The first classic franchise for the Xbox 360 era!

I was pumped for Gears of War the moment I saw the poster when it was coming out and it didn't disappoint. The gameplay was gore-some, the characters were memorable, the world-building was cool and the music is great.

The voice acting really sells the fun machismo dialogue. With a weaker performer, Marcus Fenix would come off as painfully dull and annoying but John DiMaggio gives him the right amount of grit and badassery to make him an entertaining protagonist. Also who doesn't love the Coletrain baby? Best side character of the franchise!

What Halo did for the original Xbox, Gears of War did for 360!

Unos de los shooters más importantes que íntegro de manera precisa el combate con coberturas.
Podrá parecer irreal ahora pero hoy en día muchos ni hacen la mitad de bien que este juego.
El combate de disparo con la motosierra hace que sea un sistema bastante funcional y divertido que incentiva mucho a la planeación con armas muy creativas y distintivas que ayudan a que la experiencia sea bastante completa.
Los locus son enemigos inteligentes que en dificultades más altas tienes que ser muy precisó con ellos. Por su parte Ram es un excelente jefe final y muy variado que hace un gran cierre al juego que ha mi parecer nunca se repitió en la trilogía clásica.
La dificultad elevada hace que sea mucho más táctico el combate brindándole mayor profundidad y no está tan desastroso, se nota que hubo un buen testeo.
El modo cooperativo y la horda son increíbles y muy complejos que da horas de diversión.
La historia es súper genial. Es uno de los pocos shorters dónde la historia si es divertida e interesante donde los personajes secundarios son las estrellas de show con un lore excelente.

Stuff I liked:
- For a game from 2006 the graphics have aged remarkably well, even on the original 360 version
- Nice gunplay, weapons such as the Chainsaw, Shotgun and Longshot sniper feel very satisfying to use, and others such as the Hammer of Dawn and the Torque Bow are a nice switch-up from the standard TPS arsenal
- Some fun level-specific gimmicks, I liked the bit when you had to search the area for light sources to avoid getting insta-gibbed by alien bat creatures, was an appreciated break from the 7th-gen power fantasy style of gameplay
- Enemy AI is pretty good for the most part, especially considering this is a third-person cover shooter; I played on the Hardcore difficulty solo and found myself having to think carefully about my next move a lot (those goddamn Theron Guards man)
- I liked how the story began directly in middle of the action, the worldbuilding felt as if it unravelled naturally rather than have it be over-explained to the player through exposition

Stuff I didn't:
- Some janky controls; in a game where choosing when to enter cover/sprint is important, having the 'A' button do both is a questionable design choice, not ashamed to admit I had some frustrating deaths bc of this
- Bad teammate AI; this game is probably significantly better played co-op bc of this
- Bland main storyline and lack of memorable characters. The only ones I really cared about were Dom and Cole, and the macho posturing of Baird and main character Marcus Fenix got pretty annoying at times

Overall I can appreciate that this was a revolutionary game for the time but I believe that, 17 years later, this game is getting on the dated side.

really surprised by this one! the dramatic contrast between light and dark makes for the best visuals of the series. there's a very "first console game made by a pc studio" vibe to this, where the story is sparse, the lore is extensive and unexplained, and the levels are clearly individually designed rooms strung together, each a little challenge taking a few minutes to clear. i love that the characters aren't talking constantly. the scenario variety is not as dramatic as the sequels, which are "cinematic setpiece" games, but each chapter still feels distinct from the last both in setting and encounter design.

cover is not just a place to hide and reload, but an avenue of relatively safe movement where you can flank and reposition. it is enforced by high incoming damage, and there are few enemies per encounter, but each of them are dangerous enough to matter, and spongy enough to last. this makes headshots, chainsaw kills, and closing emergence holes important and rewarding. it's easy to see why this was a hit in 2006, and still a fan favorite now.

I’m gonna offer a bit of a different opinion on the franchise’s 2006 start. Having played this game many years after its initial release, I can plainly see some cracks in the facade that I think make it age worse than it could have. First let me preface, for the time this game was a milestone of gaming no doubt. The graphics and advanced cover system were the most fleshed out than previously seen in older games. My problems with the game are more apparent after the passage of time, when innovative graphics can no longer make up for other issues. Gears of War, as it exists today, is a fundamentally derivative game that offers some mild amusement from its gratuitous blood and bullets gameplay.

To begin, the story blows chunks. You don’t have to be an elitist to not care for the overplayed macho, grittycore aesthetic that permeates this game like year old milk. If anything that alone is perhaps the biggest marker of age for this game. It’s every apocalyptic military story ever told, just done infinitely more boring with characters I cringed at everytime they talked. There does exist a sweet spot between embarrassingly bad and charmingly stupid, it’s just this game gets nowhere near it. And it’s not to say I have a vendetta against the era of stupid action shooters of the mid and late 2000s. I used to terminally binge the Army of Two games on the PS3, and believe me when I say those were not getting any writing achievements.

I couldn’t find an ounce of humor, intrigue, or heart anywhere near Fenix and pals. All that matters is that you’re generic badass number 49028, you have a voice to rival pounded gravel, and are tasked with saving the world from aliens by planting bombs in a bunch of random places. All the while you have to babysit some goofball squad members freshly picked up from your local MW2 Lan party. Actually that makes it sound more fun than it is. It’s more like a squad of robots who were made to act like what they thought frat boys acted like. And babysit is the right word, because no matter the difficulty your squad mates insist on sharing a single brain, and will go down quicker than you can roll your eyes in annoyance. It’s like I’m back playing COD zombies with my younger cousin with how often I have to go pick them up.

Now despite my exaggerated frustration this is not an indictment on the game as a whole. I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of stinker stories. If I tune out the dialogue it’s really not so offensively bad. It’s digestible and provides the barebones pretext for why you’re blowing up everything in sight. What really matters here is the gameplay, everything else is more cosmetic than anything in a game like this. And I’m….. lukewarm on the combat.

The cover system is a lot like the general movement of the game. It has a very heavy weight to it. And it is most certainly not up for debate as to whether you’ll use it a lot. If you don’t liberally use cover you will go down startlingly quick, even on the easiest difficulty. Add on that every enemy is a bullet sponge and you’ll be spending most of your time playing whack-a-mole with the enemies as you go from cover to cover. As bad as that sounds It only really becomes a slog when you die and have to do a section all over again. Still, for such an emphasized mechanic I wish they touched up the cover system a little more before calling it a day. For one thing a way to go around a corner in cover without leaving it would have been welcome.

Oddly enough, the very idea of such a heavily emphasized cover system goes a bit against the design philosophy of the rest of the game if you ask me. We’re these roided badasses and we have to constantly hide and take potshots? Screw that, give me some dynamite and a minigun and let me go ham. But hey, It’s a novel gimmick and the deepest use of it I’ve seen so far, so I won’t complain too much. Heck, I even started to kind of dig the cover system when I wasn’t being shot at from thirty different directions. It just takes a bit to get used to the heft of your character. The bosses are okay, but I hated the vehicle sections. Unneeded and unpolished vehicle sections are something that ought to be left in the past. I mean who creates a vehicle that can only power driving OR the light turret? Bad engineers, that's who.

To recap, Gears of War’s story, world, and characters were enormously lame while its gameplay and cover system grew on me ever so slightly. Sure, I still wish the cover wasn’t so pivotal or momentum breaking at times, but I can be more forgiving for the first entry in the franchise. For 2006 this is a great looking action title that no doubt influenced a great deal of games in its wake. While I find it hard to believe anyone can utterly adore this game and not be drowning in nostalgia, I’ll give respect where it’s earned.

I played this about 11 years after it first released.
Got a cheap copy for my 360.
I absolutely loved this game.
The storyline makes very little sense, but it’s a shooter…does it have to?
In typical shooter fashion your AI teammates are probably just shy of hitting 100 IQ between them.
I think it aged pretty well. Still a lot of fun.