I wasn't too interested in this game when I first heard about it. The trailers were all browns and greys; the notion of a "chainsaw bayonet" struck me as sophomoric, as did the ability to curb stomp downed opponents. The story didn't seem very interesting. It didn't really appeal to me, and I said as much on a couple of forums I frequent.

*munch, munch*

I'm actually enjoying eating my words, because Gears of War is so good that I can hardly bear to put it down. In hindsight, I'm not even sure why the browns and greys in the trailers turned me off, given my professed love for Resident Evil 4. Epic cited that very game as a strong stylistic and atmospheric influence, and it shows. If I had to categorize Gears, or describe it succinctly, I'd call it a third-person tactical action shooter with survival horror elements that draws on a number of classic science fiction tropes.
It's also by far the best-looking game I've ever seen. When I got my 360, I was wowed by the visuals in Oblivion and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, but Gears makes both games look positively dated.

(Click the screenshot for a fullsize version. The shot is in-game.)

As I alluded to above, the story is a fairly standard affair, but it blends its myriad influences well rather than coming across as a tired rip-off of any one of them. The dialogue is rife with over-the-top machismo, which is reflected clearly in the main characters' stylized burliness, but as the game progresses it becomes abundandly clear that most of them are tired, beaten down, or scared out of their minds, and the macho acts are just a cover. This makes an interesting contrast with the game's environments: the buildings, which were once beautiful, are almost uniformly broken ruins. Between the disparate influences and excellent use of art style to create atmosphere, Gears has proven much more subtle than I initially gave it credit for.

Having said all of that, the gameplay is what really makes Gears stand out from the crowd. Like the other aspects of the game, it oozes polish; the controls, weapons, and terrain were clearly lovingly tested and balanced. All of it combines to create an experience that just begs to be played co-op, whether split-screen or via Xbox Live, and true to its billing, Gears features seamless drop-in co-op in campaign mode. It can be played single-player, but it was clearly designed with two players in mind. There is a very strong emphasis on the use of cover, and while playing with a friend you'll find yourself executing flanking maneuvers, laying down suppressing fire, and making tactical retreats. All of these stratagems work exactly as you would expect them to, particularly if you're playing on Hardcore mode rather than Casual. The latter is more forgiving, making it suitable for single-player; on Hardcore, the enemies can take more hits, but they also pop up from cover less often and for less time, and are much more apt to try to flank you even as you're trying to flank them.

This is a vast improvement over games like GRAW, where the closest enemies come to shooting from behind cover is lying prone. I complained about limited tactical options in GRAW, but while the combat in Gears happens in much closer quarters, the ability to duck behind pretty much anything and then dodge from one piece of cover to the next makes it a much more tactical affair.

Gears is not without its flaws. Versus mode multiplayer has a few bugs that pop up intermittently, such as some allied players being unable to hear one another in voice chat during the game*; the A button may be mapped to one function too many, which sometimes results in sticking to cover while trying to run. However, none are anything more than minor irritants, and it's a testament to the immersiveness of the game and intuitiveness of its gameplay that it by and large makes you forget them.
This is the best game I've played all year, and I think it's going to sell some Xbox 360s.

Title: Gears of War (Epic), 2006
One-line verdict: Game of the Year material.
Review Platform: Xbox 360

*2007-02-02 Addendum: The voice chat bug was fixed by a patch released in January 2007, along with a couple of balance issues. There are also two new multiplayer maps available free.

Shortly after buying an Xbox 360 earlier this year, I picked up Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Oblivion. I bought GRAW entirely on the strength of its co-op play -- while there are only four missions, it's a lot of fun. For months, all I'd played was the single-player training mission and the first two co-op levels. Eventually, though, I decided to see what the full single-player campaign had to offer.

Multiplayer and single-player GRAW are essentially two different games. From what I've read, they were apparently even developed largely separately, and multiplayer lacks some of the prettier visual effects found in the single-player (particularly in the lighting department). Unlike multiplayer, single-player GRAW is by default a third-person affair. You can play in first-person if you want, but third-person makes dealing with cover much easier.

