Gears of Snore, buggy and repetitive. Tied to MS Live (dis)service and check point saves wreck an otherwise fair game.
But it's got issues. I mean issues like that ex-girlfriend who calls you every night at 3:30 in the morning to see if your home issues.
First of all, it's a console port in all the worst ways, stupid controls, and no ability to save when you want to. The save isn't always a bad thing, but it is when it's buggy. Can you imagine finishing the final boss battle, getting the end video only to have the game crash? Okay it happens, and the end boss battle was a breeze. I'd have done it again just to watch the end video but all my saves were gone. In fact, only the very beginning of the game and the start of the last act were available.
That's unforgivable.
The controls are over simplified, thats always a potential issue with a console port. In this case, it's the space bar. By the end of the game, I just didn't care. I didn't want to die as I'd have to reply a ton of stuff, but in the end it was just a matter of pressing the space bar at random. Sometimes you'd duck behind cover, other times you'd do a commando roll, but you couldn't never be quite sure which.
The graphics and sound are great, the story is fair (but the author of it is excellent, so from that perspective, I was disappointed. He can and has done better.)
The game play is divided into two sections, shooting and healing. Basically you're either firing from cover, or hiding behind it so that you can heal up enough to continue. At some point you just want to press the space bar so that you can advance the story, press the space bar to shoot, press the space bar while reading a good book so that the game will progress. Then you press the space bar some more.
The game isn't bad in the end, but it's not ready for prime time, and it's a budget title at best. Oh there's multiplayer, but after your single player is wasted, do you care? I stopped. Look for this game in my next garage sale. Cheap.
-1 for Microsoft Live because there is no reason for it (ever).
-1 for lack of save
-1 for crashing
-.5 for wonky controls
-.5 for tiring game play