The Armchair Game Designer

Picking up on the trend of “reviewing games I already have”, number two on my list was Gears of War. If the video game world did random drug testing, I suspect this is the game that would test positive for steroid abuse. But much like A-Rod, the juice lets Gears swing for the fences. (The rest of the post is currently hiding behind cover.)

INTRO:

• Short credits, simple navigation and clear options for game type
• Immediate feeling of “badassery” (for lack of a more appropriate word); background is blood red with skulls, the first level is called “Ashes”… the tone is quickly set
• Introduced to gratuitously muscle-bound characters with gravelly voices
• These are our heroes: ‘Roided-up Space Marines… trite, but they make it work by giving a bit of variety between the four main characters

GETTING GOING:

• Choice to go through training or head right into the fight is a good (if somewhat immersion-killing) way to allow new players to train without forcing experienced players to do so
• There’s the feeling that you know exactly where to go, since you have a buddy in tow that knows the way, which is reassuring
• Since there is no damage HUD, the game shows how damage is displayed by forcing the player to take damage
• No time restraints in learning to cover: crucial game mechanic given a bit of a sandbox to work with to “work out the kinks”
• Feedback system is typical, but effective: if you succeed, you proceed
• However, it is very difficult to enforce this feedback for the cover mechanic, so the player proceeds whenever they feel they have picked up the skill; given how important the skill is, it should be jammed even further down the player’s throat that he/she needs to get this!
• Teaches flanking maneuvers
• Goals felt weak and MacGuffin-y; modern variation on the “Get Object of Great Power X to Destroy Big Meanie Y”
• Oddly abrupt difficulty curve; takes a while to ‘get’ the cover mechanic system, but once it clicks it’s all very straightforward from that point forward (for the most part)

FUN:

• Active reloading: makes an act we gamers take for granted into a high-stakes mini-game unto itself
• I feel like a badass: “THE Marcus Fenix?” one character asks; attempts are made to make the hero larger-than-life… but I don’t want to hear about the badass things I may have done, I want to do those badass things and prove that I am a badass, not come ready-made from the badass protagonist factory
• Levels designed specifically for flanking, teamwork; teamwork actually pays off and is rewarding
• Introduces a giant enemy very early, to show you that what you escape now you might get to (or be forced to!) kill later
• Cogs collection: unnecessary, but good for completionists while taking nothing fundamental away from gameplay
• Fun relationship with the environment, something one doesn’t often see to this degree in an action game; making friends with the environment is crucial for cover
• Driving sequence did not feel tacked-on; rather, it felt like much-needed closure and retaliation against the challenge of the previous level (the Kryll)
• On-a-rails sequence was brief enough and fast-paced enough to not overstay its welcome, and helped break up the normal flow of gameplay with something a bit specialized and fun

VISUALS:

• Good use of light and dark spots as a gameplay element (during the Kryll attacks); light, usually an environmental detail, becomes a weapon and darkness an enemy
• Hard to visually distinguish friend from (early) foe in certain frenetic gunfights, as they are built with similar silhouettes
• Gameplay moves seamlessly between room-to-room fighting and expansive outdoor (or underground) sequences
• Clichéd Grays and Browns; underground sequence could have added more colour and variety than just ‘bright yellow’… this is an alien habitat, let us see more than just generic stone tunnels; let a totally different environment creep in and present us with new gameplay challenges
• Use of ‘overlay’ health monitoring technique whose combination of fading and prominent screen position makes it  fairly easy to distinguish when a player is near death

INTELLIGENCE:

• Friendly AI helps you flank, but has a very limited set of order options, none of which I found myself using
• “Marcus, flank left”: clear hints early in the game of the best use of the level design; this hand-holding slowly fades away
• Ammo maximums are odd numbers, which seems like a very deliberate balancing choice
• Friendly AI sometimes invaluable, other times incredibly stupid or even buggy; Nothing zaps the player’s confidence in the value of his team more and takes a player out of the game faster than watching their computer-controlled teammate constantly die and be revived
• Game often gives you JUST enough cover to survive a firefight, ammo plentiful between firefights but often must conserve during fight, creating tension
• Enemies have no real personality, and are generic brutes
• First boss displays interesting personality in that it is intentionally stupid, yet a very predictable pattern that still sometimes feels like it’s playing against you when you feel as though you’re luring him correctly

