For those of you who didn’t download the new Season 2 premiere of Ooh Sometimes, here is the original review from this month’s Gamers’ Corner for you look at, but really for full effect you should listen to the show because that was changed during the editing process. The score is the same but there were one or two different points from this. Basically it just is so much better.

This will be a regular thing from here on out in case anyone is wondering, the reviews from Gamers’ Corner will appear on the blog site a few days after each release of the podcast, and to that end the review of Call of Duty 4 from season 1 will also appear here in due course but for now sit back in your favourite or at least, most comfortable chair and read on….

Gears of War then, a game created by Epic for those big monsters of Microsoft for the Xbox 360 over a year ago and when it arrived it filled various people with so much joy, they had to store it in their cheeks for the winter. And finally the PC version is here with a few extras over the console version according to the nice shiny box, like extra game chapters but the thing is, I haven’t played the Xbox 360 version so I have no idea what’s been added. Oh and a game editor and lots of downloadable things.

So let’s see what it’s all about then.

It appears that a group of naughty alien people have sent a planet to hell and the game’s actual plot begins fourteen years after Emergence Day, whatever national holiday that is. Marcus Fenix, a former soldier whose body is the size of Belgium, is reinstated into the military which luck would have it also consists entirely of men the size of Belgium after spending four years in prison. His friend comes along, takes to meet various people, and from then on in you shoot everything.

Oh look honey, the world’s gone to s**t again. Let’s have a picnic and watch.

Seriously, how many more times now in all these games, is the world going to go down the toilet with humanity bearly surviving, only to come out on top in end, remember kids, add the american flag waving in the background because it seems they are the only ones ever to survive and start fighting. No, I’m not counting Hellgate: London, because those English accents used make the characters out to be cockney Dick Van Dyke wannabes at best.

So as I was saying, unless you live in the US, I suggest now that you kill yourselves because when the next meteour / germ warfare device / nuclear explosion / ex-girlfriend turning up pregnant happens only in America will life go on.

Ok so the game takes place on another planet but come on, you can join the dots here!

Don’t worry I do start talking about the game proper now. Gears of War is actually for once quite enjoyable if indeed repetitive compared to other alien blowy uppy shenanigans where you charge ever forward saying “Die please because you’re all being jolly rude for making people upset”.

This fills me with hope. At last something ever so slightly different for the PC. I guess my surprise is only heightened because up until I started playing I thought I would just be entering just another third person shooter killing everything and becoming god. Well that sort of happens, but there are good extra bits.

To aim properly you enter first person with a very helpful gun sight. You need that, no question as you don’t have the gun sight when in third person, so third person shooting can be done, but it’s when you are surrounded and need to take the bastards out while moving about and you need to see where you are going. But if you are in that situation, then the shit has already hit the fan most likely and a reload is your next port of call.

You are rarely on your own in this game thanks to your make-believe team-mates, though on occasion they seem to want to go to the enemy and read them poetry, otherwise why would they charge forward get killed and start shouting I need major orthopedic surgery to you as you are the only one who can help fallen comrades what with your gift for using Tesco value scalpels and x-ray machines (aisle 5 next to the meat) but hey it doesn’t happen all the time and they seem to be pretty much on the level throughout, so being honest that’s more of a niggle.

The use of cover forces a slow pace despite all the explosions and gunfire and you need to take your time using various amounts of cover through each set piece of death because being honest if you are out in the open for then 5 seconds, you quickly become next week’s bacon sandwich. And you can “shoot blind” too. No, not like Steve Wonder, you just shoot from behind cover roughly aiming at people while not exposing yourself. Actually that sounds wrong.

The pace of the game isn’t slow enough to make you think time for the pub and maybe make a cheese sandwich in-between each section, but not so fast, you get overwhelmed by 1000 enemies before you’ve had change to pull your socks up.

The difficulty with shooting lots of alien people seems to be just right, As for the bad guys themselves, in terms of looks, well they do forefil all requirements for being Miss Universe that is if the requirements were to look like burned crash test dummies, and as you would expect the further in you go, the hard it is to take them down, save with using that rather handy chainsaw thingy.

