Gears Of War  Preview for Xbox 360

- Tim Mellish, " Cloud890 ", Senior Editor

Thursday, September 28, 2006

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Title: Gears Of War .............................................. System: Xbox 360 .............................................. Genre: Action Shooter .............................................. Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios .............................................. Developer: Epic MegaGames .............................................. Release: 11/07/2006 .............................................. Online: Yes .............................................. ESRB: Mature (M) .............................................. There were some notable games that appeared at the annual Microsoft event, X06. Big names like Halo Wars and Crysis drew in heavy numbers, making it safe to say the event went very well for Microsoft. One of the biggest titles—if not the biggest—that was in payable form was CliffyB's third-person tactical-action-shooter-horror genre combination known as Gears of War. While on display for the first time since E3, Gears of War is looking even better than it did in L.A. A short demo was shown at the X06 press conference with CliffyB once again at the helm. Instead of taking place at the beginning of the game, this demo took place much later. Marcus and crew found themselves deep within a city on Sera, during morning, blasting away at Locus soldiers left and right. The main part of the demo was focused around a square where the human forces took up defensive positions inside an old fountain while the Locus charged them from various directions. The first thing noticeable was how much smoother the game played; a small gripe people had about the Gears of War demo at E3 was that the frame rate had issues at times. No such frame rate issues where seen in this demo, with the game running smoothly from beginning to end. Even better was how smooth the animations had become. Like the frame rate, some of the animations of the E3 demo were quick and choppy. Many, including myself, assumed this was due to design choice. Guess not. The animations this time around were not only smoother but also had more subtle movements that brought everything alive on screen. The weapons of the X06 demo also seemed to have been tweaked to be more efficient. Targets were more easily aligned, and there is less of a feeling of out being out of control as seen in the E3 demo. The machine gun not only packs more of a punch but also has an improved visual blast as well as improved effects on enemy soldiers. The biggest noticeable difference besides the machine gun was the fact that the grenade HUD has been changed. Before, the HUD was just a simple blue glowing line that displayed where the grenade would bounce. At X06 though, the grenade HUD now features small blue squares which get smaller and bigger depending on how the grenade will bounce. Is it an improvement? Hard to say. At times the squares look like they get in the way, and without a doubt veteran players are not going to need a visual representation of where their grenade will go. Personally, I liked the line as opposed to the squares, but only hours of hands-on time will be the ultimate judge. Another noticeable difference about the Gears of War X06 demo is that more of the team that Marcus joins was on display. They had a few dumb moments like running in front of where Marcus was shooting but generally performed very well against the enemy A.I. The enemy A.I. looks to be just as fierce as ever, complete with flanking maneuvers and just about every single thing one would think a competent enemy would do in a tactile shooter.—they are still hard to kill. In short, Gears of War looks better than it did at E3, and that is saying something. It’s hard to imagine a game that looked so good and played so well could bee improved upon. It just goes to show how much quality CliffyB and his team is pouring into this title. Xbox 360 owners will be quite content playing their Gears of War while everyone else runs around looking for consoles. This is the game to get this holiday season, no doubt.

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Cloud890 & Crusader