A Thousand Miles for Gears of War

Well that is exactly what I did this past week, traveling from central Pennsylvania to Springfield, Massachusetts after winning a Gears of War® VIP package at Six Flags New England. It included entry to the Six Flags amusement park, a free concert by one of my favorite bands, Megadeth, and of course being one of the first to play Gears of War!

Three days before the event, I got an e-mail from a Microsoft Marketing Manager saying I won the two VIP passes. Naturally, I thought it was one of my friends playing a cruel joke. Even after confirming that the e-mail originated from the Microsoft servers, I still didn't believe it.

A huge banner greeted the VIP arcade visitors.

It was only when I sent the reply with my name and received confirmation did I start to believe it! Holy Frag-fest, I was going to play Gears!

Distance Problem
Just one little problem remained. To be precise, 414.4 problems remained. That's how many miles lay between me and Gears of War. If I drove it, it would take roughly seven hours. I wasn't keen on the idea of driving that far, and the gas alone would be a couple hundred dollars! But how could I pass up the opportunity?

Ultimately, I decided on a train ride which added three hours each way, but was much more comfortable. I packed some bags, called in some vacation time, and departed from Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday morning at 9:00 A.M. Ten hours later I got to Springfield, and crashed at my hotel for the night. The event didn't start until five in the afternoon, but I was up at dawn, too excited to sleep.

Eventually the time came to see if I was some part of a big very elaborate joke (I wouldn't believe it was real until I was killing the Locust Horde at Six Flags). I arrived at the park and made my way to the VIP check-in, and a few tense moments later, they gave me my admission ticket and my green VIP wristband.

Paydirt at the Arcade
I quickly made my way to the other end of the park, where the arcade had transformed into Gears of War central. They had two large monitors looping a trailer outside of the entrance, and about twenty Xbox 360™ stations setup in this small room. Most of the stations were easily accessible with just a couple squeezed into corners beside a wall. Now it was time to grab a controller, and get to what I came for …      

The Arcade was packed with eager players.

The first station was set up on a multiplayer map with four-on-four teams. The controls were easy to learn, and it didn't take too long to get the basics down. The cover dynamics were hard to get used to, but after playing for a little while they become easier. The cover system is mainly used by pressing the A button which puts you against the closest wall or ducks in behind different types of horizontal coverage.

After getting behind cover you can lay down blind covering fire, or aim and fire, with the latter leaving you exposed to enemy fire. From there you can simply get up and run, or quickly dive behind another cover spot. The new "roadie run" feature is nice, and gives you the sensation of watching a war film with the camera trailing. This allows you to sprint around the map, but is balanced by not allowing you to fire your weapon.

Weapons and Ammo
Speaking of weapons, you have four weapons selectable at any given time with the D-pad. The chainsaw on the machine gun was cool, but the shotgun soon became my favorite weapon, as it takes your (multi-player) opponent down in one shot. The grenades, which you use often, have a nice trajectory line that comes up, making it easier to target the emergence holes that you close while playing through.

You need to conserve your ammo, as I found myself running out quickly if you are just firing blindly at covered locusts. Re-loading your weapon takes on a new dimension with a fairly easy mini-game. Instead of just clicking a button once to reload, Gears has a reload meter that requires you to hit the button the second time for a faster reload (you can also gain extra damage inducing shells). If you miss, or don't press the button on time, you lose some precious seconds.

The graphics look amazing in high-definition.

The only thing that took some getting used to about the weapons setup was that you have to press the X button to pickup ammo or grenades. The first time Dom told me to lob a "grenade in there!" I didn't have them because when I walked over them, I didn't pick them up. More of a nuisance than anything else, but it would have been easier to have it automatically pick up what you need.

The graphics are, of course, amazing and the "look" feature focuses on certain key moments or objectives that immerse you in the game. The levels that we played were very nicely done and the environmental features were highly detailed. The movements were very fluid and taking down an opponent is very satisfying as sprays blood in every direction.

Megadeath Takes the Stage
After three hours I pulled myself away from the game long enough to catch the Megadeth concert. They had the area around the stage gated off so it was just bleacher seating. Overall, there were a couple hundred people there to see the half hour show.

Megadeath rocked the house.

They played a couple old songs ("Devil's Island," "Holy Wars") and two new ones including the Gears of War song they wrote. I could see diving through the cover spots blowing away locust hordes left and right to their new stuff. After the mini-concert I went back and played a few more games before they closed up shop.

I headed back to the hotel for a 6:00 A.M. train ride the next day. Overall, I had a great time and it was well worth the 20 hours I spent riding the train to and from the event.

Article by Allen (Max Risc 360), Xbox Users Group