Gears of War (PC) Opinions

L31mr0d

Ok, noticed a few people where planning on playing GoW for the PC over the Xmas, just wondering what peoples opinions of it where?

I personally really liked it. But I think this might be due to the last 2 games I played prior being Jericho and Timeshift, which where both abysmal.

I'm also surprised how well the over the shoulder shooting worked, it becomes very intuitive after only a very short period.

My major kudos goes to EPIC for not messing up the control system like so many other console to PC ports. When prompted for buttons to be pressed, the keyboard key that you've mapped is shown rather than an Xbox 360 button. Your character also controls very smoothly, I also love the way they have executed the running, having the camera bob behind your character as if it where a camera man tailing him. There is also a double tap feature which lets you dive for cover without having to press the key to do so.

Graphically, I was pleasantly surprised. I had everything turned up to high, including DX10 shaders, AA and Vivid postprocessing. I chose vivid after trying the other options, default looked too grimey, muted was too washed out and intense was too bright. Vivid gave enough contrast to make the second chapter bareable and also enabled some very ethereal bloom and HDR effects. I'm playing this on my sig rig, with WHQL drivers 169.25. My only gripe is that everything does look amazing, but can't be intereacted with, when you shoot at concrete, bits don't fly off, metal doesn't dent when you shoot it, glass doesn't break either. But these really are just extras. The lighting, character animations and environments are excellent throughout.

Gameplay wise, some people felt it gets repetitive, but I enjoyed the fighting parts throughout, sure it was pretty much: take cover, shoot baddies, run to checkpoint, repeat. But the environment changed enough to keep it interesting. Although I felt the shooting was very consoley, in that your crosshair is huge and sprays bullets. On the PC version also the Sniper rifle is too powerful. I pretty much progressed through the whole game with it and never ran out of ammo. You can also take out most baddies with one shot from the sniper rifle, regardless of where you shoot them. Most of the time i'd shoot out the guys shielded behind the turrets by aiming for a bit of their knee that was on show. I can understand that using the sniper rifle on the console would of been harder to aim with, but they should of definitely lowered its power level for the PC.

Overall a very good game. I'll probably play through it again, maybe in co-op mode when I have a friend over or just to take the optional routes I didn't go down.

Worth a look if your PC can handle it.

Kiith

It's a great game, but i didnt like it on the pc, mainly because it ran like absolute crap. Apparently there is a patch to fix this, but i dont really fancy going through the 30 odd minutes it took to install again. Plus, Windows Live! is a horrible excuse for an online system (apparently). I'll stick to playing it on the 360, at least until i upgrade the pc.

Gonzo

gave up on this after a day, my save files repeatedly got deleted every time I restarted/shut down my pc.

Canis Lupus

Runs juuuuust about bearable on my pc but I'm in desperate need to increase my ram from 1 gig.

The game itself. Surprisingly it was fun for the first 10 mins and still is alright for a quick shoot every once in a while. But in the end like you said OP it's just grabbing cover and firing till everything stops moving. Yawn. Haven't played online or anything and the game has already managed to lose a savegame on me already.

As it was originally a console game I'm surprised it wasn't just completely dumbed down rubbish with arrows everywhere and bullets that magically fly out of your gun and hit enemies behind you because of generous autoaim but the initial "hey this isn't all that bad" thought has already started to fade after about 5-6 times playing it.

Not bad, not great would be my opinion.

EDIT: Liek Gonzo said this has happened to me as well. Savegames going walkabout. Seems to randomly do it as well.

L31mr0d

Canis Lupus wrote: »

EDIT: Liek Gonzo said this has happened to me as well. Savegames going walkabout. Seems to randomly do it as well.

Install the patch, I installed it before starting the game and had no problems throughout. I also found load time to be very short which is always a bonus, considering the size of the levels.

You can download it here, it's only 3MB:
http://www.gamershell.com/download_22190.shtml


What the PC version has over the 360 version, aside from DX10 shaders, is the bonus levels that wheren't in the 360 version. Personally i'm amazed this wasn't in the original as it was probably the best chapter imo. Fighting the Brumak, although short, was also pretty good. I'd be pretty pissed if i'd bought a 360 exclusive only to find they where making the same game for PC, giving it better graphics and adding more levels for the same price.

