I love my space bar. Ol' Spacey has been with me through some good times. He gave me joy when I first discovered the art of bunny-hopping in Quake 3. He made me giggle that one time when I paused iTunes so I could have a shit. He helped me through my first English essay by ensuring thatIdidn'twritelikethis. But no, trusty space bar! All this time I thought you were a tool of utter brilliance and yet you fall to pieces whilst playing a brainless game like Gears of War.Playing this game is like trading Ol' Spacey in for a clumsier, stupider model. He is drunk with responsibility. He is an unresponsive, lumbering wretch. He has the power to make me roll around, duck for cover, run and clamber over small walls, but it's all too much. He gets confused and pulls me close to walls that I want to run straight past. Instead of diving daringly from one bit of cover and behind the next, he wants me to leap over the very bit of fallen masonry that was helping to keep my brain bits in place. He is poor confused Spacey and I hate him. He makes a mediocre shooter frustrating and this is as tedious a shooter as I have ever bashed my head against a keyboard trying to play. Yes, I could remap the controls but why alienate myself from any more of my beloved keys?
Clumsy, repetitive and badly ported, it's spark of genius is forever hidden beneath a palette of dark-brown, grey and dark grey-brown textures...
... and in case you're wondering, for the purpose of writing this review I traded Ol' Spacey in for a newer, sexier model. One that is far less partial to anthropomorphic observation.
SCORE: 71%
