Gears of War review

On the subject of small gameplay devices, the active reload is another small but canny move. Take that bayonet gun - the last bullets make a warning click, and once it empties, a reload slider begins. Ignoring this will allow a moderate reload speed. Tapping reload at the right time can boost the speed, and hitting it spot-on will even give you a damage bonus. Try it and miss, and your weapon will briefly jam. It's simple, but when the Locust forces are advancing, it's a real pain - melee combat can kill you very quickly, especially if you don't have your chainsaw revved. When you're sniping, the damage boost can cause a headshot to take down a rocket-launching boomer in one.

Squad AI can always be a worry. But in Gears, it's good enough to make it feel like you're fighting on a team against another team. Both sides flank and charge, and you're free to take a leading role or hang around at the back. But if you do that, bear in mind that your squad will probably get hurt, forcing you forward to heal them. There's the odd gaffe - the teammate spinning around on the spot, caught between two see-sawing priorities, and the Locust who took cover fromour squadmate, then hid from him while staring directly through us. Butwe're only saying this to show off how observantwe are. They're very much the exception to the excellent rule. The squad commands you gain in Act 2, on the other hand, are fairly redundant and easily ignored.

If you choose to try out the co-op mode (and you definitely should) a lot of the game design decisions that seem frivolous suddenly make perfect sense. Take the times when you decide on a certain path - they seem needless in single-player, but with an online mate, they're a great way to break up the team and work together in different ways. Between this and the large menu of competitive multiplayer game styles and maps, you've got a huge amount of added value.