Gears of War is the new Halo (almost)

Well I meant to write this after I beat the game but I immediately started the Campaign again on "Insane" after I finished it on "Hardcore".That Sentence alone should be testament to how good "Gears" really is.

Games like this always manage to get folks speculating about what makes a game good and why people like the game in question.Has anyone else noticed the trend in which a really good game comes out and all the major sites give it a really high review score except for one?There always seems to be that one site that gives a lower score than all the other sites and will sometimes even criticize the games strongest points to try and further their "bucking of the system".And then all the fanboys of whatever machine is opposite the one that said game resides on start hollering about how said website is the only one with balls enough to give said game the review score it deserved.Whew.

I think that the truth is that for every gaming site there is that one reviewer that wants his time to shine and so does so by bashing a unanimously agreed great game.Some recent examples would be Gamespot's review of The Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess and EuroGamer's review of Gears of War.First let me start with Zelda.I haven't played Zelda yet (hell,I haven't even gotten a Wii yet)but from what I have seen and read I feel pretty confident that it will totally blow me away.As for Gears of War,I have played it ,alot ,I might add,and I know how awesome it is.I mean,whats more likely,that everyone else is wrong about Gears and Zelda and these two guys are right,or that the majority is right and these guys were just two dogs looking for a little sun on their asses.



Or maybe the reviewers just didn't personally like the game.If thats the case then they do not need to be reviewers because their job is to give good advice to their readers.It's ok to have a personal outlook thats different from the majority when you have a multiple reviewer system like in EGM,because then the majority will win out anyway.But when your one guy reviewing a game you have to think about wether or not your taste collide with those of your readers.If that is the case then someone with more mainstream tastes should review the game because what you write will influence peoples purchase.Now to be fair,the scores given by the reviewers in question were still good,lower than the majority,but still good none the less.I think it was the harsh words written in the reviews that pissed people more than the actual number scores.



Now,on to the part about people speculating over what makes a game good.Below is something I read this week that really pissed me off:

"While Gears of War was receiving high scores from print magazines and online publications such as TeamXbox, IGN, Gamespy, 1UP and Gamespot, one review drew attention for its lower-than-average score.

Virtually all of the major publications gave Gears a review score above 90%, with most of them rating the game around 95% as GameRankings.com shows. But Eurogamer gave Gears of War a rating of 80%. Following that peculiar score, the British publication has now posted an article in which the General Manager of EA Montreal, who is also the Executive Producer of Army of Two, has heavily criticized Gears of War for a lack of innovation.

Eurogamer reported that at in a panel discussion at the Montreal Games Summit, Alain Tascan said:

"What is Gears of War? I mean Gears of War brings nothing in terms of innovation to the shooter... Like, zero."


Tascan added that "only two very brave UK-based journalists said, 'You know what, Gears of War is a great game but it's like what Quake was a few years ago.'"

That was supposed to be a reference to the Eurogamer review of Gears. Tascan concluded his analysis of the Gears of War reviews by saying:

"I'm not talking about my tastes, I'm just saying, when you go to metacritic and you see a 96 for Gears of War, then you read the critics saying, 'Okay, storyline - there's none, gameplay is not innovative...' Then I say, why did they give this 96? They were blown away by the high quality of the graphics... Myself, I prefer something more creative."


Finally, Eurogamer informs that they met Tascan soon after his panel speech to confirm if he was indeed referring to Eurogamer's review of the game", to which Tascan would have responded: "Absolutely, yes. You guys were one of the only people who had the guts to say it."

Hmmm...I like that last sentence about how EuroGamer were the only ones with the guts to say it.Thats exactly what I was talking about earlier about fanboys of the opposite console giving props to the website for "being the only ones with enough guts to say it (technically ,Mr. Tascan,they didn't "say" shit,they typed it),but in this case it's an exec from a competing company (who also happens to be making a game that looks to be alot like Gears)who is doing it.I mean come on,this is EA,these people wouldn't know originality if it hit them in the face.



Which brings me to my point:who says a game has to innovative to be fun?While I think that Gears has plenty of innovation in it I don't think that any particular game has to be innovative to be fun.Let's take a look at some games from EA,seeing as how an EA exec seems to know what is or isn't innovative and what is or isn't fun.Is Madden '07 fun?Not to me since I don't play video sports games (I prefer the real thing),but I see lots of people on my friends list playing it alot so I'll assume that they like it alot.Weather or not a Madden football game is innovative is a topic I won't even waste my time on.Whatabout Black?I really liked Black even though it does absolutley nothing new.Need for Speed:Carbon?Same 'ol stuff but still fun.Everyone knows that a game doesn't have to be innovative to be good,it just has to have fun gameplay.



Now I'll tell you what I think makes Gears of War a great game.The gameplay,the pacing,the music,the graphics,the guns,the story,the world,the enemies and the multiplayer options.In Gears of War all those things combine to make the whole package.Are the graphics awesome?of course they are!Are they so good that they are somehow tricking me into thinking I'm playing a good game that actually sucks?Of course not,not even photo realistic graphics could makeup for poor gameplay.



So far I have all the Achievements for campaign on casual and harcore difficulties and I'm on the last Act on Insane difficulty.I have found 30/30 of the cog tags and after I finish the game on insane difficulty I plan on playing through on co op as Dom with my buddy Josh.After that I plan on immersing myself in Ranked competitive multiplaer matches.I always say that it's easy for me to tell how good a game is by how much I want to play it and right now I want nothing more than get back to playing Gears of War.