My babblings at the moment are more enthusiastic than normal.  I'm very excitable.  Those people who are unfortunate enough to be able to hear me know why; some have taken drastic action and moved to Scotland until I've calmed down (although Anna insists it's only for a few days for work meetings).

 

Gears of War rocks.

 

Epic have came up with something that is going to cause everyone currently developing in this genre to wonder if their game is obsolete before it's even released.  It doesn't rock in a traditional shooter way, it goes beyond that.

 

If you've ever played paintball you'll know that if you stand in the open you will get shot.   So you run for cover... and so does everyone else.  It becomes very hard to know where everyone is because everyone is hiding.  Occasionally somebody might pop up and fire a few shots, maybe to keep some poor suckers head down while his mate goes around the side to where said suckers cover isn't so good.  You'll occasionally hear the bursting of paint pellets and subsequent howls of pain

 

You're situational awareness is reduced because your movement is restricted.  Your focus is generally straight forward, beyond your cover to some guy hiding next to a tree stump.  You'll occasionally exchange fire but it's a stalemate.  The only way for you to succeed is to work with others, draw that guys attention to someone else while you go around the side and sneak up on him.  Then while he's firing at your mate fifty feet away you can lay into him with your chainsaw bayonet and shower the tree canopy with his blood. 

 

The multiplayer Gears of War is EXACTLY like that. 

 

It also has amazing graphics and excellent sound. 

 

My only compaints really are that the multiplayer lobby for ranked matches is crap.  It takes ages to connect to a game, and if something goes wrong (like the game you want to join is now full because it took so long finding it) it does the whole search again.  I'm not kidding when I say that you can spend upwards of 15 minutes searching for a game to join... and it's not because there is a shortage of games.  They really need to fix it.

 

Gamerscore is now 4675.  Oblivion is very slow going.