Treit and True:

Gears Co-Op: The Only Way to Fly

There have been games that have grasped the fundamental joy of cooperative experience firmly in a white-knuckled fist before, but none has done so quite like Gears of War®, where cooperative play is stressed in sequences throughout the game.

Marcus and Dom and a dynamite team.

Playing a game with a friend doesn't just make the Gears experience more fun, it actually makes it complete. To put it simply, playing Gears of War cooperatively (whether offline, through system link, or on Xbox Live®) is the way the game was intended to be played.

First, to be clear, Gears of War is a co-op game whether you play with a friend or not. Unlike Halo® 2, where the cooperative mode was simply two Master Chiefs running around, your buddy Dom is by your side the whole game, whether a friend controls him or the A.I. does.

There are several immediate benefits to playing through Gears of War cooperatively, and now that I've got several hours of co-op under my belt, it's time to relay just what you're missing out on if you're still playing alone.

Competence
The A in A.I. stands for Artificial for a reason. There is simply no replacing a real human partner, and the first time your friend saves you by yelling, "Behind you!" and giving you a precious second to blast a sneaky Locust, you'll realize just how handy they can be.

A couple of ravaged Boomers coming up.

Having a friend you can not only count on, but communicate with, changes the whole structure of the game experience. Fighting it out in the gory trenches against the relentless Locust Horde is even more immersive and intense when the experience is shared.

Revival
The ability to revive your teammate is certainly a sweet benefit when playing on Casual or Hardcore, but if you risk the aptly named Insane difficulty, it's damn near a necessity. When playing alone, you can revive your teammates, but if you get dropped, it's back to the checkpoint. Now you can support each other, and playing with an equally skilled player will save you a lot of reloads.

Where's Dom? You've been abandoned.

The Moments
More than any other game on Xbox 360™, Gears of War is filled with amazing moments that fans will be discussing for years, and they're far better when you share them. Whether it's the girlish scream your friend lets out when the Berserker first appears, the hysterical laughter echoing through your headset when they get their first chainsaw kill, the stunned silence at Lt. Kim's epic death sequence, or the long string of colorful epithets after getting smoked by RAAM for the umpteenth time, this game is much more enjoyable with a friend.

The Competitive Spirit
Though there is no competitive mechanic in the co-op mode, there is no questioning the competitive spirit that the game engenders. You don't want to be the one begging your friend to revive you, do you? At the same time, you desperately want to be the one who blasts a Locust just in time to save your partner, only to suggest, not so subtly, that he now owes you one. There is also a certain pride involved in being the first to spot a COG tag, or being the one who puts the finishing touches on a boss.

No one wants to be considered dead weight, and no game emphasizes that point more than Gears of War. It is, quite simply, the most refined cooperative experience I've had the pleasure of playing, and it only serves to demonstrate that a cooperative campaign can not only improve a game, but make it.

Article by Ryan Treit