Martin Crownover

I'm going to buy it. Well, providing it runs on WinXP (since it's one of those "Games for Windows" things), I'm going to buy it. It'll actually be out quite soon - November 6, last time I checked. Why is this post-worthy, you ask? Because I already own it for my Xbox 360, I answer.

Not really an earth-shattering revelation, I know. But it's noteworthy to me because, aside from a few dozen copies of Tetris, Worms, and various retro games, I don't normally buy games for multiple platforms. Call me frugal, but when a game comes out for two or more systems I happen to own, it's decision time - how much does the game cost on each platform? How does the game play on each system? How does it look and sound? Which version might my friends get?

I'm going to go ahead and go multi-platform with Gears though, because there's going to be a bit of new content coming to the PC version, the editor (providing there is one) will be fun to play around with, and I'm confident that my PC will be able to do the game even better justice than my 360 did, as far as visuals and control go. Slight spoilers ahead as I explain myself here.

If you've played Gears of War, you probably remember the part where, as you and your squad run to get into the fixed "junker," a huge creature (a "Brumak") comes around the corner and chases your ride. Exciting the first time through, but disappointing that it's the only appearance of this creature, and in a non-playable portion of the game at that. Apparently, due to time constraints, Epic just wasn't able to include the chapter continuing this brute... but with the luxury of an extra year to work and of course, the huge pile of cash that Gears for 360 amassed, they've gotten this segment of the game up to snuff, and will be including it in the PC version. Finally - an extended portion of a game coming to the PC!

Another perk to PC gaming is the tinkering. I've spent hours and hours playing around with game editors, like Quake Army Knife, Valve Hammer, and UnrealEd; I'm hoping I can do the same with Gears. I've not read anything about an editor for the upcoming PC release, but considering Epic's past games, I practically expect it. If no Gears editor arrives, it won't necessarily be a deal-breaker for me, but it will be disappointing.

Finally, I've been much more excited about Gears for PC since I got a chance to try out the Unreal 3 demo on my PC (you can read about that here). Granted, my PC ain't no slouch - but when new games that you've seen lots of wild and crazy screenshots of start coming out, and your PC is a few months old, you start to get nervous. After seeing Unreal 3 run at a perfectly silky smooth framerate with all the goodies maxed out, I'm not worried about Gear at all - in fact, I'm quite looking forward to seeing it run on my rig (and on my 22" monitor!).

I'm also anxious to try the game with a mouse and keyboard. Don't get me wrong, I didn't much mind the double thumbstick control on the 360... it actually wasn't too bad, since the pace of the game is slower than your standard action game. Still, I'm a die-hard PC gamer, and as such I will never deny the absolute control a mouse and keyboard combo can provide. I think that this addition to Gears will revive the gameplay a bit for me as well.

And with that, I'm off. I've got a torrent of the Crysis demo downloading (hopefully it's the right one, since there seems to be two floating around...), and a night of gameage to play. Thanks for reading!