From having a look at the 360 walkthrough, the chunk of chapters that is missing is between when you leave Fenix's fathers house and escape the Brumak in the APC. In the PC version you don't make it to the train right away, you get held up by an open draw bridge that you have to restore power to. Some of the best firefights where in these chapters imo. They probably made them harder to satisfy the PC gamers as I couldn't simply use the sniper rifle anymore as the enemies where attacking from all directions, it was probably the only chapters where I HAD to use grenades.

On further reflection, another BIG gripe I had was the useless team control system. I don't even see what the point of it was. Sometimes i'd tell the team to not move, or cease fire, to which they'd reply "negative" and just run in anyway and die.

The final battle with KAAN being particularly annoying as DOM would just run into the darkness straight away and get killed either by KAAN or the Kryll, I ended up just ignoring DOM and never bothered to revive him, plus he would never listen to any of my orders.

Azza

Played through the PC port in co-op mode was a great game but the port is very buggy. Great gameplay, atmosphere, graphics and mutiplayer.

Firstly I had to turn everything down to get a decent frame rate and it still chugged at times as did my co-op partners machine. The patch system seems broken and what patches we did use did not do alot. Cut scenes refused to run and the in game voice communications stopped working randomly.

L31mr0d

Azza wrote: »

Played through the PC port in co-op mode was a great game but the port is very buggy.

Its weird you's are all reporting issues and I had none. Maybe its because I have a system that can handle the higher graphics it requires. A lot of the people complaining about it being buggy on other forums seems down to the game not scaling well to lower end systems. I'd recommend everyone to install the patch first though and also to update your graphics drivers to the latest WHQL ones.

x keo21

i tought it was ok. it looked nice and played well but there was still smoething not quite special about it. i would get one of the better games out now if i could go back but hey , its not to bad

Azza

Its not just me that's having this problem if you check out Epics forums. They took a large bashing for it. Its annoying as EPC have said nothing, they don't even state what the patch does. The save game dissappearing is a common occurance as well but I did not get that.

My machine had the patch installed, latest drivers and directx updates etc.

Using a 3800 dual core AMD 64 chip, 2GB of ram an x1900xtx and windows xp, Would of expected it to run abit better than it did. Most of the time on low settings it was fine but it did badly chug at times.

Also my mates PC had more or less the same issues and he had a better proccessor and a 8800gts card. Not only that but the game crashed for him at the very start of the game if he did not turn down his graphics.

L31mr0d

Azza wrote: »

Its not just me that's having this problem

oh I know that. It's just weird i'm not having any issues. I'm usually the only person I know with crashing issues in games. I have to say I didn't have one issue while playing through the whole game, and it ran smooth, with no lag, at the max possible graphical settings. A guy in work also has the PC version of GoW and has a similar, if not better, PC than me and said he is having no problems either.

Genghiz Cohen

I had buckets of trouble getting this to run in the first place, I was getting the infamous 30 second crash, the problem was I had Windows Blinds running and GoW didn't like that too much.

Once that was sorted I started an offline profile because I couldn't figure out how to make an online one. Played through the game, LOVED it, awesome game, AND there should be another two coming out!

I had no problems once it was up and running, except the last boss battle, which I couldnt figure out. But t'internets to teh rescue! Downed the bad bastard, and went to go play multiplayer.
*Que ominous music*
It took me a good 2 hours to get an online profile working properly, and at this stage I'm pretty sure I have 3 or 4 profiles with Live that I can't log into.

Once I finally got online, I was quite impressed.
It did take me a little while to figure out how to chat, (console then type, say OMFG Naa|3x0rz l4L )
to show your ping you type stats net into the console or something like that.

Great game, +90% for sheer awesomeness.


AND, now I know UT3 will run fine on my comp too

L31mr0d

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

I had no problems once it was up and running, except the last boss battle, which I couldnt figure out. But t'internets to teh rescue! Downed the bad bastard

same here, I was up till around 4am xmas day trying to figure out how to kill him.

I ended up reading a walkthrough online which pretty much says I need a Torque Bow to scare aware the Kryll... funny thing is a Torque Bow is the one weapon they haven't provided in the last train carriage before you fight RAAM so I had to redo the whole chapter to get one. I found fighting him so irritating as there was a plethora of different ways you could easily get killed,

1: Walking into the darkness gets you almost instantly killed by the Kryll
2: RAAM can kill you with only about a 2 second burst from his gun
3: The Reavers are flying alongside the train and can kill you if you stay in cover for too long
4: DOM KEEPS GETTING IN THE FREAKIN WAY!!! My god he annoyed the hell out of me, if he wasn't in cover blocking me from running away from RAAM, he was dead in the middle of the path, not listening to my orders or running out in the open at RAAM with his chainsaw bayonet

In the end a glitch in the game allowed me to kill RAAM, he got stuck behind one of the boxes and I was able to hit him 3 or 4 times with the Torque bow before he came charging at me again.

