Gears of War

Things that explode
Speaking of guns, you can carry up to four weapons - a sidearm, two mediums and one grenade type.

As mentioned before, combat is handled in 'scenes'. Although not always, most of the time you'll see a short in-game (and sometimes FMV) before or after the action picks up. Interspersed with sections of just straight-out fighting, you'll find there's a good mix of story and action.

Enemy variety is thin to begin with, but quickly picks up as you advance. Your first enemy will be the Locust grunts, armed with automatic rifles much like your own. While smart enough to find cover and move up, they don't try to flank you or do anything super co-ordinated, but they more than make up for this with excellent aim and a propensity for running up to you and smacking you senseless with the butts of their rifles. When they die, you're free to grab their dropped weapon, but note that it can only fire in bursts, unlike the fully-automatic COG-issue rifle. The COG gun also comes with attached chainsaw that you can rev-up by holding down the 'B' button (which triggers all melee attacks) and attack with the right trigger. When you do catch some poor sucker with the chainsaw, the camera view will swivel to a side-on view so you can indulge in all the goriness that follows.

Further in you'll go up against vicious dog-like creatures that can climb on ceilings and walls, but go down easy with a single blast of most weapons (or even a firm melee hit). One section of the game has you defending a hallway from these guys while a door is being opened. The little beasts come from everywhere and you'll need to be particularly switched on to get past this section.

It's also here where you find the shotgun which, unlike most weapons in the game can be fired from the hip with reasonable accuracy. Of course, it is a close-range weapon, so don't expect to stand up and snipe guys from across the room.

No, that sort of action is for the sniper rifle, which you'll pick up unceremoniously in a tiny shack around the transition between Acts I and II. You have to reload after each shot and you'll only have 20 or so rounds with you at any time, but it'll down grunts with a single shot - you don't even have to aim for the head.

Humble grenades also feature prominently. Yes, you can throw them like you would any incendiary, but frag grenades serve another purpose - sealing up Locust 'emergence' holes. Remember how we talked about the Locusts being able to pop up anywhere? Well, if you can seal their holes as soon as they appear, you'll only have to take on the first couple of grunts that climb out instead of dealing with the ten or so before the hole closes normally. Grenades are also a piece of cake to aim, the game displaying their trajectory with a glowing blue line. It even shows you how it'll bounce.

There are also mini-bosses, the first of which you'll meet in Act I. Called 'Seeders', these giant spider-looking monsters disrupt your communications and are the objective in one of the Act I missions. Normal weapons however aren't sufficient, and it's only with the help of an orbital cannon called the 'Hammer of Dawn' that you'll be able to take these guys down. The cannon is aimed using a grenade launcher-looking rifle, which, when the right trigger is depressed, will paint your target with a red laser. After a few seconds, a small red circle will appear on your target, confirming a lock on and moments after this a bright yellow beam will descend from the sky and blast your target. Unfortunately, you can only use this weapon at specific points in the game - so no obliterating random grunts with multi billion-dollar satellite weaponry.

Admittedly, the Seeders aren't much of a boss - all they can do is fire homing spores at you that are easy enough to dodge or shoot down. The 'real' first boss you'll encounter is called the Berserker and she's bloody dangerous. Yes, we said she.

True, she's blind, but she has a stampede attack that kills you instantly. We'll leave it up to you to play the game and find out how to kill her, but let's just say shooting her won't help - unless you want to piss her off.

In regards to damage and ammo - Epic has dumped the health gauge we've grown used to over the years and adopted what we'll call a soak damage model. As you get hit, a ragged red circle in the middle of the screen will start to intensify until it's a deep, vibrant crimson. Taking any additional damage when the ring gets this red will kill you and only by sitting back a few moments will it fade to clear again. There's no health to pick up - just make sure you don’t get cornered and always have cover to hide behind. Ammo on the other hand you will need to scavenge - either from pulsating blue munitions crates that replenish all ammo types, or dropped weapons and clips that cater for individual ammo counts.



The pretty bits
Now, here's the part where we get to talk about the graphics. Simply put, Gears of War is one of the most visually delicious games for the Xbox 360. It'll have you staring at your high-spec PC in dismay and, if you've spent a lot of money on it, disgust too. We've been hearing about motion blur and depth of field for years now, but it took Epic with UE3 to finally make it more than empty promises.

The motion blur is one of those things you'll notice straight away but take for granted almost immediately - the effect so subtle but so deeply important to making the experience all the more real. Add to this an even more discreet application of depth of field and somehow the world of GoW takes on an extra dimension. Where Epic pulled this dimension from, we don't know, but there's probably an extremely pissed-off extra-planar demon somewhere screaming obscenities at it right now.



While you will undoubtedly catch the oddly rendered shadow or discontinuous polygon, everything feels real, from the shots you fire, the hits you take, the extremely visceral damage and everything in between. Animations blend almost perfectly far away, up close or too close. It's all utterly brilliant.

It's taken a while for the Xbox 360's killer game to arrive, but it's finally here. Add to this a co-op option for the campaign and team and regular deathmatch, we can say with oodles of confidence that Gears of War is the console game of the holiday season. While the US will have the opportunity to enjoy this bountiful game sometime next week, Australia will have to wait for 23 November for the same privilege.