Do I like Gears?

I guess the brief amount of time I spent playing the game this evening has not really furnished enough experience to allow me to answer that question. That said, I switched to Geometry Wars 2 after not too long (Glowing Triangles of War), so that might indicate something in and of itself.

My first and constant thought is, "Wow, these graphics have not aged well." Have we really come such a long way since 2006 that these look incredibly outdated? I guess so. The frame rate does that, "Hello, I am in a cut scene" thing, like, "Look at how hard I am working to get these characters walking across the screen." I'm not sure how else to describe it. A little fuzz on the motion, almost. *not a tech person, clearly, although you'd think I would be at least a bit by now* The character models are great, but some of skin textures look rather plastic. On the whole, I just can't remember the last time I played a game that looked like this (2006?) It's almost like playing a PC game with a computer that can't crank all the settings.

Aside from that, I'm not really getting the cover mechanic very well. It seems really clunky to me, for some reason. I thought that was the main draw of this game, the great cover system. Perhaps I'll do some instruction manual diving before my next outing (which is either tomorrow, or next weekend). Could probably use some systematic education.

The other thing I'm curious about is co-op. Maybe I will try that tomorrow -- see if there are any lame souls like me playing the original instead of 2. I have had people tell me to skip the first one, but I feel like it's probably important to at least give it a shot. Or two.

I'm really raring to go on DQIV, now that I'm not stuck anymore, but I will try to save the handheld stuff for the train.