Gears of War

Gears of War

Gears of War has been my favorite game since it’s first release in 2006. It was a relatively unheard of, well at least I hadn’t heard of it until I saw a preview of the game on X-Play. From that first look I knew it was a game I had to play. Honestly I wasn’t that impressed by the preview that I saw. The graphics were spectacular, the gameplay looked very interesting, a definite purchase and play.

I have to admit I was originally a Halo fanboy. That is probably why I felt that way. I mean … the game was in third person … MADNESS!!! So I played Halo 2 religiously for about 2 months until November came. By then I had all but forgotten about Gears and fate somehow landed me in BestBuy 2 days after the game was released in the U.S. I had heard rumors of Gears being sold out in many stores, but somehow, this out of the way Best Buy had at least 6 copies just laying there. I also just happened to have a $50 gift card my friend Miriam had given me for my birthday in August. Lucky me!!!!

I quickly snatched the game, ran to the counter … but then remembered I was there with other people and I had originally gone to buy a microwave  with the gift card. Somehow I managed to convince Shannon to buy the microwave (seeing as we were and still are roomates), and I was free to purchase my game. I ran to the counter as quickly as I could while carrying a video game and a microwave, paid for everything ….. then had to wait for my friends to finish perusing Best Buy seeing as I had no other means of getting home, and public transportation while lugging around a brand new microwave at night didn’t seem very appealing.

About an hour or so later, I was back home, bristling with anticipation with my new game. Of course I had to plug in the microwave first to warm some food, but that didn’t take too long, and I was soon popping Gears of War into my 360.  The trademark Microsoft and Xbox 360 shows as the game starts up and I of course have to watch the intro movie. Wow!!! I was somewhat impressed. I quickly loaded the campaign and began my ongoing Gears addiction that I have yet to overcome. The campaign was incredible ….. the storyline was a bit cut and paste but I didn’t care. The gameplay had me hooked. Third person shooter … increbile!!! Kudos to Cliffy B and the Epic team for making a game that was, as the Doctor would put it, BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!

The real thing that got me  was the online multiplayer .. at first it was terrible. Absolutely terrible. I felt I had some measure of talent, but I could not for the life of me do anything right. My win/loss ratio was painful to look at, and my kill/loss ratio was even worse. Eventually I got the hang of it …. the host team wins … period. The host was God in Gears. Why? Because the host was almost always on a ridiculously poor connection. Every game was laggy. It lagged even in the loading screens and menus. Really annoying.

Eventually I began hosting my own games. I would host games all day long simply because I refused to play on someone else’s host. Not to mention all the glitchers out there who insisted on crab walking, weapon sliding or lag switching. It was only then could I enjoy Gears the way it was meant to played. Back then I had a 8/1MB internet connection and when I hosted everyone was happy. No complaints about lag from anyone. People all the way in the UK were complimenting my hostiness!! I felt it was my duty to provide a proper lag free server to play Gears of War.

So that is the culmination of my obession with Gears of War. The was only able to give up playing Gears of War when Gears of War 2 was released.