A decent debut for the series with that incredibly effective ‘Mad World’ commercial, was very awesome back in 2006. Playing this now, Gears of War tells a one-dimensional story with loads of testosterone; shoot, blow and rip stuff apart is your objective that thankfully doesn’t overstay its welcome. Mindless entertainment that’s best enjoyed couch coop on insane over beers and stories. Movement and shooting always feels heavy with delay, spotty bullet detection that takes getting used to. Influential ideas and designs are very apparent, cover and reload mechanics are enjoyable. I’d say it was worth the one story run, I’ve not played online multiplayer which is/was good from what I hear.

This game was great! The only parts I didn't like were how magnetic the cover mechanic was (I've died so many times because I could not get off of a wall or cover object) and the fact that the turrets did not have a crosshair so it felt like I was guessing where it was aiming. And FINALLY, (it may be a hot take) I'm not too fond of the co-op split-up moments in the campaign. I played with a friend and it was so annoying; if ONE of us died (even though we both had a companion NPC with us which couldn't revive us, which alone doesn't make sense), we instantly lost and had to go back to the previous checkpoint

In my "series" of playing through an entire series of games (that began with Final Fantasy last year), I decided to revisit an old favorite. I have a ton of fond memories playing this game in high school whether it be single-player, co-op or multiplayer.

First thing first, this gameplay really does holds up. Playing through the campaign again, I realized why so many games copied the formula from this game for their own third-person cover shooters and I found the core mechanics to be satisfying as ever. While the campaign does provide a decent amount of variety, it does not stray far from the core shooting mechanics.

Other elements...hold up less gracefully. The story is pretty barebones (fleshed out in sequels), and the characters and writing is grade S "video game ass video game". A good dose of macho-ness AND cringey one liners. Also, it's wild thinking back to 2006 where the graphics in this game was considered top-of-the-line where now it's the pretty noticeable 360 era "brown and grey with a lot of bloom lighting" artstyle.

Another thing that took me aback was how challenging the campaign is! I'm pretty certain this campaign is much more fun in co-op where you don't have to restart large encounter sequences due to being one-shotted by a Boomshot or a Torque Bow. Similarly, this game extended usage of the "walk and talk" segments that people loathe now but you could tell it was something new as every death involved going through that segment AND their accompanying dialogue.

Overall, I still quite enjoy this game. It's a decent dose of nostalgia talking but I still think the gameplay is solid especially with the FPS boost on Series X. I'm curious what the sequels add in terms of core gameplay.

It feels like a listening same boomer rock/metal song over(or maybe 00s metalcore bands) and over again, tps mechanics works fina and still playable... but level design and story is pretty boring....

I still remember how Gears of War revolutionized tps games during its release period, also the co-op campaing trend was also started by gow

but it was good in its time, but there is no reason to play this game in 2024.

also did i mention piss filter ?

For all the praise it gets, i expected more.

the setting might be interesting and sets up a cool world for future entries but the story is a whole lot of a nothing sandwich, game chapters happen due to mild inconveniences that need to be dealt with, it just so happens that there are bunch of grunts for you to kill in the way.

i get that the cover style and the OH SO MACHO characters were very appealing at the time but playing it today after playing more recent and more fun TPS like Spec Ops, i genuinelly don't feel the need to ever replay this again, while spec ops i finished 5 times already.
ive read an article that says the enemies had to be toughten up because at the time the graphics were so cool that if it had too many enemies it would slow down, and thus the enemies became bullet sponges to the maximun, your bullet cap is around 650 but it means nothing when the average grunt will eat 70 of those at point blank, its just not very fun as a shooter because of that, i am still curious to check future entries because most people say they are way better.

this one however, never again, yikes