No Zytrons In Range

Gears of War takes place in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world which has been invaded by a race of burrowing aliens known as the Locust. After (presumably) getting their asses handed to them individually, various world governments band together in a Council Of Governments and create a special force to combat this threat, the eponymous Gears of War. Soldiers in this force are called Gears by the few civilians you encounter, thus the title. After bring broken out of prison, Marcus (the protagonist) and his handy robot pal join up with a squad of Gears for an action-packed day. Other characters in the squad include a once-famous football player, a blond mechanic whose name I don’t remember and am too lazy to look up, and Dom who’s basically a blank that exists only to provide a character for player two in co-op mode.

Together with your squad, you are tasked to rescue another squad engaged in a special mission to locate a mapping device which, it is hoped, can provide navigation data to the COG’s new weapon, the light-something (lancer?) bomb. When you finally find them, they are in no fighting condition, so you take on their mission yourself. Standard fare.

Being outside during the night in the post-apocolyptic setting is extremely dangerous, as the Locusts have recruited (genetically-engineered? Brought from their home planet?) killer bats which attack anything they find moving in the dark. In game terms, this means that if you step out of a pool of light you die almost instantly from attacks. This creates a few particularly challenging levels where the goal is to make a lit path to travel down while simultaneously under attack by Locust troopers using strategically-placed propane tanks. (And yes, the game is fair– the killer bats kill the Locust troops as well. So if they did genetically-engineer them, they did a particularly bad job.) The levels where you must travel through the streets at night are some of the best in the game.

There is also a vehicle level as well where you are tasked to drive an APC across a decrepit freeway to pick up the rest of your squad. The APC mounts a UV light to defend against killer bats, but it’s wussy battery can’t power both the engine and UV light at the same time. This produces an interesting situation in co-op games, as you might find yourself fighting with your partner over who gets to use the APC’s energy. It also demonstrates why we should stick with gasoline to power military vehicles.

And of course, Gears also includes the factory level and cave/mine level that seem to be required by law for every shooter made. And the moving train level, which is in about half of them.

Many of the levels include portions where your squad splits up. In single-player, you can choose which way to go and the squadmates go the other way. In co-op, each player takes a different path with one AI-controlled squadmate. These split paths sometimes allow you windows or openings through which you can assist your buddies by engaging the aliens attacking them. Or, if your buddies suck, through which you can be attacked by aliens they should have already killed.

The graphics, as you’d expect from a game intended to show off the new Unreal 3.0 engine and the new console generation, are gorgeous. The raining levels look incredible as the water flows over and reflects light from the rusted metal surfaces. I didn’t notice any clipping errors (a visual error where one object overlaps another) in the game, which is an indicator of the effort put into making the visuals impressive.

Gears of War modifies the usual shooter control scheme in favor of one that emphasizes cover in a way few games do and at the same time makes utilizing the cover simple. Left analog stick looks, and right analog stick moves. The A button is used as the general combat movement button. If held-down while in the open, A will make your soldier crouch and run. When pressed near cover, A will make your soldier dive behind the cover. From this position, you can fire blindly by pressing the right trigger, or peek out of cover to aim by pressing the left trigger. B is used to make melee attacks. With the most common automatic weapon, the B button activates the chainsaw. The X button is used to open doors, activate machinery, or pick up weapons or ammo, and the Y button will move your camera and zoom in to points of interest. If there is no point of interest where you are, Y will aim your camera towards your squadmate.

The right shoulder button is used to reload your weapon in the game. Gears has an interesting reloading system which can almost be considered a mini-game. Underneath each weapon is a dark bar with a lighter grey section, and a smaller white bar. When you tap the right shoulder button to begin the reload, an indicator begins moving across the bar. If you tap the shoulder button again while the indicator is over the lighter grey area, your reload will go flawlessly. If you tap the shoulder button while the indicator is over the white area, your reload will go flawlessly and the bullets you put into the weapon will do more damage to your enemies. If you press the shoulder button too early, you’ll fumble the reload and have to spend a few seconds unjamming your gun before using it again. This is especially devastating for the sniper weapons, as they already take a long time to load. Lastly, if you don’t press the shoulder button again at all, you perform a normal reload. The controls are easy to grasp with a few minutes training.

