Gears of War

So far Epic's third person action game is shaping up to be one of the more promising 360 titles.

While the majority of game titles at the geared towards Japanese gamers, that doesn't stop US publishers from trying peddle their wares as well. Today I had a chance to sit down for a preview of Microsoft and Epic Games' upcoming Xbox 360 title Gears of War. While the demo was fairly similar to the assets shown off at E3, the game was running on a more advanced development kit, giving everything that much more polish and shine.

For those of you not in the know, Gears of War takes place on a distant planet where mankind has come under attack by a mysterious subterranean race. After years of bloody combat, the planet has seemingly been thrown into ruins; cities lay destroyed, and humans have been scattered and forced to live and fight for their lives. You play a soldier in the human resistance and with the help of your close friend and ally, combat the vile creatures hell-bent on taking over your world.

While Epic Games may not have all that much experience in making third person perspective games, Gears of War shows that they clearly know what they're doing. This really comes to light when you start playing the game. I had the chance to play through the demo level and walked away completely impressed. Perhaps the most striking thing about the game is its visuals. The Xbox 360's 512MB of RAM allows Epic Games to create an action experience that's more cinematic than anything you've probably seen.

The character models for both the heroes and the enemies are incredibly detailed, right down to facial hair and eye and mouth movements. When fighting, you'll also be treated to some truly jaw-dropping visual effects, whether it's the realistic way a window shatters into thousands of shards of glass or the way bullets spark and ricochet off solid objects. While the game's unique sci-fi inspired story is definitely the main draw in Gears of War, it doesn't hurt that the game looks so darn good.

Thankfully, the game-play is as equally impressive as the top notch graphics. Your character can use almost every single in-game object for cover, whether it's a wall, fence, or even a demolish car. When you run up to an object, you'll automatically take cover behind it. While taking cover you can pop up for fine-tuned weapon aiming or simply press the fire button for some kick-ass blind firing. You're able to hold two main weapons at a time, in addition to a pistol and grenades. Switching armaments is mapped to the D-pad on the controller, making switches quick and painless.

The grenade system was probably the most impressive weapon feature shown in the demo and utilizes a unique targeting system that shows you exactly where a tossed grenade will land. When you pull out a grenade an arc will appear and will change pitch and direction as you aim your throw. You can even cook a grenade and the arc will decrease in length to show you where it will explode once you've thrown it. While the visuals for the grenade mechanic are still in a work in progress state, it's uniqueness should prove to be both fun and handy once you get in serious battles.

So far Gears of War is shaping up to be one of the most promising Xbox 360 titles that I've seen. While the game is still about halfway through its development cycle, Epic Games has seemingly put together quite an impressive array of features in little over a year and half. For fans of online play, the game will support co-op play, and even if you're playing the game by yourself, if you're connected to the Internet a friend can join in your game at any time.

Epic Games was a bit reluctant to divulge any other details about the co-op mode, but chances are they have some other surprises up their sleeves.

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