Gears of War is a game series you are likely farmiliar with, even if that familiarity is only in passing.
Personally speaking, I was introduced to GOW when I was actually quite young, with the release of the Xbox One.
I played through Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and was able to get all the way up to the final boss fight, though I never completed it (more on that later).
Though I remember a lot about the game, I hadn't played it in at least 4-5 years.
It was put back in my memory be the recent release of Gears of War: Reloaded, which is at this point the only way you can obtain the
original Gears of War through platforms like Steam (Which I am persoanlly a user of). I saw a video that compared all three versions of Gears of War,
that being the original from 2006, the Ultimate Edition, and Reloaded.
Something that I found quite disturbing was the lack of atmosphere that the remakes possessed compared to the 2006 counterpart.
Though I still think the Ultimate Edition is pretty good, I decided to give the original 2006 release a try using good old emulation (shoutout Xenia!)
Off the jump, one of the things that I absolutely love about a lot of games from the 2000's is that they weren't afraid of having edge.
Games like this and Twisted Metal: Black could almost be considered horror games, they were relentlessly grimy and atmospheric.
I have always been an edgelord, so the darker themes in games like this appeal to me a lot, though I acknowledge that this is not the case for everyone.
The graphics are amazing for the time, and the voice acting is high-tier throughout.
This game would go on to popularize the cover shooter genre, which would remain as a trend for almost a decade.
My personal favorite game series of all time, Max Payne, even adopted some cover shooter elements for Max Payne 3.
Another thing I dearly miss about this era of gaming is that games were addictive not because of predatory monetization schemes
or other manipulative tactics, but because they were genuinely fun.
Despite having a pretty simple gameplay loop (enter an area, take cover, kill locusts, rinse, repreat)
It is actually quite enthralling, and there are plenty of moments in which the game spices it up.
Unfortunately, since this game was so influential, many of the once-unique mechanics and moments are now considered cliche and boring
(such as the vehicle section or the turret section at the end of the game).
Personally, I think it is important to see a game as a product of its time and appreciate it for what it is, so I look past graphical limitations and dated mechanics.
One particularly unique thing I love about this game is the reload mechanic.
You read that right, this game manages to make reloading fun!
Instead of just pressing a button and watching the animation, the game will put a meter on the HUD with a higlighted segment when you reload.
If you hit the reload button again when the meter hits the highlighted segment, you will get an ultra fast reload and a damage boost for your weapon.
If you miss it, your weapon will jam.
It seems like a small thing but it goes a long way in making the game more enjoyable.
The story of this game is shrouded in mystery, with a lot of open ends even by the game's conclusion.
The game's story begs more questions than it answers. What happened to Earth?
Why is Marcus (the main character) in prison at the start of the game?
Another character mentions him being a "traitor", but exactly what he did is not ever elaborated on.
Perhaps there is something that I am missing out on, but the focus is on the gameplay rather than the story.
Though this game is in a lot of ways fun, there is one moment that I think ABOSULUTELY SUCKED. That being the final boss, General Ramm.
Where do I even begin? I mentioned earlier that this was the point I could never complete back when I first played this game many years ago.
Here's the situation with him: you're on a moving train, an extrmely narrow area and not many places to run
Ramm's got a machine gun and has a protective layer of Kryll(bat-like creatures)
that protect him from your gun fire. The only way I was able to beat him after what felt like dozens of tries
was to use the torque bow to eliminate his protective layer of kryll
and then use the sniper rifle to headshot him, along with a couple of lucky grenade throws.
If you cannot tell, I find this boss absolutely insufferable,
and the unforunante part is that his boss is so annoying that beating him doesn't even feel satisfying, rather it just feels like I got lucky.
That being said, I STILL GOT THE BASTARD!!!
Other than that, there's only a couple of other things I found annoying.
The save points in this game are spread pretty far apart, so sometimes dying once means that you lose up to 15-20 minutes worth of progress.
I completed this game on insane, needless to say this game got on my nerves a couple of times...
In a way, I guess it added to the difficulty. Still annoying though.
Also, though the characters are mostly fantastic (Cole in particular is hilarious), Baird's attidude really pisses me off.
Smug smartass characters can have their moments but he irritated me more than anything.
Overall, Gears of War is a fantastic game worth checking out, if you are to play it I would recommend using Xenia Canary with the Xenia Manager
along with the appropriate patches, which are provided by the manager (though you have to turn them on manually).