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How Gears of War changed my perspective on shooters
A game far smarter than you remember.
There is without a doubt a case to be made for so many titles in the shooter genre for their contributions towards the gaming experience. Doom for popularizing the FPS. Halo for taking that same FPS structure towards the online community successfully. Half-Life for its rarely seen emphasis on narrative. Metal Gear Solid for introducing the word “tactical” and actually delivering it.
The aim-and-shoot mechanic has, without a doubt, been touched and handled more times than Lindsay Lohan so it’s hard to talk about which entry “revolutionized” the genre. But there is a game which helped the Xbox acquire the popularity it craved to deserve a rival status against PlayStation. One that showed off the recently increased graphic power in their brand new console called the Xbox 360. Of course, I’m talking about Viva Piñata!
Just kidding. Gears of War by Epic Games with its macho bravado, the unapologetically violent action, the cheesy lines of dialogue proper of B-Movies and bodies so THICC they could audition for the next Nicki Minaj music video; provided a combination of elements so refreshing for the shooting genre that other studios are now copying it. But what are they exactly?
The cover system