Bugs! The first release of Gears of War is pretty buggy, especially in co-op multiplayer mode. You’ll encounter situations where you are dead and alive at the same time, creating a comical breakdancing-like situation where you can turn your body, but not get up or move. There are some places where, if the two co-op players aren’t close enough together, a door will close behind the first and permanently separate them. I’m told that multiplayer has many game-ruining bugs in it as well, including one that lets you combat-run while shooting at the same time, but I haven’t played multiplayer myself to experience those.

That said, the single player, at least during my play, was bug-free and Microsoft seems intent on patching all the bugs as quickly as they can.

In summary, Gears of War is a great shooter marred only by some bugs during co-op gameplay. If you have an Xbox 360, you owe it to yourself to pick this game up. The amazing graphics should become the gold standard in short order as the Unreal 3.0 engine spreads to other game titles, and it will because Gears is a great introduction for it.

(Full disclosure: While working for Volt at Microsoft, I performed multiplayer testing on this title)

The story of Lost Planet is basically cliche #16, cliche #21 and cliche #47. That is to say, you are a specially enhanced soldier (#16) fighting to gain revenge for your father’s death (#21) against an evil corporation (#47). In addition to this, you are betrayed by a confidant (#3), also are the only survivor of a fight (#9), and have an incomplete memory of your own past (#11), on a planet where factions battle to control a powerful new energy source (#14). I haven’t yet finished the game, but I’m willing to wager cash that the chick wearing Clint Eastwood’s wardrobe from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) you battle will later turn out to be an ally. Which would be #25.

Ok, the numbers are made-up. The point is that either the writer of Lost Planet has never, ever seen any TV show or movie before and therefore thinks the script is brilliant, or that the script was written in about five minutes. Considering the plot holes, I’m liable to think the latter was more likely.

For instance, why is Wayne, the hero, so concerned about NEVEC killing all the snow pirates when he himself, not two missions before, had slaughtered dozens of snow pirates merely to steal their “trailer?” (A “trailer” is some kind of weird Japanese translation for “mobile command center,” but I’m only guessing since they talk about it having an engine of some sort but they never show an exterior shot of it.) And why is his name “Wayne”?

If Yuri has such a terrible reputation as an evil mad scientist, why doesn’t the brother-and-sister team that work with him (whose names I don’t remember and I don’t feel like looking up) know about it? Especially since he doesn’t even use a fake name!

How did they manage to build all these cities and, apparently, an automotive industry without ever realizing the planet was inhabited with giant heat-sucking bugs? Were the bugs hibernating for 50 years or something?

Oh, I also have a complaint that’s not story-related: The controls kind of suck. I don’t know why they couldn’t have used the standard-issue Halo controls that most console FPS games use, but it took me a long time to learn how to zoom the damned rifle (up arrow on D-pad). And they use very easy-to-press buttons for controls I almost never use. (Right shoulder and Left shoulder will quickly turn you 90 degrees. But the camera is fast enough that you never really need to use these, so I don’t get why they don’t use these buttons for reloading or something else used more often.)

Or maybe I’m just griping because I’ve reached the point in the game where you have to kill Green Eye, the giant bug boss who killed your daddy in the opening tutorial level. And you can’t get out of your mech because it’s too cold outside (apparently; even though you’re indoors.) And you have a time limit because there’s only enough energy to run your mech for a few minutes before it runs out of power and you die anyway.

So here’s what I like about the game. The ice-bound planet setting with frozen cities and vast snowy wastelands is great, and actually pretty vast– there are levels where a vehicle is required. The boss bugs are generally very well designed, cool-looking and (unlike bosses in a lot of other games) actually threatening. The wasp-guy killed me three times before I realized there was a third mech you could jump into after he destroyed your first two. The Batman-esque grappling hook you carry around is a lot of fun to use, and there’s a lot of destructibility in the environment.

In addition, the mechs are all really fun to pilot and well-designed, especially the one that can turn into a snowmobile. And the weapon system is great… there are hand-held weapons and mech-mounted weapons. You can carry the mech-mounted weapons, and even fire some of them, but you have to drop your other weapon first and you move real slow with them. The cool thing is that if you want your mech to have dual-chain guns, you can just pull a chain gun off another mech, drop it on the ground, then grab your mech, walk over it, and pick it up.

So all in all, Lost Planet is a pretty good game with a really lame story. Which is pretty much par for the course for most console FPS games. Hell, most FPS games period. But it still upsets me because, of all the low-hanging fruit, the story is the lowest hanging and it still hasn’t been plucked. Sad, really.

Oh, and make sure when you’re fighting bosses, to always hit the glowing yellow weak point (#38)!