynamic action. Gears of War was originally released for the Xbox console, November 7, 2006, and this year for PC, under the Games For Windows brand, on the 7th of November. There is also a limited edition for collectors which also includes a disc of bonus content and a book called “Destroyed Beauty” that brings a lot of details about the story on which the game is based on.
Game Trailer

The requirements for this game are: 2.4-gigahertz (GHz) or faster Intel processor, or 2.0 GHz or faster AMD processor, Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista, 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM, 12 GB of available hard disk space, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better graphics card or ATI X700 or better graphics card with support for DirectX 9.0c or later; Microsoft keyboard and mouse or Microsoft-compatible keyboard and pointing device, sound card and speakers or headphones for optional audio amd Internet access for optional Gears of War downloadable content.
Emergence Day

The game story focuses on a team of Delta Squad soldiers (a delta team again? didn’t we see that in Crysis and Blacksite - Area 51 already? what about alpha and omega? - there is an alpha team in Gears of War) who fight to save the people living on the planet Sera (a made-up location) from the attacks of the Locust Horde. If you happened to watch the first video demos from game competitions like E3 of the Unreal Engine 3, you might have seen some monsters – and if you wanted to see them in action in a shooter now is your chance to fight against them – you will see plenty of them jumping around and full of ammo.

In the game, the player will take up the role of Marcus Fenix (probably an intentionally name-spelling mistake of the originating name Phoenix) who is taken out of the prison by Dominic Santiago (Dom) who needs his help in the missions against the Locust. The level-saving is based on checkpoints that need to be reached. The Delta squad thus reunited seeks the “resonator”, a special device that will help them locate the Locust Tunnel, the hiding place of the enemy. This is where the team needs to place the Lightmass Bomb so that all monsters will be destroyed. The Delta quad will experience a series of losses which brings Fenix into the situation of being ordered to lead the squad. There are also additional support troops and soldiers who join them, but some of them lose their lives for being too scared or for losing temper in critical moments.

Fenix leads the team into a mining facility and even deeper into the core of the planet, in order to detonate the resonator, but he soon finds out that the device hasn’t uncovered the entire map of the tunnel network. However, the team finds a nearly complete map of the whole tunneling system, and the place of origin being Fenix’s old home. The location is actually his father’s research lab, at East Barricade Academy, and there are lots of Locust forces to be reckoned with. The team obtains the necessary data, and they find out that all the Locust tunnels are cross-linked through the entire planet’s soil covering and that those links are much bigger and deeper than anyone expected.

The soldiers go into a train that carries the Lightmass Bomb – but they have to fight their way through and defeat general RAAM before inserting the critical data with the location coordinates. Fenix activates the Bomb and Dom jumps onto a helicopter. And just like in movies, in thelast second, Dom saves Fenix by helping him to get up into the helicopter enar him and they all watch the “fireworks”. However, the Locust haven’t been defeated yet completely and the Locust Queen makes sure the gamer knows that the evil monsters will keep coming back.
The Game Story In A Music Video

I was very much impressed with the overall graphics quality of this game – it looks and works much better than the default setup of the Unreal Tournament 3 – the retail version, and this is also because of an updated and improved version of the Unreal Engine 3 and because the Microsoft team made sure the game will take full advantage of DirectX 10 (with the so much wanted antialising option in the menu – which is currently missing in Unreal Tournament 3!). This is one of the games that comes prepared for HD screens – it supports 720p and 1080i resolutions so that the view-angle is increased. The multiplayer is also a key ascpect in this game as it adds to the flavor of the “killing spree” in specially designed maps for intensive matches that can be played among friends or on the Internet.

The sound in the game was really well implemented and the music contributes to the accuracy and intensity of most action scenes – the dialogues are very funny sometimes, and yes - soldier-style. A thing that many people might not like is that the gamer needs a LIVE ID account in order to play and be able to save the progress through the live-profile.

Bonus Video - How to create your own level:
Digitainment Mark: 9.5 (a really good game but with very rare random "hiccups" due to data loading into memory)

Designer: Cliff Blezinksi

Developer: Epic Games, People Can Fly

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Official Site: http://www.gearsofwar.com

Bonus - Cliff Blezinski with one of the weapons: