Gears of War (Xbox 360)

...It's...........

== Gears of War ==

=== Background of Gears of War ===

If anyone here is a gamer then you have probably heard of Gears of War, if you haven't then I hope you enjoy what I'm going to say. Gears of War was released on the 17th of November 2006 in the UK but as usual it was released 10 days earlier in the US, typical. Prior to its release it was the most hotly anticipated game on the Xbox 360 ...
...that Halo 3 had overtaken Gears of War and has now sold over 8 million copies, this is something I just do not get, as on my friend list on Xbox Live, I very rarely see anyone on Halo and most of them are either playing Gears, or are on a recently released game which they will play for a week before trading it back in.

=== Case ===

I first picked up the case in a local GAME store in Cwmbran, and as soon as I saw it I ... more

This is in my opinion, along with many others, the best game in the Xbox 360. It's...........

Gears of War

Background of Gears of War

If anyone here is a gamer then you have probably heard of Gears of War, if you haven't then I hope you enjoy what I'm going to say. Gears of War was released on the 17th of November 2006 in the UK but as usual it was released 10 days earlier in the US, typical. Prior to its release it was the most hotly anticipated game on the Xbox 360 as most of the other games before it hadn't really succeeded.

It sold over 3 million copies in its first 10 weeks, and that figure as now reached 4.5 million total copies as of January 2008. I was surprised to one day see on Xbox.com that Halo 3 had overtaken Gears of War and has now sold over 8 million copies, this is something I just do not get, as on my friend list on Xbox Live, I very rarely see anyone on Halo and most of them are either playing Gears, or are on a recently released game which they will play for a week before trading it back in.

Case

I first picked up the case in a local GAME store in Cwmbran, and as soon as I saw it I thought 'Oh this looks good.' We all stood there admiring the front cover which is dominated by the main character Marcus Fenix, as it should be, and behind him is a dramatic scene of an ongoing battle with the Raven helicopters fighting off the Kyril and the locust. Also you see two other characters Carmine and Dom, one of which has his head popped later in the game. You may also notice that this game is an 18 but that didn't matter and I was still allowed to buy it, luckily.

Campaign

This is the main part of the game and is where most of the achievements will be obtained. 580 of the original 1000 points are available through the campaign, the most points off one achievement is 30 and this can be found with several campaign achievements, collecting all the COG tags will result in a nice 60 points, 3 achievements altogether, also completing the game on Insane will give you plenty of points as you will also get the points from completing it on hardcore so you will get several points all at once!

The game is set on the fictional planet of Sera, after a long fought out war that was taking place between the humans, Emergence Day occurred, this was then the locust horde rose from beneath the surface to start a war with mankind. The COG, (Coalition of Ordered Governments) who were in control of Sera before the locust arrival, decided to retreat to a safe heaven from the locust, Jacinto Plateau, from here they then make the decision to use laser weapons to try and bring most of the planet down and stop the locust from gaining to much. The people that are left on Sera that did not make it to Jacinto are left to fight for themselves. The campaign begins as Marcus Fenix is being freed from a prison that has held him for 4 years as he disobeyed orders on the battlefield in an attempt to save his father.As the game moves on you will find some very interesting enemies these are the following:

• Berserker
• Boomer
• General RAAM
• Theron Guards
• Wretches
• Seeders
• Nemacyst
• Reavers
• Corpser
• Brumak

As you can see the game presents you with many different enemies to test your might and each one becomes a new challenge and all together gives the game a lot of excitement as you verse a new enemy each time. My personal favourite enemy would have to be the Berserker as the first time I saw it I really did think 'Oh my God what is that' and the Berserker can be a dangerous thing to verse, one hit will take you down, which is ok on co-op, but not alone.
The game is broken down into 3 difficulties:

• Casual
• Hardcore
• Insane

These difficulties are each very different, Casual provides a new player to the game with a nice easy way though the game and very rarely offers any sort of a challenge, Hardcore is a good challenge to most people on their own, but again can easily be done within a day. Insane, this is probably the hardest difficulty I've seen on any game in the years I've been gaming. This will offer any individual a good challenge as you can die extremely quickly and without the aid of a fellow player to pick you up it can prove quite difficult. On co-op it can become a relatively straight foreword campaign with the odd challenge where you are forced to separate, this is where it gets difficult as if one dies you have to start from the last chapter! This can get really annoying if you're playing with someone who isn't very good.

Online Play

To me this is the biggest part of Gears of War and is something I have spent a lot of time with over the past year. The online play consists of 4 possible multiplayer options, they are:

• Warzone
• Annex
• Execution
• Assassination

Warzone

This is the most popular game type that is played and with out a doubt my favourite. This is either a 3v3 or 4v4 game depending on the number of players who join. The adjective to the game is to eliminate the opposition and the team that is left standing wins! This can be done by downing your opponent; this can be done in many ways, a double melee (hit with weapon), taking enough damage off an opponent so they fall to the fall, also active reloads with a sniper rifle can cause a down as well, be careful with this one as abuse will usually follow after hitting an active. Unlike execution when a player is down they have to either be picked up by a team mate or finished off by your team, this can be done by pumping a few bullets into them, or you can use the famous Curb Stomp that consists of your foot crushing the opponents head, very nice!

Execution

This is similar to Warzone but a player can pick themselves back up by continually tapping A, also they cannot be killed from far away and have to executed, as the name suggests. This can become extremely annoying as if you down someone with the sniper you have to run a long way to get the kill, and by that point they would have either picked themselves back up or someone was there to help them.

Assassination

This is different to both Warzone and execution and can become a lot more tactical along with frustrating. In this game you have one player who is the leader of the team and if that player dies, the round is over and the team who killed him wins. If you kill the leader you then become your teams leader, this game can get annoying as occasionally a really bad player will become your leader, this will result in many rounds lost and quite a lot of abuse being thrown around.

Annex

This is a relatively new game mode that was introduced a few months ago, this is similar to a traditional 'king of the hill' type game. The players contest for a location that has been set on a weapon, for example, middle bridge on Canals. The team who can remain in the circle until it has become captioned will start wining points; each circle gives 60 points in total until it moves to a new location. I don't play this much in ranked as I'd rather play it in a player match because people will swap the weapons and it does give a better practicing environment as you re-spawn like you would normally on Halo. This gives players a chance to try something new as it doesn't matter if you die since you don't have to wait for the round to finish.

My stats for Warzone are the following:

Kills ~~~14101
Deaths ~~~12306
Matches Played ~~~ 1368
Matches Won ~~~741
Matches Lost ~~~627
Rounds Played ~~~19743
Rounds Won ~~~11416
Rounds Lost ~~~7902
Points ~~~378701
Head Shots ~~~1635
Executions ~~~3048
Chainsaw Kills ~~~612
Curb Stomp Kills ~~~420
Revives ~~~784
Knockdowns ~~~6237
Grenade Tag Kills ~~~1114

As you can see I've played the game for quite a while, almost 20,000 rounds and considering each round usually lasts about 2 minutes I would say that I have spent a lot of time over the past year playing this game! If you've played Gears of War a lot then you will notice the 1114 grenade tag kills, and yes I was once a noob! That's why I have so many deaths to my record, but not to worry!

Abuse

Now if you've played GOW online you'll know what I mean when I say abuse, because this game can get quite aggressive when played online. I've lost count of the number of times me and my friends have had arguments with Americans, French, Australians, Spanish, French, Chinese and the list goes on! These arguments are the result of over aggressive and ego filled men who all believe they are the best, when really not everyone is, and the people I play with just so happen to be some of the best on the game. If you've played GOW before you may have heard of a friendly Irish fellow called 'Mr Mayday' this man, in my opinion is the best player to have graced the world of Gears!

Glitching

Before Gears of War glitching was considered as a fault in the game and was something that wasn't very fun and usually resulted in me turning the console off. Times have changed since then and now Glitching is considered as a form of cheating in a multiplayer game in which you can do a various amount of things to obtain an unfair advantage over the other team.
Such glitches are things like 'Rodie Running' also known as 'Crab Walking' this is where a player can shoot whilst doing the rodie run that can be done pressing A on the controller. This glitch is easy to do and will give the player an unfair advantage along with the possibility of receiving bad rep off the opposition. 'Kung-Foo Flip' this glitch is slightly more difficult and will allow the player to get out of the map and roam along its boarders, this is quite a fun thing to do but again can result in bad rep so I would avoid doing this, well I would avoid doing all glitches as it spoils the game! If you have any questions on glitches feel free to ask me how to do them, I know a few!

Raping

Now I know what you're thinking, what is raping doing on here, or what does it have to do with Gears of War, well if you want to know about the online play on Gears you need to know about this!

When people are mad on Gears they tend to do something in order to say they're better than you. If you get downed on Gears and you're the last man left, you're in trouble! The other side, if they're mad, will rape you! This is basically where they all stand around you with pistols out moving back and fore near you, they sometimes smoke tag you as well whilst firing bullets into the air. I do not know how people started calling it 'rape' doesn't sound like the best word to use, but now it's used on several games as well as the words pwned and owned both meaning that someone basically killed you!

Seriously….

Now if you've played Gears you know what I mean when I say Seriously… This is one of the most wanted achievement on the Xbox 360 and many people will automatically regard you as a good player if they see you have the achievement. To obtain this achievement you will have to acquire 10,000 kills in online ranked matches, this can take a very long time as a good player will average around 30 kills a game, depending on its length, so you can see how long it will take the average person. My friend used to go into matches see if any players had the achievement and if they did, he would leave he was afraid of competing with any good players.

I do have this achievement and it took me just under a year to get it, which isn't that good but some players have complained as the achievement has not always been given when a player reaches the 10,000 kills that is required. I got the achievement at 11,000 kills and one of my friends 'Corrrr' or now 'qp Corrrr' got the achievement after a month of playing with only 8,000 kills, so there was a slight problem with the game, but just the one!

