I played the multiplayer demo on my Bro-in-laws 360 & thought it was superb. Very easy to pick up & play with controls setup the way the are.

So I bought the full game on Saturday. I can see why this has gone down a storm in Japan. Its an arcade style shoot em up with Gears thrown in for good measure.

Its a very challenging game from what Ive played so far only being on Mission 3 (technically 4 after playing through the intro) & its not for the casual gamer. Things are popping out everywhere & theres weapons & ammo galore. The only problem you will have is your health.

Because its set on an Arctic planet, you have a lifebar & a countdown of Thermal Energy or T-Eng, which is built into your suit, keeping you warm from the freezing conditions. When your life bar lowers (after sustaining no more hits for awhile & not reaching 0) it replenishes itself from your stored but always depleting T-Eng. In order to keep topping up your T-Eng you must kill the Alien inhabitants, who in order for themselves to survive, use & store T-Eng also.

The problem with this however, is that you can kill things from great distances with it being an open barren wasteland, but by the time you reach the fallen T-Eng its disappeared. So if your T-Eng is low it makes you go up close & personal to these suckers in order to collect the necessary. There are data stations you need to activate along the way which updates your radar giving you up to date locations on nearby heat signatures (enemies) & also give you a boost of T-Eng upon successful activation.

Onto the gears

Your character Wayne is the only member out of your small band of resistance fighters who can pilot a Gear. So you are the one sent out into the cold while your team drink coffee in the warmth & safety of the base. But Wayne dosnt mind this because he has a personal score to settle with the aliens so bring em on.

Broken gears are scattered everywhere from when the Humans had enough numbers & military might to wage a war on the aliens, but every so often you will find a working gear. These range from big slow manoeuvering gears to fast agile gears that turn into snow mobiles.

From what Ive seen so far the majority you find come with one gun but two placements for guns & a limited amount of ammo & health. But you can find guns on broken gears, unattach the weapons & reattach them onto your working gear. This is also fun as when you are carrying a gears Gatling gun you can ignore the attaching bit & run round yourself shooting anything & everything that moves with it.

It does stand upto games like Gears of war in terms of gameplay & graphics & it does have a more engrossing storyline than GOW (for me GOW did a poor job of giving you back story). But if you are choosing between the two GOW just edges with its originality for me.

If like me you can have both by all means do you wont be disappointed