Getting hands on the Gears of War

And such bloody hands they are, belonging to the UK-based Pro-G. “Bloody” not only because it’s a quintessential British expression, but probably because of all that chainsawing going on.

Yes, the first thing we’ll talk about in Pro-G‘s multiplayer hands-on is the bloody chainsaw. It’s the secondary weapon of the assault rifle. In fact, all weaps on the field have a secondary fire option, activated with the B button. A useful function as you’ll only carry two front-line weapons, a sidearm and grenades, like Halo.

Enough about the bloody weapons, let’s get on with movement on the field. Watch any of our previous game videos, and you’ll notice that Gears of Waris a TPS and an over the shoulder, as opposed to an FPS. One advantage is that it affords the player a greater view of the whole scene, quite useful since you can also exploit cover realistically in Gears.

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Pre-Order: [Gears of War]

And such bloody hands they are, belonging to the UK-based Pro-G. “Bloody” not only because it’s a quintessential British expression, but probably because of all that chainsawing going on.

Yes, the first thing we’ll talk about in Pro-G‘s multiplayer hands-on is the bloody chainsaw. It’s the secondary weapon of the assault rifle. In fact, all weaps on the field have a secondary fire option, activated with the B button. A useful function as you’ll only carry two front-line weapons, a sidearm and grenades, like Halo.

Enough about the bloody weapons, let’s get on with movement on the field. Watch any of our previous game videos, and you’ll notice that Gears of War is a TPS and an over the shoulder, as opposed to an FPS. One advantage is that it affords the player a greater view of the whole scene, quite useful since you can also exploit cover realistically in Gears.

Holding the A button would, in most cases, cause your character to sprint, but it’s also used to interact with environmental cover. Gears of War doesn’t play like Halo, says Pro-G. It’s a very punishing tactical shooter. Run around thinking you’ll avoid all the enemy fire and you’ll be eating that fire after three steps. Instead, you have to think along the lines of Full Spectrum Warrior or Ghost Recon: cover, suppress-fire or snipe-fire, move, rinse, repeat.

So exploit that cover. When you’re ducking behind a low wall, you can press A to vault over it quickly. If you’re near another piece of cover, press A to dive to its safe embrace. While in cover, you can fire suppressive – and blind – fire to keep the enemy’s heads down. Or hold down the L trigger to pop up and aim carefully for some headshots – and risk receiving one of your own. Pro-G appreciated this depth of tactical control. We think it plain rocks.

GoW goes one gear further and adds a couple of minigames to the mix, designed around the “mundane” actions you perform in the battlefield. When reloading, press a button at the prompt and you will speed up the reload, bringing your weapon to bear faster that the other guy. When you’re “bleeding out” (as Epic Games calls it), incapacitated and waiting for a teammate to revive you, fight for your life, tapping the A button repeatedly to keep your heart pumping.

That’s ’bout it for Pro-G’s hands-on preview. Controls and gameplay look pretty solid, and we all know about the graphics. Still, Pro-G’s reserving final judgement on the title until it’s launch. “Whether it’s got that extra something to make the difference between a good game and a truly great one is something we’ll have to wait to find out.” On the plus side, they find it a good, well-thought-out game that isn’t one of those also-ran FPS titles that “have played like complete dogs”.

To us, that makes Gears of War, at the very least, a bloody good title to look forward to.

Pre-Order: [Gears of War]