Let me start off by saying thank you to MS. The event was an absolute blast. I had one of the best experiences being able to play GOW last night but I'll get into that in a minute.
 
First off I'm glad my buddy and I were able to make it down to LA in time for all the fun. We left Ontario, California about 10:30 PM. The function started at midnight. During our hour and a half trip we had to take about 3 different freeway detours because the state decides it's best to close off every exit and freeway at 10:00PM because I guess nobody should be out that late driving. At one point they completely shut down the 1-5. We were waiting and not moving for about 15 minutes. Once traffic started moving again it was on to the fun.
 
Once we found the cemetery and arrived they had valet parking and army transporters to take us to the event. Once we got on they drove us around the cemetery where they had fog machines, strobe lights, usual Halloween stuff...You could see the destination of where we were going because they had these huge spotlights in the sky at the center of the event. Once we pulled up to the Mausoleum portion of the cemetery is when I was first able to see what all the hype was about. GOW is just plain f'kin beautiful, period. When we arrived they had 360 kiosk spread all around on the outside with GOW. The DJ was playing great music and it was like a club with Video Games. I was going to this thing thinking it was going to be a sausage fest galore. I was very shocked to see women all around, most of them even picked up controllers and played the game. Women gamers=off the hook.
 
Once we got off the transport my buddy and I made our way over to the first set of Kiosk. I must admit before coming I only planed on staying about an hour and a half that was until my buddy went to get me a beer and we found out it was open bar for the full event. Open Bar= Off the hook. Also the food they had was great. Now the news you guys/gals really want to hear about GOW.
 
 
 
All pics of the event can be found here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamerscore/
I took my camera only to realize the batteries were dead so I only got about 4 shots off. Not too happy. These shots were taken by gamerscore from the MS team. Cliffy B made his usual appearance as well. There were lots of B-list celebs and D-list ones such as K-Fed...enough said about that.
 
Graphics 9.8/10
GOW is the best looking game out right now. I could not help comparing the graphics to that CG masterpiece of E3 2005's Kill Zone trailer. This game comes extremely close and I do mean EXTREMLY close to looking like a real time CG game. It was almost surreal. Everything from the HDR lighting to the advanced particle system looked absolutely gorgeous. I still can not believe how damn good this game looks and I have not even touched on game play. Marcus's suit is very well textured. Even with all the stuff going on in the game I didn't notice any slowdown during the heavier gunfights (AND THEY DO GET HEAVY!!) The chainsaw attack looked very gruesome and I love the way the blood splatters everywhere. This game is an absolute beast to see running with your own eyes. 2 thumbs up to Epic, great job fellas.
 
Gameplay 9.5/10
GOW gameplay=WOW. Awesome from the first moment you pick up the controller. When I had my chance to play I decided not to go through the training level of the game. I opted to go right into battle. My buddy and I played split screen, we realized later that they had about 4 separate rooms inside the Mausoleum of the cemetery with 40 inch and 60 inch monitors playing with Co-op over live and multiplayer matches. The setups they had there were unbelievable. Anyway we hopped straight into battle. The controllers were very user friendly. The only part that I had trouble with was the active reload and the chainsaw. I had issues with active reload only because I was not paying attention as to when I should be hitting the RT button to successfully reload. This is not an issue with the game it works fine as I saw many people pulling it off without a hitch. The only reason I had problems with the chainsaw was simply because I didn't have the gun yet. There were about three different guns in the demo that we played. I asked an Epic dev why I couldn't use the chainsaw he simply said because you haven't gotten to it yet. I started to laugh. He was a cool dude and I managed to get some info tidbits from him about future things for Epic. I'll discuss that later. When i did get that SOB though I was cutting locust sandwiches left and right. Chainsaw is very satisfying. I had my friend keep heavy fire on the locust from one side and I managed to flank around the other side unnoticed and chainsaw the locust he was keeping busy. It was awesome. Gameplay will not disappoint. The only main issue that I had was with the Rodie camera while running. Once I found out how to run (press and hold A) you take off down a straight path. Looks very cool btw, but I realized that it only works running straight and slightly to the left and right. You can't make any major sharp turns while running. You may be able turn sharply but I just didn't see how to and I tried everything. I am happy to say that this does not detract from the game at all. Another two thumbs up for Epic.
 
