Gears of War and the Gaming Industry

I’ve made no secret of my fondness for this game. The hype (and delays) for this game reached something of a fever-pitch over the last year, and usually, the end product can’t hope to live up to the anticipation.

But Gears of War does just that, and then some. I’ll spare the lenghty review, as there are plenty elsewhere. I’d like to focus on what this game does to audience expectations for the future. (In some circles, it’s called “raising the bar.” Meh.)

First off, if you haven’t read the Gamer’s Manifesto, go ahead and do so. I’ll wait.

The author makes a number of very good points about just how stale and rote game development has become. GOW fixes several of these, and what’s more, it erases any excuses for these things in future games.

First is the drunken-cavalry-charge school of enemy AI. In most games, you can charge right into the enemy ranks, only stopping to duck-and-cover long enough for your health to replenish. Not so in GOW. In fact, that’s the quickest route to getting killed. The enemies in this game are smart enough to use flanking techniques and cover to the same advantage you are, and each firefight takes patience and a bit of thought to get through.

The feeling of being hunted is palpable, and you get the feeling you’re not just advancing from cover, you’re actually taking your life in your own hands. You’re outnumbered and outgunned, and yes, reloading correctly counts.

The controls make this pretty much second-nature after practice. They’re not perfect, since the same button is mapped for running, dodging and diving for cover, but it’s a workable scheme nonetheless.

As far as point #3, the promotional art actually looks less vivid than the game itself. The original commercials were actually shot using the in-game engine, and although everything seems to be a monochromatic grey/beige/white washout at first, incredible amounts of detail become apparent during the rare moments when you actually get a chance to stop and look around.

The game also takes good advantage of the 360’s hard-drive, as loading times are almost non-existent, and two new maps were added for download last Wednesday. The “Raven Down” one is a bit weak, but the Sera Museum is wonderful. Thankfully, save-points are frequent and well spaced-out, something you’ll be really thankful for until you figure out how to kill the Beserkers.

There are still a few issues in the Manifesto that didn’t get fixed in GOW, however. The voice-acting is competent enough, but come on…this stuff makes Predator sound like Citizen Kane. What’s more, it’s so riddled with casual profanity as to steer it straight into MA territory, something the violence alone might not have earned.

There’s only the slightest hint of a backstory (which isn’t a big deal to me), but the overall atmosphere of exaggerated machismo can get a bit old. These guys are decked out in ludicrous armor, and they spout enough macho catch-phrases in five minutes to fill an entire Michael Bay movie. The only hint of a feminine presence comes from the offscreen voice of dispatcher Anya, who’s often presented as a redundant annoyance.

Oh, well. I guess you can’t win on every front. At least there’s not an abundance of crates.

I played Halo II for a bit this afternoon, and I was immediately struck by how primitive it feels after playing GOW. In other shooters, running feels like you’re moving a cursor over a map rather than real movement, and cover is rudimentary at best. Recoil doesn’t feel right, the weapons sound off, and let’s face it: from now on, I’ll always have a soft-spot in my heart for a rifle with a chainsaw bayonet.

Some things I’d like to see in the future, though:

• Destructible environments. It’s odd to expend this amount of ammo and not see walls and furniture disintegrate. I should be able to blow through that wall with a grenade and flank the enemy emplacements. Red Faction handled this well, as did last year’s Black.
• More open environments. Great as it is, GOW is still a shooter on rails, though it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Alternate routes ala Splinter Cell and Metal Gear would be a nice touch.
• Let’s get rid of cut-scenes altogther. A game with such little plot doesn’t need intersticial cinemas to keep things moving. If anything, it kills pacing.

Granted, the cut-scenes are done with the game engine, so they don’t look different than the rest of the game, but I still could do without them.

That said, it’s easy to look for faults in a game like this. After all, the better something is, the more tempting it is to look for the weak spots. And Gears of War is quite good, indeed. In fact, its merits are such that, if they don’t live up to these standards, future shooters will just end up feeling antiquated.

While we’re on the subject, here are a few things I’d like to add to the Manifesto:

• Let’s all agree to get rid of random encounters in RPG’s altogether. We’ve known since Chrono Trigger that games can be just as enjoyable and rewarding (if not so) without them. The whole practice is cheap, and it feels like an unneccesary attempt to make the game seem longer. Nothing smarts worse than surviving a huge boss battle with only a few hit points, when, on your way out, you get finished off by a band of roving cave rats you couldn’t avoid.
• I’d like to see an alternative to linear “levelling up.” This is a throwback to the pencil-and-paper RPG’s of the 1970’s, people. It’s time to move on and come up with a more novel system of advancement. Better yet, let’s ask ourselves if an advancement system is really needed in the first place.
• Let’s have a realistic method of depicting player damage. No, really. I find it very hard to believe that when Private Kowalski loses his leg to a Nazi grenade, all he has to do is make his way to a “health” icon, and he’s back in action. I’m not saying that our honorable soldier should be taken out of the game, but c’mon, most WWII games (of which there are currently 13,468 for the current consoles) strive for high levels of realism in every other area.
• Speaking of realism, there’s the matter of ammunition. American GI’s in WWII carried 1911’s. Those are chambered for the .45ACP round. You cannot kill a German soldier, pick up the ammo from his 9mm Luger and expect it to work in your gun. I love this in shooters: every enemy you shoot is carrying the exact same type and caliber weapon you happen to be at the moment. Talk about convenient! Players should be given the choice of picking up the enemy’s weapon or continuing with whatever they have on hand.

One last thing on the subject of ammo. I find it hard to believe that the Nazis/Soviets/Space Demons just leave boxes of ammo and ordnance laying around in convenient spots. In the real world, this stuff is locked safely away. Again, I know it’s convenient to “find” ammo lying around (especially when it’s the exact kind you need at the moment), but trust me, that just doesn’t happen in real life.