I am about to do the unthinkable. I am about to utter ghastly words of sacriliege, the likes of which have never been heard before. My blasphemous cries will rouse anger, hatred, and condemnation from the entire world. I will be shunned by the gaming community. I will be flamed as an enemy by my entire 360 friendslist. I will become an outcast by my public declaration of hatred of Gears of War.
“Wtf!?” you cry. “It’s the most awesome Third Person Shooter out there, and one of the best 360 games!” Those I cannot disagree with. But if you’d have just been on a 4 man team that dropped to a 2 man team when the turncoat buggers discovered that the other 4 players play like world champions (I mean how else could they do that with the shotgun?) you’d feel the same way too. If this happened twice in a row, you’d be up in arms.
Now I am no n00b. I am on chapter 4 of insane difficulty of the campaign, which I think merits itself. I can active reload, and roll out of harm’s way at precisely the right moment, throw frags accurately and get the odd headshot. I also once on XBox Live took out the entire opposing team using only my chainsaw (yes I was trying for the achievement).
The problem with Gears of War’s Live games is that there’s no balancing. You can get put on a team of first timer French people (nothing’s worse than being on the losing team if you can’t tell your team mates that it’s because they’re n00bs) against a team of 4 professionals who spend their after-school lives doing this instead of homework. Gears of War Live should be redesigned to include a ranking system, and a redistribution system for if 2 players on one team leave. In fact, why not a team redistribution system between rounds regardless of dropouts? Although I realise that that would decrease variety, give the more skilled players a challenge, and make it less frustrating and addictive for the rest of us…
I’ll finish this rant later. Right now I’m off to try to get the Down with E.P.I.C. achievement.
John
Play Nice 
I must be in a small minority that thinks, beyond the crisp UT3 engine behind the game, this release is probably the most over-rated dull, templated pile of poo since CS CZ single player on the Playstation.
i think gears of war is one of the best games for the 360 but there is a couple things that mess up this great game ACTIVE RELOADS i hate them so much i mean great on all the weapons but why the hell put it on a longshot if shot it is a 99.9 % chance your going down and your really lucky if you take it and another thing is host when hosting your faster stonger and your bullets hurt alot more please take out active reloads
IMHO, Gears of War is best played with a friend, in their house, side by side, while you’re having a beer or something. I played with my female friend a while back for 9 hours straight. I was playing as Fenix and she was playing as Dom. The best bits were the female bonding session that was going on, she’d cover me by firing and i’d sneak behind the enemy and chain sawed the suckers XD.
Was mega fun! n_n. Her husband was sort of hunched in a corner watching us play GoW, with that “I wants to play” look in his eye while his wife and I were getting increasingly aggressive by it! Since it was one of the very first few games that utilised the UT3 engine, it’s a good example of the power of the UT3 engine, good graphics all around! Cut sequences were seamless. Enjoyed it thoroughly!
The only annoying niggling thing was those darn cog tags you *HAD* to collect while in a massive shoot out with the enemy! I couldn’t help it!
Friend: “Suzie, cover me!! I’m getting gunned down!!”
Me: “Just lemme get this one Cog Tag and i’ll be right with you!!” *trots off to CT location*
Friend: “Wha, Suz, Doh… i’m dead T_T Ressi me!!”
Me: “Eh… me too n_n;; Whoops!”
*restarting entire level*