Genghiz Cohen

L31mr0d wrote: »

funny thing is a Torque Bow is the one weapon they haven't provided in the last train carriage before you fight RAAM so I had to redo the whole chapter to get one.

Got some bad news for you mate.

Actually (it took me a while to find), there is a torque bow in that carrage, oppposite the ammo crate on the left side of the carrage, it gives you 6 shots, I had a torque bow on me with 6 shots so that made 12. Hooray! Then I switched it for the Longshot and went at it. He commands the Kryll to go for you anyway so it was just a matter of lining up the shot and waiting for the right moment, it took like 10 shots to knock him though.

L31mr0d

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Got some bad news for you mate.

Actually (it took me a while to find), there is a torque bow in that carrage, oppposite the ammo crate on the left side of the carrage, it gives you 6 shots, I had a torque bow on me with 6 shots so that made 12. Hooray! Then I switched it for the Longshot and went at it. He commands the Kryll to go for you anyway so it was just a matter of lining up the shot and waiting for the right moment, it took like 10 shots to knock him though.

ah crap! ... I didn't mind playing through the chapter again anyway as its quite short,

plus the first time through I only used the sniper rifle so it was piss easy, having to only use the lancer and save the torque bow ammo made it a little more difficult. I did a combo of hitting him with the torque bow, then unloading a clip of lancer ammo into him, I made sure to hit the reload bonus to give my shots 8% more damage. Had him done after only about 6 of those. I completely ignored the reavers as the helo would eventually take care of them. Also what is the point of the turret at the other end of the train, is there a way to light it up so that it can be used and you don't get killed by the Kryll?

Kiith

What did the torque bow do? Scare away the Krill? Hmm, that would have made things much easier...he annoyed the **** out of me.

L31mr0d

Kiith wrote: »

What did the torque bow do? Scare away the Krill? Hmm, that would have made things much easier...he annoyed the **** out of me.

yeah, thats what it did... you could also use grenades to scare them away.

1huge1

Not a chance my pc could run it but im getting a new one soon and on tat day I'll get this and finally be able to play halo 2 (on pc).

Creamy Goodness

there are a lot better fps' out there to tax your new pc than halo2.

Kiith

L31mr0d wrote: »

yeah, thats what it did... you could also use grenades to scare them away.

Oh, i just lured them out by running into the dark areas. Probably should have tried that first.

Cina

It's an ok game, I expected much better from it after all the praise the Xbox version got, but I guess it's just easier to get praise on the Xbox for FPSs as theres less of them.

Anyway, average and very, avery repetitive. Not a patch on Bioshock, COD4 (actually, they're both on the 360), Crysis etc.

1huge1

Cremo wrote: »

there are a lot better fps' out there to tax your new pc than halo2.

Ya I know but I loved the 1st one and friend said 3rd one was brillaint ao I want to have completed the 2nd one before I touch halo 3.

KdjaCL

Cina wrote: »

It's an ok game, I expected much better from it after all the praise the Xbox version got, but I guess it's just easier to get praise on the Xbox for FPSs as theres less of them.

Anyway, average and very, avery repetitive. Not a patch on Bioshock, COD4 (actually, they're both on the 360), Crysis etc.

Its not an FPS.


kdjac

Genghiz Cohen

KdjaCL wrote: »

Its not an FPS.


kdjac

TPOTSS?

Third Person Over The Shoulder Shooter

Cina

KdjaCL wrote: »

Its not an FPS.


kdjac

In theory no, but it pretty much is, bar the fact that when you run around you can see your character.I stand by what I said.

ButcherOfNog

Cina wrote: »

In theory no, but it pretty much is, bar the fact that when you run around you can see your character.

Well done, you proved him right

L31mr0d

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

TPOTSS?

Third Person Over The Shoulder Shooter

wouldn't it just be a TPS (third person shooter)

Cina

ButcherOfNog wrote: »

Well done, you proved him right

Well done, you can manipulate peoples text. I didn't 'prove' him right, I said he was right. I also said that doesn't change the fact that it can be compared to FPS games, as its so similar in style to them.