My Impressions of Gears of War
I finally received my copy of Gears yesterday from Best Buy (about freekin’ time!) and was able to plop it in for about 20min or so; enough to get through about 2-3 sections.
After reading some other people’s impressions, it was suggested to start out on Hardcore mode instead of Casual just to prepare for multi-player action and to make the game a bit more challenging.
I will say this, Hardcore is challenging and it makes you think a bit more, but it still feels like I’m flying through the game. I don’t like the feeling that I’m blazing through a game so fast. I want the sense that this is a struggle and not just doing a level at a time. Granted, I’ve only played a few minutes so maybe that feeling with disappear.
I died several times, mostly after reaching the top of the stairs from the prison. The “grubs” were flanking me and I just couldn’t react fast enough. It’s frantic action, and I’m still getting used to the controls which is part of the problem. One dig here, and this “rule” will go on my “game developer’s commandments” post I’m thinking of writing, is “Let me skip the dang cut-scenes”. I’ve seen it once, don’t force me to endure it again every single stinkin’ time I die and reload my checkpoint! This is the next-gen people, I want control!
A couple of nice things I noticed:
- Storage device selection was an option within the game settings. I don’t think I was bothered with the ”where do you want to save this game” every stinkin’ time I needed to save or reload. Bonus points there…Other game developers should follow suit.
- I noticed a turn off extreme content option. Haven’t tried it out but it’d be cool if it does turn off the gore (extreme blood splatter) and removes the language. I’ll have to try that out – if anyone has seen what it does, let me know. I wouldn’t mind letting the kids play if that stuff could be turned off – but we’ll see about that.
- Screen options were also present, such as “soft”, “vibrant”, etc… I flipped it to vibrant and noticed things were a bit brighter. Maybe they could have explained that a bit more (maybe it’s in the manual…didn’t check). Liked that option though.
Overall I liked what I saw and enjoyed what I played. The game looks and feels great and is by far one of the most spectacular looking games on the 360 or any other console for that matter. I wouldn’t mind doing some Xbox Live co-op at some point either as I think that’d really amp up the excitement. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time during vacation.
If you’re on-line and see me playing this coming week, shoot me an invite, I’ll be glad to jump in any game we have in common.