I’ll be honest. I wasn’t planning on getting Gears of War today. In fact, I wasn’t planning on getting Gears of War anytime soon. Then I made the mistake of walking into the local EBGames during lunchtime and I inquired kindly about the availability of Gears of War. You can imagine my surprise when the salesman I was talking to mentioned that he had Gears of War right there on the spot! As he reached down to get a copy, a different saleswoman stopped him and told “Actually - they don’t go on sale until 7 pm tonight so you’ll need to come back then to get them.”

“Awww man… but I’m here! Can’t I just buy one and go back to work? No one would know!”

Alas.. my pleading didn’t work and the trap was set. I was now determined to get one tonight. But before I was going to stay around at work until 6:45pm, I doublechecked with the sales people that they indeed had enough copies of Gears of War on hand tonight. EBGames gauranteed me that they had enough copies on hand so ok.. I was on for tonight.

Tick tock tick tock…

So the afternoon passed me by (and it went by pretty quickly since it was so busy at work) and would you know it? It was 6:45pm!. I headed on over to EBGames to see if I could get a copy a bit earlier than the 7pm they told me earlier. (Here I was thinking that no one else would be there either.. stupid me)

I parked the car, walked up the stairs, turned the corner and then dropped my jaw.

There in front of me was a line of about 60+ gamers waiting for to get the game. So much for the quick in, quick out strategy huh? They eventually split the line into 2 lines - one for the pre-orders and one for the non pre-orders. Of course the pre-orders got first dibbs and I didn’t actually enter EBGames until 8:10pm. What was particularly annoying was how pre-order folks got in line at around 7:55pm and still walked in ahead of me because well.. they had pre-ordered. Teaches me something about pre-ordering right?

Yes.. I was rather annoyed and yes.. I wanted to just go home at this point but at least I had the game now.

Unfortunately the Limited Edition was sold out but I could care less about owning the DVD or the Xbox 360 face plate to be honest with you.

So yes folks. I have the game.. and I’ve started playing the game.. and I can tell you from the few minutes that I’ve played it thus far.. It’s utterly amazing.

Here’s a snapshot of the game from IGN:

There’s no need to wait for Halo 3 folks. The killer app for the Xbox 360 has finally arrived and it’s called Gears of War.

So much for sleep.

Oh yes – here are two reviews of the game – one frm GameSpot who finds:

Gears of War is an outstanding technical achievement, but in addition to looking and sounding amazing, it’s a seriously awesome action game.

and one from IGN who finds:

Even with the minor faults, Gears of War is easily a contender for game of the year. The graphics, sound and presentation are nearly unparalleled. The gameplay is phenomenal and you’d be hard pressed to find a more complete package. Gears of War has shown what Xbox 360 is capable of. Now it remains to be seen what other developers can do to keep up.

No sleep.. and yes.. Emergence Day has arrived.

[Check it out]

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