Gears of War (usually shortened Gears or GoW) is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games (the creators of the Unreal Tournament series) using Unreal Engine 3.0 technology and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Released for the Xbox 360 on November 7, 2006 in select stores in the United States, it was broadly released in major U.S. retailers on November 12, 2006. The game was released on November 17, 2006 in Europe outside of Germany, where Microsoft Game Studios did not publish the game after it was denied a rating. A limited collector's edition was also released, which included a disc of bonus content and an art book titled "Destroyed Beauty" that detailed much of the game's back-story.
Gears of War centers on the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. The player assumes the role of Marcus Fenix, a former prisoner and war-hardened soldier. In cooperative play, the second player plays as Fenix's friend and fellow soldier Dominic Santiago, or "Dom." The two soldiers join Delta Squad, and battle the Locust Horde through the course of the campaign.Gears of War takes place on a planet known as Sera, inhabited by the human survivors of a once-glorious civilization. For a century, however, they fought among themselves. Eventually they knew the hush of peace that blanketed the land. That was until the discovery of Imulsion, a phosphorescing, low-viscosity fluid. Discovered by an oil-exploration drill, it was unusable until a woman named Dr. Helen Cooper created the Lightmass Process, which enabled production of cheap energy. The world economy soon collapsed due to its extremely low price and the elimination for the need of hydrocarbon and nuclear fuel sources. The few countries that had an overabundance of Imulsion under their feet soon found themselves at war with nations who were not as lucky, and so began the Pendulum Wars. During the 79-year war, the Coalition of Ordered Governments, or COG, became a legitimate minor political party. Founded long before the Pendulum Wars by fanatical socialist Alexiy Desipich, the party operated according to an obscure world-government philosophy based on eight guiding principle values: Order, Diligence, Purity, Labor, Honor, Loyalty, Faith, and Humility.
Gears of War focuses primarily on the character Marcus Fenix and the Delta Squad and their encounters with the Locust Horde. Delta Squad's members fluctuate throughout the first act, consisting first of Min Young Kim, Carmine, Marcus Fenix and his best friend Dominic Santiago, but during the last four acts of the game, Delta Squad consists of Marcus, Dominic, Augustus "Cole Train" Cole, and Damon Baird. Players take control of Marcus Fenix, freshly rescued by Dominic Santiago from the Jacinto Maximum Security Penitentiary. All of the squad members are available for play during multiplayer games, along with Victor Hoffman.
Gameplay
Gears of War is a third-person "over-the-shoulder" shooter. In an interview with Cliff Bleszinski, lead developer for Epic Games, he cites three games that were the primary influences in the game's design including the third person perspective from Resident Evil 4 and the tactical-cover system from kill.switch. These design choices reflect themself in the gameplay, as Gears of War focuses mainly on sound team-based and cover-dependent tactics with limited weapons rather than brute force.
Epic Games placed emphasis on the importance of cover, and on the harder difficulty levels where being exposed to enemy fire for only a few seconds can result in death. While behind cover, players can choose to aim carefully with their weapons or use blind-fire to avoid subsequent damage from showing their heads from behind cover. Players have a wide assortment of rolling and cover maneuvers at their disposal with the press of a single button. During a roadie run, the camera lowers towards the ground and bobs considerably, as if the camera were being held by another person running behind the player.
Multiplayer
Gears of War supports both split-screen, regular multiplayer over Xbox Live and System Link. There are two multiplayer modes in Gears of War, Cooperative and Versus mode. Multiplayer also adds the "downed" state, which works similar to down comrades the player must help in the single-player missions. When a player has taken too much damage from enemy, their character becomes incapacitated instead of dying instantly. The player remains in this state until they bleed out and die, or are revived by their teammates. In Execution, a player can revive without the need for other players, however player can only be revived twice, and on the 3rd down they are dead instantly. However, in cases where the damage is severe as to cause mutilation or disintegration of the body (including chainsaw attacks, short range shotgun blasts, boomshot hits, sniper headshots, or grenade explosions), the player is killed instantly.
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