Gears of War- Final Play- Multiplayer Mayhem

“Oh my god, dude look at him!”
“Turn around man!”
“No no no no noooooooo”
“He’s so dead!”
(a revving chainsaw can be heard)
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,”

Gears of War has many moments of this, lined up in quick succession. The multiplayer is quick like the rabbit in the race with the tortoise, but, unfortunately, fails to win the race, as well. There seemed to be so much time and care taken in creating the story, the characters, the back story, and the landscapes of Sera yet, sadly, there seemed to be little time taken to create a truly excellent multiplayer experience.

Fortunately for gamers everywhere you can find every high resolution texture, and every nuance of ambience that was incorporated into the single player story. Even the action is fast and furious. Level designs are superb, and there is not a dull map at all. You can choose any of the main characters from throughout the story for multiplayer and enjoy the game in a COG vs. Locust deathmatch. Although the multiplayer has all of this going for it, it still cannot overcome the lacking gameplay modes or an online community starved for the ability to play with friends.

First and foremost, Xbox Live became a staple of my online gaming community mostly because of the ease of Halo 2. I could log on to Halo 2’s matchmaking service, create a party and invite my friends. We could play with each other either against other teams or just together as if we were playing on the same Xbox. It was easy and we could enjoy every facet of the multiplayer experience together except for Story mode. The absence of story mode is something that can be overlooked, and frankly is not something that will make or break an online game.

Most games don’t offer anything except the adversarial style of gameplay that is included with Gears. These types of games often lead towards group style of play, such as squad on squad games. Gears’ online play works very well with squads of players working together while fighting; and most of my fun was experienced with groups of guys who would chat and talk strategy as we were running around looking for the enemy. Unfortunately, with NO squad support at all I found myself forced to enjoy it without my friends. Microsoft needs to require all Live games to include squad support in all their games, or at least to include the party feature of Halo 2 to allow for a more effective online gaming experience.

It is nearly impossible for me to coordinate an online session with more than one person. Actually I only tried with one other person and we were forced to coordinate in a voice chat channel (which only holds myself and one person) while we searched for matches that we could join. Upon finding the match we joined it and proceeded to add ourselves to a team. This is absolutely unacceptable when multiplayer gaming. Trying to get four of my friends into a ranked match should not be this hard, or rather impossible. This is next-generation multiplayer gaming we are talking about. It does not feel like next-generation gaming. It feels like we are still in the stone-age of multiplayer gaming.

The multiplayer experience is not completely bad. The gameplay from single player moves flawlessly through to the multiplayer section and in a talkative room there is plenty of laughing, joking around and oooohhh’s as people get stuck, sniped, chainsawed and turned into puddles of goo on the map. With all the available cover points on each map that are placed so well that you can sit back and watch people using the swat turn and the roadie running manuevers as they move from cover to cover. It becomes a huge ballet. Just like watching two boxers bob and weave to avoid hits and try to stay on top. I found the first time I stuck a frag grenade to an unsuspecting player as he ran by that there was a true feeling of accomplishment. Right from the get-go the multiplayer experience is there. There are plenty of well designed maps to keep you playing but the lack of game modes is what really hurts the freshness of the game. Warzone, Execution and Assassination are the three game types available.

Warzone is team deathmatch with the winning team being the team that has people left standing. It is possible to revive teammates as long as they are only ‘downed’ and not finished off. A ‘downed’ person is someone who has taken significant damage to place them on their knees in a vulnerable position. Similar to Condemned, Gears offers several context sensitive finishing moves such as curb stomping and executing the opponent. These moves are accomplished by standing near the downed person by either pressing the ‘x’ (curb stomp) or by performing a headshot (execution).

Warzone and Execution are identical save for one difference. In Execution the only way to score a kill is by using one of the close range special kills. If one of those is not performed the enemy team will not die, they will just revive and the match will continue on. I found that this game type adds a little bit more strategy if the two sides are working together as a team

Much to my dismay, only two of the gametypes (Warzone, and Execution) are played while Assassination is impossible to find games for or get anyone to play. In Assassination one player is made the ‘leader’. A team wins by assassinating the other team’s leader. This does not seem all that hard, but the only way to pick up the weapons that are not strapped to your back is for the leader to pick them up first. This brings a level of strategy and teamwork to the gametype that one can only imagine the fun of because it seems never to be played. I was unable to find any Assassination games on Live.

Gears is a game that has so much going for it visually and gameplay wise that it is a game that I won’t soon forget, nor ever trade or sell. The co-op and story modes are so well done that I can play them with friends for a long time. I will avoid multiplayer until some new content is released, hopefully adding game modes, 8 vs 8 games, squad support and some new maps. Historically, Epic has provided extensive post-release support for their Unreal franchise and I expect more of the same with Gears. And, CliffyB, if you read this, I want an assault game mode. Assualt was pure fun on Unreal Tournament 2k4. That’s it for my take on Gears, which I’ll try and update if something significant is added via the Xbox Live Marketplace. As my farewell I will leave you with a Gears inspired poem:

The sky is dark,
The world is grey,
Everythings gone,
The Locusts will pay.

They came from the ground,
On a mission of terror,
Killed off my people,
To take over Sera.

I won’t let that happen,
I’m here and will fight,
I will not give up,
Just out of spite.

I’ll show you my gun,
He’ll treat you quite nice,
I know he’ll spit fire,
To turn you to ice.

It’s okay to be scared,
I’m not like most men,
Cause once you find Hell,
You’ll meet me again.

Happy gaming!

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