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Gears of War PC
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 8th November 2007
Game of Gore
The gameplay for Gears PC isn’t fundamentally different to the Xbox 360 version. Which, and let me make this absolutely clear, is not A Bad Thing.That the game plays so similar to the original is a great thing and as we played through levels from the old game we struggled to notice if anything had changed. The game certainly feels exactly the same as it always did and in order to survive Marcus still has to make use of the levels, taking each objective inch by bloody inch.
Tactical violence is the still the flavour of the day it seems and players will still need to use cover to survive; ducking and rolling from behind one burned out car to another. It makes the game slow and drawn out, but also so beautifully fluid and realistic. You still have nobody else to blame if you die because you took too long to aim the throw of the grenade.
One of the interesting things about Gears, to me at least, is how players always praise the animation of the characters and comment on how fluid and seamless it feels when Marcus moves about. Yet, at the same time, Marcus actually has a very limited range of movement. He can’t jump on the spot and a lot of the available moves are context dependant – scripted based on his surroundings.
That’s true of the PC version too and does pose a few small (really, tiny) niggles. Talking about specific controls on a PC game is usually useless since players can remap controls however they want, using specific custom-made devices if they really want. Still, I’m going to discuss it anyway. It’s just the way I roll.
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By default the game uses a WASD control scheme, though it does seem like there’s prompt telling you to use a Xbox 360 controller every few minutes. The Q button Is used to view objectives, the number keys control weapon selection (still only four on offer at a time) and the E button provides interaction. If you want to unleash the fury of a melee attack then the F key is your friend, but for most of the time you’ll be hopping about with the space key.
Fairly standard, right? Right, except this is a format used in nearly all PC games and, in nearly all PC games nowadays, there is a capacity for characters to jump whenever they damn well please. There’s usually a torch or something as well, which would help since the game is very dark a lot of the time, but nevermind that.
Either way, I honestly can’t count the number of times I came up to a dead-end blocked off by a low wall or obstruction and tried to jump over it by pressing the space bar. It’s not so much a criticism of the game as a reminder for players that they are playing a console port and not an original PC game. After all, Epic has used the most sensible controls available to it and the system does make and awful lot of sense.
Even if the developers did want to integrate a jump command then it would mean drastically redesigning huge portions of the game, so in the end it’s a blessing it's been left alone – but it still is a constant reminder that the PC is only getting the Xbox 360’s sloppy seconds.
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That said, there are a few areas where PC gamers get the fresh, delicious cream of the crop and the game has a handful of chapters (I count five) which aren’t (and apparently never will be ) available to Xbox 360 gamers. These include the chance to fight the Brumak, a much hyped but never seen Locust boss.
It’s fairly obvious though that these new chapters have been added in to help bulk out the content of the PC version, giving gamers an incentive to buy this new version as well as the original and also drawing out the game. That’s OK though – the game does need a bit of expanding. It’s not because the original was lacking by any mean, but rather because of the more accurate control system of the PC version. See, console-boy, we have this thing called a ‘moose’…no, wait, that’s not right.
Whatever it’s called, it’s a hell of a lot easier to shoot with than a thumbstick and parts of the game which took me several attempts to get past on the 360 version were now being left behind on the first go. Leaning out of cover isn’t any safer and the game is well-balanced to compensate for the PC controls, but you can make sure you do a lot more damage in the time you have before an enemy reduces you to bits of gibbage.
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