Gears of War redux

Finished Gears of War this weekend. Some more thoughts following up on my previous commentary:

First off, I stand by my comment that it's a REALLY fun game. Probably the best fun I've had with an FPS game since Half Life 2. Better than HL2? Hmm... close, but for me, no. Probably a matter of taste.

HL2 had more story and more variety. Each chapter had a distinctly different feel. There was some of that in Gears, but less so. And there was very little story to it.

The Final boss was pretty lightweight once I figured out the technique to beat him. Mind you, I played through on casual. I've started playing through on hardcore now, which isn't hard now that I know how to play the game, but I'm not sure I want to play the thing the whole way through again. Hmm... chasing acheivements though... we'll see.

While the final boss was a bit of a let down, there were several episodes of the game that were first rate. The fight at the gas station, the "Alamo" battle, and some others were really fun. The bit driving in the car with the spotlight felt a bit contrived and very 'mechanical' (the suspension of disbeleif was broken completely for me), maybe it's a bit better in co-op where you wouldn't have to swap?

Anyhow, it's definitely worth the spend. Good fun.

Also played through most of Cloning Clyde on XLA. Bit late in getting to this one. It's a fun little platform/puzzler.