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RTTP: Gears of War 1

Himuro

Member
This was played on original Xbox 360 hardware, not the remake version.

I originally got this on my original Xbox 360 in 2007 or 2008. I never completed it. At the time I just didn't "get" it and vastly preferred Uncharted 1 and especially 2.

14 years since I last played it (last achievement was Chapter 3 acquired in 2008) I decided to give it another try and loved it. At first I found the game extremely difficult on the Hardcore difficult and didn't feel slighted in any way in the necessity to switch to Casual mode, which I completed the game upon. At first I felt the game was a bit too slow, but the more I went through the game the better I got, to the point where by end game I was consistently in the zone and took out enemies with ease. What was originally a slow game of hide and seek became an aggressive shooter of pressing the advantage and taking over a map like a chess board. After completing the game on Casual I ended up starting another game on Hardcore and I got through a good portion of the game in one sitting. The design ethos of Gears forces the player to get good to continue, even on Casual, and especially on Solo mode.

What a punishing game because it's fit for such a punishing world.

I was beyond impressed with the storytelling. Despite the amount of dialogue it's pretty minimalist in its storytelling. It helps enrich the world of Gears often by showing rather than telling and with minimal cutscenes. We witness personally the beautiful turned ugly as beautiful architecture and works of art of an old, perished society lays in ruins. And yet through all of that, hope remains. Those crumbled buildings sometimes have been taken back my nature, filled with vines, trees, and twigs. It gives hope to a hopeless situation that the fight for humanity can continue despite the cracks, despite the losses, despite everything. Even Marcus, a man left to rot and falsely accused of a crime, gets a chance to redeem himself and save his own humanity. In spite of all the darkness, and Gears is a dark game, there's hope and light at the end of the tunnel. The characters themselves are well written from the unfortunate Carmine and Kim, to Baird, Cole, Dom, and Marcus' as the brotherhood and friendship the four of them experience gets deeper and deeper. I particularly like how the game starts out with tension between Baird and Marcus. Baird does not, even in the least bit, like Marcus. You think Baird is kind of an overbearing asshole. But by the end of the game Marcus is covering for Baird and trying to help him recover mentally when he's scared shitless. The bond these two have that starts out bad but seemingly grows more tight knit by end is natural and flawless. I like their relationship even more than Dom and Marcus'.

Originally at the time of release I hated the visuals, but now understood and came to even appreciate the heavy contrast, low key visual style. Even the character designs which I thought were too much when I first played it fell into the category of "cool" for me now. I have no idea how my tastes changed this wildly but I somehow felt the original Gears to be a breathe of fresh air. No stupid side quests, no stupid large worlds, no stupid filler. Just all action, all killer. Even more impressive was the sound design and overall soundtrack. Holy shit.



The presentation is general is just cool as fuck, from Marcus low voiced grunts, to the way he picks up weapons off the floor and flips his rollout. "Sweet", he says as he picks up a pile of nades. Gears of War is such a fucking cool game in how it looks, how it sounds, and how it feels.

My favorite Act was Act III where they enter the mines. Just an overall flawless Act in terms of level design, enemy encounter design, and sound.

If there were any flaws for Gears I'd say that the friendly AI can be absolutely braindead dumb even when following "orders".

Another flaw. To me there's Knowledge games and Skill games. Some games hinge themselves on knowledge more than technical skill, while others reward skill over knowledge. Most games are hybrids of the two but most games lean one way or the other. I would say Halo is a skill-based game in the campaign because it's such an intuitive experience but I would label Gears a knowledge-based game sometimes to its detriment. For example there's boss fights like the Corpser on Act III. I kept shooting its belly but nothing was happening. I didn't realize you had to shoot its belly *and* its mouth and that the goal was to push the boss backwards into the ooze in a Metroid like fashion.



Another difficulty was the final boss fight. RAAM, the final boss is a complete bullet sponge. I had no idea how I was supposed to beat him and he just kept on going. The awful friendly AI of Dom rushing towards him within melee range outright didn't help things. It wasn't until I found out I could load the torque while in cover and then shoot that I was able to beat him. Certain other encounters are much better with knowing how to deal with them rather than rely on intuition. It's not an entirely bad thing because it lends to replay value and makes things better on replays, but it *is* a niggle.

This is a nitpick but I absolutely abhor the grenades in Grenades, from the fact they're slow you have to aim a particular way, to their very specific throw range. Hopefully grenades improve in future titles.