IMMERSION:

• Kicking open every single door IS excessive, over-the-top, and unnecessary… but that’s the point: it’s completely excessive, but completely badass
• Always something going on around you… active world with stuff happening (helicopters falling, etc)… but this happens whether you’re looking at them or not; game mostly does a good job of making these ambient events happen in the direction you’re traveling
• These small events might be unnecessary, but they may certainly spark the interest of a passing friend, who them might decide to pick up the controller and play in the second-player spot
• Things quiet down significantly at times but still feel like a part of the experience
• HARDLY ANY LOAD TIMES! I continually forgot to check my watch when I was doing well, since the game moved from encounter to encounter almost seamlessly; strangely, only dying (and thus returning to the same part of the level) had noticeable load times
• The option of co-op brings up new opportunities for genuine teamwork, and changes up an otherwise linear experience
• Linear paths, with specific points allowing you to pick a path; feeling of being cheated out of a path, weak attempt at adding replay value
• Enough choice in the cover, but cover is often just ‘big piece of rock for obvious cover’; some clever modifications of this basic premise, such as the cover being circular, or becoming mobile (cars)
• Sometimes felt arbitrary when moving between/out of cover

CAMERA:

• Y button sole use: looking at cinematic events or important objects… good way to avoid getting lost or confused as to what to do next; however, in some instances it would give such a tiny window to view an event that by the time it was pressed, it would go back to focusing on teammates
• Camera a bit too close to the player character, since the player’s beefy frame takes up a considerable chunk of the screen, particularly when zoomed-in
• Looking ‘down the sights’ feels useful, necessary… blind shooting (without the left trigger) gives very little indication of where shots will land
• Standard over-the-shoulder is tried and true… connect with character’s physical presence while still allowing functional sight of the game area
• Camera sometimes takes control, rather than letting you control via the Y button

CONTROLS:

• Easy to see where squadmates are in relation to you
• Trigger/d-pad buttons always perform same function, letter-buttons always contextual (and more powerful for it)
• Key combinations for A + direction = cover mechanics are mostly intuitive… for instance, if I hold a certain direction and press A, I can expect the cover system to know what I want to do, since I am given a subtle visual interpretation of what is about to happen as well
• One area which feels broken is unresponsiveness or over-responsiveness when entering and exiting cover through movement alone; sometimes very unclear when you are close enough to ‘scuttle to cover’, and other times when moving the stick gently would pop me out of cover unintentionally
• LT for aim, RT for fire, bumper for reload works well in keeping all weapon-firing functions in the same part of the controller
• Grenade throwing made much more precise with the use of predictive path

IDEAS:

• Chainsaw bayonet good in concept, but works poorly as an up-close ‘crutch’
• In most games, grenade use is optional; Gears breaks cliché by making it a key strategy in destroying emergence holes
• Obviously, use of cover is what the game is known for innovating; yet, ambient cover is presented as well (light vs. darkness)
• Great co-op/social potential; always at least one teammate, so always pick-up-and-play 2-player
• Active reload is an excellent variation on the Prisoners’ Dilemma; If a player does not choose to use the Active Reload, then a neutral result (normal reload speed) occurs. If a player acts, and succeeds, then reload time is reduced, producing a positive net effect. If the player acts and fails, reload time increases, producing a worse effect than if the player had not tried at all. Brilliantly, the game places a second, more positive effect (higher damage output) right at the barrier of the negative ‘zone’, turning active reload into an ‘all or nothing’ type of equation; players need to constantly be asking themselves… is this situation worth the risk of jamming my gun?

MEMORY:

• Gears gets points for trying really hard to come up with original things to do with itself, but still felt like it was a one-trick pony at times.
• I could have used a bit more variety in the enemies, which seemed to come in three clichéd sizes: small (fast/weak), human-sized (moderate), and huge (slow/strong)
• Still, the levels showed enough variety to keep me interested
• Loads of fun to ‘figure out’ a battlefield like one would ‘learn’ a platformer level… the safe perches, the pitfalls, where to move and how to kill
• Huge, frantic gunfights with a team of badasses that you can generally count on
• A game I found myself wanting to play with a friend… game popularity spreads virally as one friend is introduced by another