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In short, Gears of War is the best game on 360 to this day. Any reader who, up until this point, was fearing that Gears wouldn’t live up to the tremendous hype: rest assured, faithful reader, just as the original Halo before it, Gears of War not only lives up to it’s momentous hype, but exceeds it.

By now, we all know the story: The Locusts are a big bad army of ugly monsters, and they have guns. They’ve dominated the planet of Sera, and the human race is in a fight for survival like no other. The game follows your character: Marcus Fenix, a soldier who, at one point defied orders and was sent to rot in prison as thanks for his actions. An unknown amount of time later, the Locust horde is actively ripping their way through the prison Marcus is being kept in when a friend from years past comes to relieve Marcus of his cell, and put him back in the middle of the war.

The story is simple and straight forward: As Marcus, you must take a team of fellow soldiers on a mission to plant a device in part of the Locusts subterranean tunnels that will give mankind a fighting chance in the war. Simple enough, right?... right?

Not quite. As any good action game goes(or any good game, period, for that matter), the road from A to B is never straight forward. During the (unfortunately short) campaign of Gears of War, your crew will come across many obstacles and problems that will impede your progress and otherwise make your life more difficult than it already is. Thanks to the excellent map building and the intelligent AI, those difficulties come in spades.

The action in Gears of War revolves mostly around a well implemented duck and cover system. Since you will always be outnumbered and outgunned, the environment quickly becomes your greatest weapon. The system is simple to use as well: walk up to whatever you want to hide behind and press A. From cover, you can do a SWAT roll into the open, pop over to fire, pop out the side to fire, jump over your cover, or dive from one piece of cover to the next. The system works great, and on the tougher difficulties, you’re going to get very comfortable in your cover spot waiting for your chance to fire.

The game plays like a mix between Call of Duty and Halo. In fact, if Call of Duty and Halo had sex, I’m certain Gears of War would be their love child. The game is mostly squad based, giving you the option to issue simple commands to your AI teammates, such as take cover, follow you, attack. Your teammates are a pretty smart bunch and manage to follow your command spot-on almost all the time. Unfortunately, your AI enemies are just as smart.

Something Epic has been very vocal about is the AI system of your enemies in Gears. Well, after countless hours in front of my television playing the game, I can say that they had a pretty damn good reason. The AI in Gears is top notch. The Locust will use every chance they get to seek refuge behind cover, flank you, and otherwise cause you mortal harm. Gone are the days of mindless enemies that run straight for you in the wide open. Unfortunately, I experienced a small few instances where an enemy would stay ducked behind cover even after I ran around the barricade and fired at them, but I’d say about 95% of the time, the AI in Gears is spot on.

The arsenal, for the most part, is nothing out of the ordinary for shooter fans. You get a standard assortment of pistols, a shotgun, several renditions of machine guns, and the rocket launcher and sniper rifle. Oh, and grenades. The available weapons are well balanced, and each gun suits a certain task. The highlight of the arsenal, of course, is the Lancer Assault Rifle, which has a chainsaw attached to it. Sneak up on a Locust, hit B to melee and watch the fireworks fly!... and by fireworks, I mean blood, and by fly, I mean spray. Wildly. There’s also a kick ass bow closer to the end of the game that really messes the Locust up. Sweet deal. The final addition to the arsenal is the Hammer of Dawn. During certain points in the game, you get access to this end-all weapon that utilizes aligned satellites to hone in on your target and blow the hell out of them Death Star style. It’s something else.

The real shining light of the weapons in Gears is the reload system known as Active Reload. When you hit the reload button, a small meter appears in the corner of the screen. If you hit the reload button again at the right time, you reload faster. If you hit the reload button again on the perfect spot on the meter, not only do you reload faster, but you get a damage boost for that clip as well. However, the flip side of the coin is that if you miss, your gun jams up and it takes you longer to reload than normal. It takes some getting used to, but this seemingly small addition becomes a game of chance in an already hectic battleground. Very nice.

And even as rewarding and fun as single player can be, things are cranked up that much more while playing two man co-op. While the AI is competent, nothing matches the intensity of being behind a barricade, held down by a dozen Locusts and coordinating a plan of attack with a friend. The action just seems more intense and more rewarding with a friend, and you’ll be praying for one after you step into the Insane difficulty.

And yet even as fun as that can be, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the intensity that is VS multiplayer over Live. Fun, addicting, and… well, fun and addicting, the multiplayer on Gears of War will have you spending many a late night in front of your TV blasting away at friends and strangers alike. The main mode, Warzone, is essentially a 4vs4 deathmatch mode. You can play Warzone in one of two flavours: Execution, in which you have to take your enemy down, and then once you’ve incapacitated them, you have to run up to them and finish them off with a melee attack, a bullet to the head, a chainsaw, or my personal favorite: a curb stomp. The other mode, Assassination, is a simple deathmatch that only ends when the team captain is killed. Sadly, the game currently lacks any CTF modes, or any Gears-specific game mode. I say currently because, well, we all know that developers love releasing expanded content to us gamers down the road. Here’s hopin’.

Gears of War, simply put, is the best example of next generation graphics the Xbox 360 has seen. Halo 2 raised the visual standard on Xbox, and now Gears of War has done the same for 360. Attention to detail is pain staking, and there is no stone left unturned. No two environments look the same, you never return to an old area as a way to make the game artificially longer, and there’s gorgeous little touches in places some gamers will never even think to look. Character models are fantastic, offering fluid animations and transitions, excellent facial features, and hulking figures. The Locust. Wow. Thanks to the incredible visual flair and graphic style Gears has, the Locust could quite possibly be the scariest enemies you’ve ever encountered in a game. The war-torn planet of Sera is beautiful in all it’s destructed glory. Buildings are smashed to bits, wasted sedans collect rust on the roads. The lighting is also amazing.

Just like the gameplay, the soundtrack to Gears goes from horror to military pulse pounding action. The dialogue is snappy and full of quips between the soldiers, and the Locust sound like the meanest motor scooters to ever grace a planetary war. The sound effects are spot on, offering up an audible feast of gunfire, head exploding, and explosions.

On a nearly unimportant note to most, Gears also offers up the best library of achievements, with pop culture references peppered throughout. Any game that voluntarily references Kevin Smith's Clerks deserves a spot on the greatest games ever plateau. My love for you is like a truck!

Halo was the must-have companion title for Xbox. Gears of War is the must-have companion title for Xbox 360. Any action fan would be doing himself (or herself, in some cases) a great disservice by passing up on this tremendous shooter. Even if you don’t like action games, buy it anyway, it will serve as a visual showcase to your friends. Gears of War has set the new standard for 360 games in nearly every facet.