Gears of War is a tactical third-person shooter where the player controls Marcus Fenix, a member of Delta Squad, to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from an enemy known as The Locust Horde. The story, played over 5 acts with 30 chapters in total, has the humans reunite their strength after fighting over cheap energy in the Pendulum Wars for many years, to face this new alien threat.

Unlike many other shooters, the emphasis is not on brute violence, but rather team-based actions and cover-dependent tactics. Gameplay requires to look for cover options all the time, from which the player then attacks, along with turns and rolls to quickly pop out. By holding a button, a "roadie run" is performed, to sprint to another location. Marcus is part of a full squad, but another human player can take on the role of Dominic Santiago to fight cooperatively (split-screen, system link or online). At times, the paths will even be split up to face different challenges. Players can only hold two weapons, a sidearm, and a few grenades. There is a selection of submachine guns, sniper and assault riles, grenades, grenade launchers, and pistols, but the main gun is the COG Lancer Assault Rifle, which can also be used as a chainsaw bayonet in close combat. There are also a few exotic weapons, such as the Torque Bow with explosive arrows, or the Hammer of Dawn, to make an orbiting satellite fire a laser at targeted enemies.

All weapons need to be reloaded manually. By timely pressing a button on a meter, the weapon is reloaded, with more damage and at a faster rate with perfect timing, or it gets jammed when timed poorly. Instead of health bar, the game has the Crimson Omen, a cog-shaped icon that fills up with blood when the player sustains damage.

Next to the Co-op multiplayer, there is also Versus, with three game modes: Warzone (deathmatch), Execution (deathmatch, but with the addition of certain "fatalities" to take out enemies completely) and Assassination (team played focused on killing the opponent's team leader).

The Windows version includes 5 new single-player chapters, 3 multiplayer maps, new game modes and a game editor (not present in the 360 version). Games for Windows Live support is integrated as well, but it does not feature cross-platform multiplayer games.

i was playing gridlock and i had the longshot and i had a clean headshot on a non moving player so then i shot and then my longshot fired ike an automatic and then killed the guy 15 times and it counted.

when we were kids we would hear stories called the boggymen.people said they came from underground.that they stole children in the night.it freaked the hell out of us.but we knew deep down that it was just a story.something that kids made up to frighten each other.we could always take comfort in the fact that the booggymen wasnot for real.they could not hurt you.they were make believe.if only that were true.comon.groundwalker a locust said.arragh.i will admit i was out of my leage that day.dont let any thing take this cover or were fucked!!!not to ware you out captain but i think we are already fucked!!!

I wall bounced spiderman someone wit the sniper

Well in Gears of war I shot this guy's head off without even aiming the damn sniper. I was so stoked when i did that OMG.

Right about a month ago i wanted to join a full irish clan called FBI ye they are brill and any irish person would want to join they said i was shit and to sign up in 3 months so i was like shut up ur face ur a load of shit all u do is malee and all that so i created a new clan that is really good at gears of war and one day when were really good we will take on the FBI and woop they malee asses there all jerks and just like to play with people that are insanly good which is unfair i think so if u read this story join are clan and help us beat the malee ass wipes.
Thanks for reading. Help us win them we need you,
IRC gaming at a higher level

I killed a man

me and my team members were in a player match and my friend rolled back and i randomly shot at him and while he was in the air upside down i popped of his head haha.

I'm a sucker for custom maps, so when I saw that Gears had some custom maps I was right there, installed them all whoa new game modes and all, couldn't wait to get playing. follow all the readme's gotta get this right. ok I start to run the game the level starts to load then BAM the game crashes I get a few send error report dialogs. After hours of searching forums for fixes and trying them all I still can't play my custom maps :(