Duck and Cover

Game: Gears of War
System: Xbox 360
Release date: November 9, 2006
Developed by: Epic Games
Published by: Microsoft game Studios

Of the thousands of video games released since the dawn of the computer age, perhaps none can be held more responsible for my leap from Nintendo loyalist to multi-platform completist than Gears of War. Even if Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and the soon-to-be-released (hopefully) Beyond Good & Evil 2 provided the final push toward the purchase of a Xbox 360, it was the one-two punch of Gears of War and Bioshock which planted within me a curiosity for the non-Nintendo gaming world. This trailer (one of the finest I've ever seen) went a long way towards making Gears of War a game I HAD to play. All that being said, I have finally played and completed Gears of War, a little more than a year after my Xbox 360 purchase and roughly three years after it was released; and it is the masterpiece I hoped it would be.

To say Gears of War is cryptic is something of an understatement. The instruction manual and a brief title screen cut scene give the player a rudimentary understanding of the origins of a long, destructive war between humans and a subterranean menace called the Locust Horde. The game's hero is Marcus Fenix, a disgraced and imprisoned Gear (army infantryman) who is released by his best friend and fellow Gear Dominic "Dom" Santiago once the prison falls to the Locust. After a brief, optional training session, the player is thrown into battle.


Gears of War uses an innovative and easy-to-control battle system in which Marcus and other Gears must contantly use cover to survive. Acknowledged by one of the game's developers in the introduction to the manual, combat in the majority of shooters is not entirely realistic, and so the Gears of War team wanted to create a system in which players "switch between feeling frightened and being a badass." The results are largely successful. Out in the open, in a firefight, Fenix and his platoon will die. Behind debris, walls and stony outcroppings, they have a much better chance at survival. Players have the option of blindfiring from behind cover, leaning outside of cover and aiming more precisely, or simply wait until an enemy gets too close and perform a melee attack.

Like many post-Halo shooters, Gears of Wars has a realistic inventory system in which the player must choose which guns to carry. Fenix is always equipped with a sidearm and grenades, but has only two slots for his remaining firearms. Guns include shotguns, automatic weapons, grenade launchers, sniper rifles and a particularly devastating weapon called the Torque Bow. The centerpiece of Gears of War, however, is something called a Lancer, a standard-issue assault rifle with a chainsaw bayonet.


Gears of War is surprisingly short. It ends somewhat abrubtly, obviously in anticipation of a sequel (released November 6, 2008), and only creates more mysteries and questions in the process. Regardless of its short duration, Gears of War is a masterwork and the first "killer app" for the Xbox 360.

Score: 96/100