You can probably measure how good a shooter is by how much fun you're having: I played for a good hour or so before I thought 'I've had enough now' after I'd got off the ship. It was a nice time to stop anyway,
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
and then the same happened playing Cole's level. I managed to get to the end of the Chapter which was a nice place to end it for the night
but I'd had enough Gears by then.
So, first impressions are wavering so far for me. The boat level was nice but too 'bitty' as mentioned above. I couldn't remember anything of the Lambent or imulsion for that matter and the "Previously on..." didn't refresh my memory enough. The opener was alright but somehow lacked excitement for me. I 'sploded some monster from behind cover and poured tens of bullets into enemies with exploding liver disease (apparently). The combat is identical to both other Gears in that it sounds good enough and looks good enough but doesn't have shooting that's weighty enough like, say, CoD and the like has perfected. Baddies take bullets while walking towards you or between cover without much as a look over their shoulder as bullets soak into them, only occassionally stumbling backward from twenty or so rounds. The handguns are piss poor again and utterly useless ('cept that Gorgon one that is like a submachine gun and suitably aces). Even the magnum is a waste of time as bullet after bullet fails to cause any substantial damage.
It feels old school in the way in which bosses simply require a ludicious amount of bullets fired into them. Which isn't too bad anyway. It's reasonably enjoyable...just not exciting enough.
And the banter and the characters? Alright but endless. There's too much of it - for example, when entering a deserted town where an ambush is only a cut scene away, someone HAS to say something witty. It's draining. I just want them to shut the fuck up and let something happen and react. Did I miss that bit in Aliens where they entered the hive and Weaver said "smells like yo' momma's pussy died down here" cracking joke after joke? No, cause it never fucking happened. Tension is allowed to escalate during the quiet moments rather than being perpetually punctuated by some nonsense blathering.
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
And what was the whole Cole Train bomb in the stadium about? Was that meant to be funny? It just came from nowhere! Lasted longer than it should and then you exit the stadium and walk into the next cut scene. I stopped to look around and there was cover about, and it looked very detailed and a shame to leave it after about 20 minutes walking to the place. You do the bomb thing (which is essentially on rails anyway) and then exit quickly. I know it's a multiplayer map but it felt like an anticlimax not to stick around and get shooting some monsters. The escape was weird too with explosive barrels popping up for an impromptu cameo! Weird.
And then when I got to the bridge and wanted to execute some downed locust the feckin' AI team mates kept nicking the kills. And not just once either: five fucking times! Now tell me that that's not just a coincidence. I didn't waste all those bullets on their knees for nowt.
So more of the same so far but in MUCH better environments that are chopped into bite sized pieces which aren't fulfilling enough.I can't be arsed to play tonight but I'll start Chapter 2 tomorrow.
Oh one last thing: Horde - groovy as ususal, better even, with the defences and stuff but because of the downtime mean it took over an hour to reach level 17. Lord knows how long it'll take to get to 50 at that rate. Beast - tedious Dead Space clone and just as shit (actually that's not fair cause it's better than DS2's but it's still tiresome)