Favourite Maps

There were 10 original maps when Gears first came out, but since then they have released downloadable content that first allowed players to download Raven Down and Old Bones, both were free. Then after a while they released 4 more all of which very different from the first ones, these new maps contained environmental hazards such as the dreaded kyril attacking you in the dark of Bullet Marsh, or the poisonous gas of Garden, this added a new dimension to the game but I've found that very few people will actually play these maps, but they'll stick to these 5 maps:

• Canals
• Fuel Depot
• War Machine
• Mansion
• Gridlock

My personal favourite is defiantly Canals, one of the most tactical maps on the game, and can produce some intense clan matches. These 5 maps are usually the ones we will play for 6 hours or more a day, sometimes we may go for a change and try something we haven't played in a while.

Additive Points

To me there are several addictive points that make Gears of War a game that you can sit down and play for 8 hours and still feel like playing one more match before bed. These points are the following:

• Graphics
• Friends
• Abuse
• Weapons
• Gameplay

Graphi cs

The graphics on Gears of War set the standards for all games to follow on any console, so far no other game has matched the quality of Gears, but several have come close like Mass Effect and Assassins Creed. Whilst playing online one of my favourite aspects of the graphics is the famous headshot, unlike other games when you pop a head on Gears it does actually pop and I seems like a mini explosion has just gone off in your opponents head. I've head over 1500 headshots along with the thousands of others that I've either had done on me or a team mate, and I still love both the sound and the look.

Friends

Playing with your friends on Gears just makes the whole experience a lot more fun as you can both abuse the other team together, or go into a room and pretend to be French, anything you decide to do can become extremely enjoyable, and I have found the little things funny playing with friends such as having Cole walk towards me and for some reason I sat there for a while laughing at such a sight!

Abuse

Now this is a big part of playing online on Gears, and if the other team just sat there nice and quietly it would become quite boring. From time to time you will get 3 or 4 Americans who will join the game with one objective, abuse! Playing these types of people can generate a great experience as long as you win! Then they have nothing to say.

Weapons

Now one thing that makes Gears such a good game is its weapons, you have 10 weapons all together, these are:

• Pistol
• Lancer (with Chainsaw)
• Gnasher / Shotgun
• Magnum
• Boomshot
• Longshot
• Hammer of Dawn
• Torque Bow
• Grenade
• Smoke Grenade

The most commonly used weapon is the shotgun, although when the first game first come out it was rarely used, the lancer was the weapon of choice due to its chainsaw. Now most people would be considered as noobs for using the chainsaw as people do easily get irritated nowadays. There are several things that people easily get irritated by, these are the following:

• Beat down
• Chainsaw
• Pistol whip (Beat down with pistol)
• Active down with sniper
• Two Piece

If you try any of these by the end of the game you will have angered everyone on the other side. I sometimes enjoy doing them just for the fun of it.

Gameplay

This is what has made Gears one of the best games ever made! If you have never played the game before it will appear quite difficult, most newcomers I have seen just walk about with their lancer out and if someone comes near them they'll go for the chainsaw kill, this very rarely works. But as you get good and play with many amazing people you will find they use the A button a look more, to go into quick cover, to run and mostly to jump around making aiming a lot harder hence a longer life. As you get used to the game you'll see how great it really is, because unlike most other games the cover takes seconds. Other games I have played like Perfect Dark Zero takes a while to find cover and to get into it, Call of Duty 4 doesn't even have cover and without cover on Gears of War you won't get far!

Awards

To show how good Gears of War really is you just have to look at its awards that have been won. Over 45 awards have been obtained by Gears and rightfully so, some of these awards are the following:

• IGN's Game of the Year 2006
• D.I.C.E 07 Game of the Year
• Best Shooter
• Best Graphics
• Best new Characters (Delta Squad)
• Enemy of the Year - Berserker
• Best Graphics Technology
• Best Xbox 360 Game

Along with plenty of other awards, most of which are Game of the Year from several different websites and magazines. Also most of these sites have awarded Gears with the same awards like, Best Shooter, best Gameplay, and Best Graphics along with many other adding up to over 45 in total.

Maybe a Film?

In March 2007, New Line Cinema purchased the rights to make Gears of War into a film. Now not only am I excited that Gears of War maybe made into a film, but the fact that New Line Cinema will be behind it just adds to it as I loved 'The Lord of The Rings' and they helped terrifically with that, and was the main reason it was made into a film. Hopefully they will help to do the same with Gears since the story is one that can be used very well but isn't as good as 'The Lord of The Rings' story.

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that Gears of War is the best game that is out on the Xbox 360 and possibly the best game on any modern console. That will all change when Gears of War 2 comes out some time in November this year. Cliff Bleszinski, the lead designer of Epic Games, has said that 'Gears of War was a setup', and that 'Gears of War 2 will be much bigger and much more kickass.' So if you're a Gears fan, November will be a truly great month for gamers all across the world and when the official release date is told I'll be marking it down on my calendar!

References

Some information on Gears of War was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gears_of_War

Gamertag ~~~ Rampant Ross

Thanks for reading! Hope you want to play Gears of War now!
If you want, add me on Xbox Live and play with the best!

Thanks Ciao!
Rampant_Ross™ 2008 

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