Looking forwards to Gears 2, which is apparently amazing.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Really enjoyed this one back in the day when it got released on PC.

We were given 4 and 5, but got robbed of 2 and 3 which seem to be the much superior games. Still mad.
 

Himuro

Member
Gears 2/3 was the pinnacle for me, never managed to finish 1. General RAAM was just too much.
Bring a torque and save it for the boss fight with RAAM. If you don't have one, before fighting him there's a torque and some nades in the checkpoint room. Get the torque and some ammo. When facing him load up the torque while in cover, shoot him and the Kryll shield will disperse. Load up again, shoot him in the head. Repeat. If you didn't pick up a torque up earlier than the room before the boss fight you may find yourself out of ammo, at that point nade him. There's a point where he gets really close to the cover you're hiding under. If you weakened him by then one or two nades over the shoulder will do.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
It set the bar visually and the gameplay was and still is great.

I prefer the newer ones though they feel more fleshed out and have better visuals.

It was also a great time for Xbox, games like gears of war were the best there was, especially in the TPS genre.
 
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Lady Jane

Banned
Fun facts about Gears of War's POV that CliffyB went into in an interview
  • The over-the-shoulder angle was originally done only while in hip-height cover only and then it switches back to a traditional view. During testing, the camera didn't switch while out-of-cover and they liked it and kept it.
  • The character being off to the side instead of the center of the screen was a request from Microsoft so it can look better on the, at the time, new widescreen TV's in store displays.
 
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Beer Baelly

Al Pachinko, Konami President
james franco sandwich GIF


The remake sucks
 

sinnergy

Member
Finished the whole game on insane back in the day alone including Raam took me a million times 😰
 
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It's amazing to me how vividly they constructed the world of Sera with so little 'for the audience' dialogue.
 
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Bragr

Banned
I also wanna replay this, and I also wanna plug in my old 360 and play it that way, for nostalgia's sake.

The brotherhood, the no-nonsense close-combat encounters, the macho-predator vibes. Gears and Halo were Xbox, it was their bread and butter, and they delivered on the single-player and the multiplayer front. Gears 2 Horde and Halo 3 slayer, I mean, it was top-of-the-shelf gaming. I miss those days when the 360 was on point.
 

WoJ

Member
I agree with most of this. I played Gears of War for the first time in late 2020 and loved it. I played Gears 2 earlier this year and liked it but found that I definitely prefer Gears 1.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Great game. My only complaint at the time is that there seemed to be a severe lack of a story. What was there was interesting but I don't remember any kind of detailed explanation as to what exactly was going on. I also thought it was incredibly short. my buddy and I finished it in coop and we were like, "WTF, that's it?" It was a damn fun playthrough though from what I remember, we played it in one sitting. I'll never forget my buddy's reaction when that blind enemy comes crashing through the wall at you. Dude let out such a little kid yelp, so funny.

Here's to you Gears of War, thanks for the memories.
UGJY86M.jpg
 

Himuro

Member
Great game. My only complaint at the time is that there seemed to be a severe lack of a story. What was there was interesting but I don't remember any kind of detailed explanation as to what exactly was going on. I also thought it was incredibly short. my buddy and I finished it in coop and we were like, "WTF, that's it?" It was a damn fun playthrough though from what I remember, we played it in one sitting. I'll never forget my buddy's reaction when that blind enemy comes crashing through the wall at you. Dude let out such a little kid yelp, so funny.

Here's to you Gears of War, thanks for the memories.
UGJY86M.jpg
The fact there's no detailed explanation is a benefit as the game forces you to use your imagination. The "lack of story" is a positive, in my view. Few cutscenes, little bullshit. Game lets you piece the story together with a crafty use of dialogue and environmental cues.
 

Jaybe

Member
I tried to play the Gears of War 1 Ultimate Edition a year back after a bunch Gears 5, but it was such a clunkier gameplay experience. I should have left it to nostalgia as I much enjoyed it when it was first released (the original 360 version).
 

Crew511A

Member
My Gears 2 data was corrupted on my account, so I couldn't finish the campaign, even if I deleted it and reinstalled everything. Apparently this happened to a lot of people.

Anyway, I envy someone who's playing through Gears 2 and 3 for the first time. So many jaw dropping story moments.
 