The funniest people who charge at you hap-hazardly shooting off weapons in various directions so far, have been the Rocket launcher guys have feel the need to say boom every 2 seconds. They just need some love and a new hobby, so I think just give them a drum set each and then they would feel a lot better.

The naughtiest so far are the cunningly titled because I don’t know the real names of them; “walking on ceiling then drop down on you” guys are pretty nasty and heavy groups of them tend to be a rather bad thing.

As per the console version there is no save system as such except for checkpoints. Ordinarily this would annoy, but with the sections short and intense you feel happy when the checkpoint flashes on the screen, but then that’s the purely coincidental cue for more bad guys to come at you.

Marcus Fenix has a manly but comically voice and yes, when I first heard the big man speak, I instantly wondered if Bender from Futurama was going to pop around the corner laughing and saying how great he is.

The music and other voices are perfectly fine, the graphics are mighty fine boyo, but once again be prepared to take a trip to judder town if you don’t have a high end PC. But even toning down the options, The graphics are vastly detailed as you would expect, with a variety of brown and grey.

And it is very dark throughout, which means you may want to turn the brightness up. Most of the screenshots taken were far too dark to show, so a bit of lighting was required. But for the record, the best part are the landscapes you see outside while fighting, it is a sight indeed and adds to the huge gravity of the situation.

But yes, it is another game where the best results can only be achieved with Uber expensive equipment, but it seems to be par the course these days, unless you’re like Crysis where no-one at the moment has a true chance of running the thing with full everything, not even selling your loved ones’ organs for money will help with that one.

This game offers you the option to play online co-op with some other unknown entity via Microsoft’s online Xbox thingy. The game crashed several times while signing my life away and once there I found I can’t do an awful lot until I start paying Microsoft lots of money every month for a Gold Membership.

This frankly reeks like my underpants after three weeks of continuous usage. As far as I know, it’s only Microsoft that uses Live on the PC, and for access to all features, other games you don’t tend to pay for games like this. Sorry, we’re not that stupid to pay for something that we get free elsewhere. There is a month’s free Gold subscription, but I went for the stuff you only get after that runs out.

I know there are other examples out there; Hellgate London is one such game where you pay extra for additional bits and bobs but with the least amount of respect humanly possible, that’s another example where I wouldn’t pay extra. In fact that game together with some native British currency got traded in for Gears of War, so what does that tell you? One point knocked off the final score for Gears of War I’m afraid.

So for the features I was able to play around with, I played co-op with a guy through several rooms of a house, escaping to a nice car before a big scary thing comes and does naughty. We both died several times but I tell you what, it was a big scoop of ice fun. Playing with others through the single player content brought a lot more to the gameplay.

Other gameplay types involve running after other people and gunning them down silly. And maybe getting some areas for your team sometimes. Either way from my experiences so far with online is it won’t last long. Team Fortress 2 is more ingenious and comical. And of course, I have a nasty feeling that people will drop this given some time in favour of more established PC titles.

So to sum up an already too long review:

• Another holocaust with Aliens.
• Looks Pretty, but requires powerful PC to see.
• Lots of shooting to do.
• Your computer team mates in single player are actually good most of the time.
• Lots of Bad Guys in different varieties.
• Use of cover is good.
• Save system doesn’t actually annoy for a change, and serves to stop people from saving every 10 seconds.
• Windows Live is b******ks, give us a normal multiplayer without further payment.
• Multiplayer’s best asset, co-op, the rest you can leave alone.
• Questionable lasting appeal, and the fact is, it’s already an old title.

And of course, using the outstandingly amazing 1-10 system (where 1 is complete nuts while 10 is the dog’s nuts, with 12 being given for nuts of unquestioning perfection) I hereby award Gears of War on PC:

This is a very good game, The co-op multiplayer, the use of cover, the bad guys. Good job Epic basically. But the game is a year late, I wonder how long it is before you roll back onto Team Fortress 2, Windows Live is rubbish on PC, and they expect you to pay for extra features that other games provide free. Bad Microsoft, Bad Microsoft. Shame I have to be harsh, this game doesn’t deserve it.