Gears of War Gold - For REAL

[Melbosa]

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/741/741755p1.html

October 25, 2006 - It was "nearly gold," and now it is:

    Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games, Inc. announced today that "Gears of War" has gone gold. To celebrate the passing of the "gone gold" development milestone, a sneak preview of the TV and cinematic trailer is available now on Xbox Live.

    Emerging onto store shelves acrosss the nation on Nov. 12, "Gears of War" is set to deliver exciting action and horrific battles that can only be created by a chainsaw bayonet this Holiday.

    Xbox Live will celebrate Emergence Day with 24-hours of special events beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12. Xbox Live Gold members in North America will have a chance to participate in online tournaments, download videos, win prizes and participate in a variety of activities.

One hopes GoW is the second coming of Christ considering the amount of hype.

[Shayne]

Well, second coming of Christ perhaps not, but the second coming of Halo might not be too far away.  This is what 360 has needed for a very long time, a killer franchise to hang its hat on.

Its a busy November, i have CoD3, R6:V and GoW all pre-ordered and they are all expected to be out at the same timeish

[Shayne]

OMG!!! http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gearsofwar/review.html?page=1&sid=6161188&part=rss&tag=gs_reviews&subj=6161188

Gears of War is an outstanding technical achievement, but in addition to looking and sounding amazing, it's a seriously awesome action game.

The Good: Stellar graphics reset the bar for what consoles can do visually; great soundtrack and killer sound effects; satisfying gameplay in single-player mode; very addictive online play; best use of a chainsaw in any game, ever.

The Bad: Story could have been a bit more fleshed out; difficulty could have used some slight tuning.

[Shayne]

OMG!!!
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/744/744356p1.html

Even with the minor faults, Gears of War is easily a contender for game of the year. The graphics, sound and presentation are nearly unparalleled. The gameplay is phenomenal and you'd be hard pressed to find a more complete package. Gears of War has shown what Xbox 360 is capable of. Now it remains to be seen what other developers can do to keep up.

[Shayne]

OMG!!!
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3154958

I can go on and on, but you really need to play this visual and visceral masterpiece for yourself. When you do, you'll find plenty of minor problems, just like I did...but you can always find reasons not to give a game a 10.

And while I was playing Gears of War, all I kept running into was reasons to give it a 10.

[Adams]

Another reason for me to get xbox 360

[TheDruid]

Downtown EB "It will be in tommarow"

Downtown Futurshop, "try back in the next day or two"

Alright, the game has grabed my attention. But i just fired up Oblivion again and still want to give it a good run. The question is, how long can i keep this game in the package after buying it?

[Shayne]

HaHa, im working as fast as I can today so I can not bother working tomorrow and do some Gears of War.  Co-Op should be a blast.

Oblivion takes longer then 40 hours (im at 41+ and still have Mage and Thieves Guild yet to finish), im going to finish this game, i just think im gonna have to take a month or so break   granted I bet im under 10 hours away form polishing it off, its starting to feel a little like "work" though.  (Dark Brotherhood starts off very cool, and ends rather cool, but the middle is just brutal (*hint* get the unbreakable lockpick before doing these quests *hint*))

[TheDruid]

Im at 60+ hrs, and only 3 missions into the main story line, barely into the fighters guild.

But i did get entrance into the mages University, and done a F---Ton of side town quests. Oh and im lvl 27.

[Shayne]

Ouch.  One of the Main Quest "quests" is to ask all the towns for help to defend Bruma, but all the towns have Oblivion Gates outside them that you need to close.  Its basically like 6 hours of agony.

I will admit that i have not done much at all in terms of side quests as they have little value to the main story.  Basically Im on a quest for 1,000 achievement points at this point.  Im only level 16 though (i wonder why so low compared?  even with your 20 hours extra you had to kill a lot of stuff), maybe its because i have both a sword and a mace and switch between the 2 often making my advancements in blade and blut slowing the total growth?

Back on topic, Future Shop might get it in today (either the 1:00 or 5:00 shipment), EB is tomorrow for sure.

[Melbosa]

Yeah, stupid EB chick.  Smokin' crack I think she was!

Went in and asked if I could put money down on one. She argued that the pre-orders were last week so I couldn't do it.  I asked if I could put money down on one encase they had extra.  She said pre-orders were last week and that she didn't know how many she was getting.  I said no matter, let me just put money down on one, and she said she couldn't do that.  So I left.

Crack baby!

[Cova]

I finished the Oblivion main story line quite a while back, and recently played it a bit more to get the last few achievements - and my char is lvl 10.  I think the dark brotherhood was one of the best quest lines, thieves guild was also fun.  The fighters guild was annoying because you had to keep changing places of where to get the next mission (on opposide sides of the world) - hate travelling to a place just to be told "I don't have anything for you, try the other dude".  The arena was a ton of fun too - you can do it start to finish in a couple hours if your char is good in combat.

That quest where you have to go around and defend every single town is actually optional.  I did do every town (and it did take about 6 hours), but the way it works is the next part when you are actually defending Bruma all the other towns that you helped will have sent guards to Bruma to help you.  If you wanna defend Bruma solo you can skip helping the other towns.  I'd recommend you bring at least some help, unless you can take a lot of mobs at once by yourself.

[Shayne]

Really Cova? I didn't know that, but I could see getting the help being a good thing considering the amount of crap that comes out of that Monster Gate.

I enjoyed the Fighters Guild quest line, the traveling wasn't so bad as I have fast traveled 95% of the time (or i fast travel as close as i can get to something).  As for the Thieves and the Mage quest lines Im a little annoyed, i was just looking through a game guide and they appear rather long, not sure when I will get a chance to finish it off.

[Shayne]

Well, a different story (yet again) the afternoon shipment at Future Shop was a bust it would appear (nothing on the shelves, a dozen or so gamers loitering), was then told that they get a truck later in the evening around 8 (i was first told 5) and that they would probably have them on the shelves for 10am tomorrow morning.  So, as it stands, tomorrow is the big day all around.

[Lazybones]

Damn after reading the reviews I almost want to snag a copy, and I don't even own a 360.