Gears of War Niggles

[Ian(not Ian)]

It's Emergence Day - Woohoo!!

Without a doubt GoW is my GOTY. I just love the way it all fits together and haven't played anything else since last Friday when VG+ came up with the goods. Even a great game such as this though will bring some issues to the table with.
You cant please all of the people all of the time. Even me.

->Open Spoiler<-

1st niggle :- Why cant I have saved checkpoints for my single player campaign and my co-op campaign? Is it so hard to do? This issue reared up when I reached an impass in single player, as it happened it was literally right at the end of chapter 4, though I didn't know how close I was to ending the chapter at the time.
I then decided to start a co-op with my lad only to be told I'd lose my checkpoint for the single player game. I thought long and hard, but went for it anyhoo as I was dead keen to play co-op. Should I now decide to go back to single player I'd be forced to redo all of chapter 4!! All for the sake of a simple savegame.

I'll remove the spoiler tags in a few days.

[Wools]

Any game will have sticking points though, no game can be perfect. Halo had frame-rate issues, Mario 64 had a slow camera, Half Life 2 is over to quick, Resi 4's castle level design is repetative... Fade to black etc.

Although Gears of War is not to my taste I can't question that it looks brillant in some areas, so let's not dismiss it just yet! Just play the game!

[VR46]

The single game save is a pain in the ass yes.
Don't know why they've done it that way.

[Bleeders]

I would agree that the single-save sysetm can be initially irritating, however, once you've burned through it once, you can always revist the last "co-op" saved point by "Loading Last Chapter".

[Yoshimax]

I'm only playing co-op with my bud so it's not a problem for me Once we're done on hardcore we'll switch to insane with him being Marcus and me as Dom.

The game is intended for co-op play so that may go some way to explaining it though I do agree it's a bit silly in this day & age.

But then, you've missed a bigger quirk (imo) - the inability to switch the game-mode in Versus games - You have to quit and restart the lobby. I expect this to be fixed quickstyle via a patch though.

[MattyD]

Having to watch the cutscenes each time you die is grating on my nerves already too and I only got it this-morning. But that's just picking holes, man! This game gave me shivers when I turned it on, it looks that good!

[Yoshimax]

Stop dying This is where the co-op design shines through.

[huxley]

^ agreed mate, makes for good team play.

[VR46]

Having to watch the cutscenes each time you die is grating on my nerves already too and I only got it this-morning. But that's just picking holes, man! This game gave me shivers when I turned it on, it looks that good!

Press "X" to skip the cut-scenes \o/

[NekoFever]

I haven't played co-op yet so I can't say whether or not this is an annoyance, but I can't see it being a huge problem when there are so many chapters to each act. Individually they don't take long to play through.

One thing I do need to try is the

->Open Spoiler<-

Beserker fight

in co-op. That was brilliant in single player and it must be great with two of you trying to bait it.

In any case, just be thankful this isn't Halo co-op and they've actually got it online

[Crisp_Rapper]

the camera controls are ass backwards... the x axis could do with an 'invert' option even though i've spent the last 2 hours un-learning everything other games have taught me.

this'll make it awkward as **** to play any other 3rd person games now.

[drob4]

the camera controls are ass backwards... the x axis could do with an 'invert' option even though i've spent the last 2 hours un-learning everything other games have taught me.

this'll make it awkward as **** to play any other 3rd person games now.

Couldn't agree more - I'm coming to this game after spending hour upon hour on Okami (which uses an inverted x axis) and am really struggling. Is this problem not more widespread ????

[Uli]

ok Ian, here's my list of "niggles" (so far):

1. visuals
- texture pop-in
- frame rate drops
- high levels of clipping
- fully scripted (hey, where's my weapon gone?) cutscenes

2. sound and mixing
- missing FX (e.g. water, ammo shells)
- all dialogues come through the center channel

3. gameplay
- sub-optimal controls
- no flexible camera
- controls/buttons not configurable
- grenade aiming is a pain in the ass due to lack of a proper camera view
- unexciting fighting in some places (e.g. chapter 3 - cave)

4. story
- most of all absent


to be continued...

[Concept]

Aren't cut-scenes by definition scripted? :P

I haven't experienced any more clipping than a normal first or third person game, and I'll take a bit of texture pop-in (we're not talking anywhere Halo 2/PGR 3 levels) for the sheer quality of the visuals on display.

Disagree on almost every point on the gameplay list (act three was my favourite level in the game). Agree on the story though.

[Concrete donkey]

Couldn't agree more - I'm coming to this game after spending hour upon hour on Okami (which uses an inverted x axis) and am really struggling. Is this problem not more widespread ????

Yeah. I'm exactly the same. After hours of playing Okami, the Gears of War camera made it very akward to play. For now, I'm going to leave it alone and focus on FFXII and Okami instead.