I replayed the original PC port a couple of months ago, still love it. Btw, you can buy Kane&Lynch on steam copy the serial key you get and use it to activate Gears of War on windows Live, got achievements and all working like a charm lol.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
The fact there's no detailed explanation is a benefit as the game forces you to use your imagination. The "lack of story" is a positive, in my view. Few cutscenes, little bullshit. Game lets you piece the story together with a crafty use of dialogue and environmental cues.
I agree for the mast part and I may have just missed cues within the game, that's why I said it was my only complaint at the time. I haven't played it since it launched and I never played any of the sequels. I mostly just remember Dom(?) being rescued from jail in the beginning and your black friend is a former NFL player, or some kind of star-athlete before the war. Just seemed like a cool post-apocalyptic world that I wanted to know more about. The banter between you and your buddy was great, love that feature.
 

Lady Jane

Banned
The fact there's no detailed explanation is a benefit as the game forces you to use your imagination. The "lack of story" is a positive, in my view. Few cutscenes, little bullshit. Game lets you piece the story together with a crafty use of dialogue and environmental cues.

AKA, world building with effort put in. 10-minute monologue pieces while you're walking as slow as a snail and 20 minutes worth of cutscenes before the first mission is over is lazy world building. It's a video game, not your book that you couldn't get published.
 
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Himuro

Member
AKA, world building with effort put in. 10-minute monologue pieces while you're walking as slow as a snail and 20 minutes worth of cutscenes before the first mission is over is lazy world building. It's a video game, not your book that you couldn't get published.
This is the oldschool method of game storytelling that has kind of been lost that only a few developers use these days.
 
I think I like Gears 1 campaign over Gears 2 but it's close. I heartily suggest starting 2 up. Gears 2 horde mode is still my favorite , simple and gritty as hell. Only "base building" you do is when you hit the 8th wave and try to fend off the Maulers so you can set up their shield .
 

WoJ

Member
AKA, world building with effort put in. 10-minute monologue pieces while you're walking as slow as a snail and 20 minutes worth of cutscenes before the first mission is over is lazy world building. It's a video game, not your book that you couldn't get published.

Yeah this right here. I think Gears 1 did a great job of world building with minimal dialogue. A couple standout moments to me were the areas around the stranded outpost. Pretty that whole arc of the game did a great job of really making the player feel the hopelessness and poverty of the world. I didn't need dialogue telling me how hopeless life was. I saw it.

And any section with the kryll did this as well. The danger they posed was so well shown to the player in a way that added to the lore of the world.

Gears 2 didn't do as well at this in my opinion.
 
I revisited this series in 2017, replayed 1 and 2 and finally got around to playing 3 and Judgement.

This was a great series that kinda feels like the culmination of what "video game" video games were up to that point, especially the second game, I always respected how they genuinely expected you to care about the story and characters as cheesy as it sometimes was and I love the genuine care put into it's world building, crafting a unique setting that wasn't the typical sci fi setting.

It's also an example of politics in games done right, the Iraq war satire is obvious but never gets in the way of the fun, unlike how things are done today.

That said I haven't been able to work up the interest in 4 and 5, the series felt like it said all it needed to say and with no Cliffy B guiding it, what's the point?
 
I revisited this series in 2017, replayed 1 and 2 and finally got around to playing 3 and Judgement.

This was a great series that kinda feels like the culmination of what "video game" video games were up to that point, especially the second game, I always respected how they genuinely expected you to care about the story and characters as cheesy as it sometimes was and I love the genuine care put into it's world building, crafting a unique setting that wasn't the typical sci fi setting.

It's also an example of politics in games done right, the Iraq war satire is obvious but never gets in the way of the fun, unlike how things are done today.

That said I haven't been able to work up the interest in 4 and 5, the series felt like it said all it needed to say and with no Cliffy B guiding it, what's the point?
 

Himuro

Member
I revisited this series in 2017, replayed 1 and 2 and finally got around to playing 3 and Judgement.

This was a great series that kinda feels like the culmination of what "video game" video games were up to that point, especially the second game, I always respected how they genuinely expected you to care about the story and characters as cheesy as it sometimes was and I love the genuine care put into it's world building, crafting a unique setting that wasn't the typical sci fi setting.

It's also an example of politics in games done right, the Iraq war satire is obvious but never gets in the way of the fun, unlike how things are done today.

That said I haven't been able to work up the interest in 4 and 5, the series felt like it said all it needed to say and with no Cliffy B guiding it, what's the point?
What exactly is Judgement and how is it?
 
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