Multiplayer 9.0/10
Let me start off by saying that the days of Halo 2 Swordfest '06 are out the window. I didn't get the chance to play the multiplayer because there were always people on them, also some celebs were playing them as well (some were surprisingly good too). I watched enough matches though to determine that this is going to be the next big thing on Live. If your plan is to run out and shoot..prepare to die. ALOT. you need to work as a team in multiplayer. Using your headset will be a necessity for full team cooperation. I saw many heated battles and they were all great I watched one dude flank around and chainsaw 2 dudes at the same time then as he was finishing I watched him get sniped and off went his head..funny stuff and looks to make a great thing happen on Live. Multiplayer=Off the hook
 
Sound 9.5/10
When we entered the Mausoleum they had surround sound and headphones hooked up to all the monitors inside I counted at least 35-40 40' monitors and 4 60' monitors, MS has money lol. The sound was just as gangsta as the TV's they were playing on. I'll keep this short by saying if you have surround sound prepare to smile...if not go buy one before Emergence Day.
 
Controls 9.9/10
Plain and simple the game handles like a Lambo nice and smooth. The A button is your context sensitive button for just about everything and Epic managed to pull this off nicely. Another two thumbs up for them. If you press the Y button you can see where your next objective is or where Dom/Marcus's direction is so you can head there way, very cool feature. LT is for aiming, RT for shooting RB is for Active Reload, the crosshairs allow you to choose your gun or grenade, the x button allows you to pick up ammo or press buttons on doors or kick them open. There was also a button that allowed you to give commands to the NPC that will periodically be with you from time to time. We played to levels in the demo. The prison level and the level that they showed this past week at the Gamestop after hour event. It took me about 10 minutes to become comfortable enough with the controls. Awesome stuff. Even though I was on my 5th Heineken I still managed to be able to understand the controls. Very dummy friendly. Did I mention Open Bars=Off the hook?
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Overall 9.8/10
I never got around to asking the full playing time of GOW but I figure somewhere around 10-15 hours. Oh also let me mention that the Hardcore setting in Co-op which is the second setting, is hard as hell! The AI uses cover just as well if not better than you do. If you play Halo on Legendary regularly then I suggest starting the game in Hardcore mode. I chose Casual because I wanted to be able to figure out the controls without dying to quick . I will be playing Hardcore when the game ships though. The last setting is Insane. It wasn't available in the demo we played and probably for good reason. I think the name "insane" says enough.
 
Epic Dev info
Cool dude named Shane came over to my friend and I and asked if we had any questions. First one out of my mouth was how do I get this f'kin chainsaw to work! He laughed and said it would work if you had it. At this point my noobness on the GOW meter was pretty high. I started to try to probe info out of him about future titles. Let me start off by saying this guy was a very cool dude. He didn't disclose any info to me that he couldn't disclose publicly, he followed the rules. But it's easy to tell when someone wants to say something but know they cant. First question was will Unreal Tournament 2007 be making it's way to 360. His answer "Uhhhhhmmm...hmmm we haven't officially released information on that yet, but let me say that we made the Unreal engine 3 capable of being easily developed across all next gen platforms and PC. It's quite easy for us to develop the same game for another system because our software allows us to do so. Right now we are making UT2007 for the PS3 and the PC but we may have some news in the near future" My prediction expect UT2007 sometime shortly after the PS3 and PC release. Next Question, will there be a GOW2? His answer "The future is looking VERY good for GOW, expect to hear something about it's future soon." My prediction: GOW2 is in the works or will be very, very soon. Next Question, is GOW pushing the 360 to the max? His Answer:"We have been very intimate with the making of the 360. We were the ones that pushed for the larger Ram because we knew what we wanted to do with the game. We are pushing the game to the limit, all three cores are being used for this one, but the 360 still has tricks up its sleeve that you will see in future titles even outside of Epic, We are very pleased with what the 360 is capable of and we look to have a long future with the console and beyond". Awesome stuff Epic. Shane also mentioned that the build of the demo we played was from the X06 build. The game ran awesome and he told us that they tweaked a couple of things from that build before it went Gold status, he would not say what though. Hmmm.