I don't play many shooters, and it would be something of an understatement to say that I'm not terribly enamoured with Tom Clancy, so I came into GRAW fairly fresh. One of the first things I noticed is that the player can't take very much punishment -- not unlike real life, a couple of bullets is all it takes to put you out of commission. This kind of realism seems to be one of GRAW's focuses, and I found that it enhanced my enjoyment of the game significantly. The game is set in the near future, 2013, and the developers did an excellent job of maintaining "real-world" verisimilitude while adding just enough futuristic techy stuff to keep me from feeling like it was just a U.S. Army simulator.

Being a Tom Clancy-branded title, though, the game is steeped in his "might makes right, no matter what the enemy body count" ethos. It's hard to have a shooter without enemies, of course, but at the end of the game I discovered I'd perpetrated mass murder on the scale of Resident Evil 4 -- I'd killed roughly 600 enemies, all of them Mexican rebels -- and, through my superior officers, the game heaped praise upon me. There isn't even a hint of moral ambiguity.

There is also no sign of security forces or troops from the other two nations involved in GRAW's storyline, Mexico and Canada. Obviously the capabilities of U.S. forces far exceed those of either of its neighbours, but given the story progression in the game, the near-complete absence of even supporting units from those two countries is very conspicuous to this Canadian. The first non-training mission in GRAW is exactly the sort of situation where one might expect to run into members of Joint Task Force Two.

My main criticism of the game is that the single-player is completely linear. There's very little freedom of movement; despite having fairly robust scouting capabilities in the form of an unarmed drone, you're usually confined to one or two angles of attack. For a game that tries to be as seamless as possible between missions, moving you from point to point within Mexico City by armoured car or helicopter, the artificial constraints placed on you in the "levels" are jarring. Dead ends and non-destructible fences abound, and I heard the phrase "You are leaving the combat zone! Turn around!" all too often often while trying to flank the enemy.

For what it is, though, GRAW is an excellent game. The controls are responsive, the atmosphere tense and immersive, and the visuals are often flat-out stunning. All that, and four included co-op missions? I'll take it.

Title: Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Ubisoft), 2006
One-line verdict: Very good, but linear.
Review Platform: Xbox 360

In the spirit of 2005 "Best Of" pieces, I thought I'd jot down a few quick thoughts about some of my 2005 favourites. I do cheat in a couple of places, though, since not all of these games were released in 2005.

Resident Evil 4 (GC/PS2, 2004/2005)
Resident Evil 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. Yes, the gameplay progression is totally linear and formulaic, and yes, the plot and dialogue are hackneyed, but Capcom has taken cliché survival horror elements that they themselves popularized to a large extent and polished them to near-perfection. The PS2 version, released in late 2005, is noticeably graphically diminished -- though it's still one of the best-looking games available for that platform, and it includes some additional content.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2005)
I haven't finished this one yet, but all I can do is echo all of the praise this game has received in the press. It's an absolute work of art. I bought this game purely on the strength of the developers' previous release, Ico, which was short but touching in a very understated way. It also had absolutely breathtaking scenery, though more for perspectives and style than for texture detail. Shadow of the Colossus is similar in atmosphere, only even more so, and like Resident Evil 4 is one of this generation's most beautiful games. I've also never seen ambiguity handled so well, and with such a light touch, in this medium.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 (PS2, 2005)
I have a love/hate relationship with Japanese RPGs, and this game embodies the loving aspect of that relationship. The gameplay is fairly rote but the story and style are in my experience unmatched in the genre. You do need to play DDS 1 first, but it is also a worthy endeavour. Just don't go into it expecting a conventional fantasy/steampunk Japanese RPG setting: the characters turn into demons and have to devour other humans to survive... and that's just in the first hour of the game.

Katamari Damacy/We <3 Katamari (PS2, 2004/2005)
I bought a PS2 to play Katamari Damacy last summer. I haven't been as taken with its sequel, but if you're going to buy one or the other, I do suggest the latter; it improves on the original enough to merit preferential play. Rolling a ball around and picking stuff up in the games' hyper-stylized, psychadelic world is a truly unique experience.