threevue

It’s busy times for us here at the Threevue HQ, so much so that we had to look for outside help for some of our write-’em-ups). So we are posting some of the old stuff that slipped through the cracks in the past for one reason or another (coughMarkcough). So enjoy some old school Threevue goodness.

Russ:
I didn’t buy an Xbox 360 until it had been out for a good 18 months, and when I did get it, I considered the original Gears of War to be my new console’s first must-have game. Its then-jaw-dropping graphics and cover system that actually worked sometimes were kind of a big deal for me, and felt like our first true next-gen game. It had its share of flaws, including everything from gameplay changeups that were thinly veiled as storyline elements to some ridiculously unfair difficulty spikes. But overall, it was a decent, shallow game with a multiplayer mode filled with devotees that wail on me instantly. And when Gears of War 2 came out last fall with screenshots that looked a lot like its predecessor, I didn’t buy it. If I wanted to play something like it, I could just play the first game, right?

After picking up the game used for cheap, I was happy I had waited. The single player campaign took me only a few nights to finish, and I’m just as intimidated to play the multiplayer as I was with the first title. And as you’ve read a million times before, this game does exactly what a sequel should do, by expanding everything and throwing in a few twists. It feels much more balanced, although I felt strung along during the last chapter with a few too many generic gun battles. The difficulty has been tweaked and smoothed out, and the easy setting is actually easy this time around. But the most marked improvements are in the graphics realm; in particular, there is one section where you open up an old building and there are dust particles floating in the air, reflecting against Jack’s floodlights. That moment has easily the most immersing graphics I’ve experienced in a game, and broke down some barriers that I didn’t think an action game could do.

All in all, it was a great game that I’ll revisit sometime in the future, and I’m looking forward to Gears of War 3 more than I expected to. Who knows, I might even try the multiplayer some day, too.

91/100

Tyler:
I don’t know what happened. Somewhere between 2007 and 2008 Epic turned Gears of War in to a fairly good game. I guess when you make one of the highest grossing titles in history it pays to heed the criticism more so than the adulation. Thankfully it seemed that Clifford Blezninsky and his fellows did just that. The game was no longer a blur of gray urban destruction. The story was progressed and even built to emotional climaxes at points and it seemed no longer like an 8-hour repetition of run/cover/shoot/reload/shoot/reload/repeat. Online was expanded and given many new features such as the Horde Mode. All in all, a vast improvement from the original.

Still GOW2 had its problems. For all of its massive action and epic battles the game boils down the way most action shooters do. Unless you play it on the easiest setting you’ll be spending the majority of your time filling your enemies with round after round while they slowly amble towards cover. You’ll be pelted with ridiculous one liner after another until the emotional impact of the story wears off and you care only about getting through the level to the next big explosion. Huge improvement from the original though.

85/100