Gears of War
After a very long waiting, here we are taking care of Gears of War, sci-fi shooter by Epic Games (distributed by Microsoft) which has highly increased Xbox 360 sells. The PC version was waited for some time, so let’s not be lenghty and let’s proceed analyzing.
PLOT
Lots of reviews doesn’t explain the plot of this game good enough and describe it as unfinished, unfollowing or even non-existent. Everything looked clear playing the five acts composing the whole gamelife. Reason why we decided to split the plot in the five acts corresponding the scene’s acts.
WARNING: COMPLETE PLOT WITH FINAL.
Act 1: Ash – The game starts fourteen years after the Emergence Day, the former soldier Marcus Fenix is set free from the Maximum security Penitentiary of Jacinto by his best friend, Dominic Santiago (Dom), who needs Fenix’s help in the fight against the Locusts. Once escaped from the prison, they meet the rest of the Alpha Squad, now ended up with just two simple soldiers (Cole and Baird). With them, they find the “resonator”, a device that was projected to elaborate the underground tunnel net of the Locusts for the Solar Bomb. Here, Marcus takes control of the team (now called Delta Squad) with a sergeant degree and gets his first target: reach an Imulsion extraction building, which is ten kilometers from their position.
Act 2: Night is coming – On Dom’s suggestion, Delta Squad reaches Franklin (Dom’s pseudo-friend) to lend an APC and reach the mine quickly. Reached the refilling station where the “Junker” is, Marcus and Dom come back towards the camping of Stranded (being carefully to the Krylls, hateful murderers creatures that reject light) to take Cole and Braid back (who remained there to help troupes out against Locusts). Ater a tiring battle and a first, important, victory, the teams continues towards the extraction building.
Act 3: The beast’s belly – Reached the building, Delta Squad goes on foot to the abandoned plant and into the Imulsion extraction tunnels to reach the determined point to install the Resonator in. Once activated the timer, the team quickly comes back to the surface, where they’re soon informed from the General Quarter that notifies them that the collected info about the Resonator explosion are too limited to change direction to the train carrying the Solar Bomb. Anyway, a device found by Baird during your path already seems to contain a quite complete tunnel system map, and adding info about Marcus’ father and his house in the Academy of the East Barricade.
Act 4: The long coming back - Delta Squad is traveling on a Raven helicopter towards the Academy of the East Barricade, now ruled by Locusts. The team is released just outside the Academy. Cole and Baird find out another damaged APC and try to put it back to work while Marcus and Dom search the house for some missing information. They find, in the house basement, a hidden lab where, helped by their robot, Jack, download from the PCs the missing maps. Downloaded everything, they quickly escape inside the APC, squeaky avoiding a giant Locust (Brumak) armed with a missile launcher.
Act 5: Desperation – The team is now heading to the train station to get on the Tyro Pillar, an armoured freight train carrying the Solar Bomb on its head. Cole and Braid, attacked by Locusts, don’t manage to get on and Marcus and Dom find themselves alone facing General RAAM, guardian of the Solar Bomb. Once defeated the General, Marcus loads the information about tunnels in the Solar Bomb and activates it. Thanking the help of his team, who came and rescue him with a Raven helicopter, Dom escapes the train. The solar bomb detonates and destroys most of Locusts’ fortress. Hoffman’s voice announces victory but, after a while, an obsessing voice comes out, it’s the Locusts’ queen’s voice….. Locusts haven’t totally been annihilated and are preparing for the counterattack. The battle goes on.
Gameplay and controls
In GOW, Single and Multiplayer modes perfectly jams together. GOW starts from the presumption that every battle can’t be fought by you (allowing a Rambo). If often happens that games like this see us facing hordes of enemies all by ourselves, but this is not reality. In GOW we’re always protected by our faithful friend, Dom, and we’re chief of a team composed by four very good elements. The story mode can even be played in a co-op mode by two players connected in a LAN. This is an absolute innovative element. We did played other titles like GRAW and Rainbow Six in multiplayer and co-op mode, but the story was always developed differently from the single player mode. Another interesting feature (already described) is the chance, during fighting, to hide behind something. From here, you can come out as long as you can to sharply shoot or you can simply let the gun come out, to shoot less accurately. Other fluid movements, like quickly moving from one repairing zone to another one, avoid shots on the run, shooting on the run, running on your knees, make the gameplay frenzied and enthusiastic in every moment of the game. To further improve the gameplay, the active reload of guns has been introduced. By quickly pushing twice the reloading button, you can get two results: a faster reload, a second even faster that gets bullets stronger, or, if you’ve been wrong about the pressure time of your button, your gun will misfire for some moments. In the Xbox 360 version, the controls mapping wasn’t that immediate. In the PC version, you’ll have the chance to choose between the 360 controller and the keyboard and mouse, that we suggest using.
There are several news in the multiplayer mode too. The maps are the same then in the console version, in addition of the King of the Hill mode, exclusive for this version, where players have to take control of a certain point and defend.... |
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Title: Universe At War: Earth Assault
Platform: PC
Release date: January 2008
Genre: Strategy
Author: zsinger
Vote: 7.6
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Universe at War: Earth appears to be, at first sight, an attempt to deliver and old style RTS game, with some innovations. Petroglyph developers have introduced three new alien races, two of which never seen before in RTS gaming.
Plot
“And the earth stands on the brink of destruction…” it’s the year 2012 and the alien forces called The Hierarchy have descended upon the planet earth destroying everything in their path. As human force prepare for strikes back, a new mysterious alien force arrives: the Novus. Novus are sentient machines whose only will is to destroy their nemesis, The Hierarchy. .... |
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