Eh. Clipping bugs are nothing new. Either it was a cheat or they forgot to flag a certain piece of architecture or something.
Anyway, I picked it up tonight, and man am I happy with it. Initially, it's a bit disconcerting. Where with most FPS games you have a very fluid sense of constant motion -- always running, jumping, dodging, switching weapons -- everything in GoW is very much tailored, as has been mentioned everywhere, to the Epic-dubbed "stop and pop" gameplay style. If you've played kill.switch (and if so, I pity you), you know roughly how it works. You're finding cover, going into said cover via the context-sensitive A button, then looking at your position and trying to see what's next. If your position looks good, you can use the left trigger to pop out into aimed mode and start firing. Let go of the trigger, back into cover you go. If your position doesn't look so hot, you can use the left stick and the A button again to perform various context-sensitive moves either out into the open to run for new cover, or directly over to alternate nearby cover (if something is close the game understands and will let you simply do a roll or drive over to the new position). Then you can again evaluate the situation and go as seems good. Got time for a quick shot while several enemies are running for cover in front of you but not enough time (and too many enemies) to actually stand up and shoot? Just pop a few shots blind over whatever it is you're hiding behind. It won't be nearly as effective as slamming the bad guys with headshots in aimed mode, but you'll likely do some damage to several at once. Sweet.
So this whole thing takes a bit of getting used to. Initially it seems a little clunky and maybe even too start-and-stop, but once you get the hang of it... wow. Suddenly you're performing these super cool duck-and-cover sequences while laying into the bad guys on the fly, doing your best to flank the enemy and get a better position. And that's what really sets this game apart. Because of the squad-based gameplay, you've always got a few other guys on your side. They may not be the killers, but they make for good distractions, allowing you to use the (thus far) fairly open environments to get a better position on the enemy, and because of the need for cover and good positioning, it really makes your movements matter. You aren't going to win just because you can aim good. If you pop out of cover for very long, you die *fast*, especially with multiple opponents targeting you. Hiding behind the cover for a bit without getting shot will let you recover your health, but it doesn't matter how much of it you've got, you can't take a lot of damage. This is great, because it means you're rarely at that "oh my God, one more hit and I'm dead!" stage, but you're always hardly ever very far from it. It keeps things really tense. I didn't like the way it worked in Halo so much, but I think it works much better here. It's very tight, and the range of health is so short that you're always tense, but rarely so tense that you won't risk making a move that could have great rewards if you pull it off right.
So yeah, thus far I'm loving it. It took maybe a half hour for me to feel even remotely confident with the controls, but now that I'm getting used to them, my first hour and a half have been very enjoyable indeed. I can't wait to see more guns and enemies and stuff, and I *absolutely* can't wait for Sy to come over and play a marathon coop session with me. And Pyro, next time you visit we already have the only coop game we really need. =)
EDIT - Okay, the game was great for a while... and now it's super-duper-fucking-amazing. Seriously. It was cool and action packed, then all of a sudden everything went crazy and it's just... yay. Yes, this game is as good as people have been saying. The story base is very much there and it's a shame to hear that it went underutilized, but that also means there's a lot of potential for depth later on. The characters aren't nearly as terrible as I thought they'd be, either. They're huge, meatheaded, and cheesy... but they're a lot of fun and they do what they do rather well. They're fun to blow stuff up with. So yeah, as an action game, this is truly, truly something special. As a graphical powerhouse, it's also quite something. A lot of people were saying they'd never seen a game that looked this good, and at this point I'm inclined to agree. Not only is the game *exceptionally* well done in the art department just as far as direction and such are concerned, it's truly one of the most amazing technical showcases I have ever seen. Amazing is really the only good word. You'll see it, and you'll be amazed. Some of the cutscenes, as has been mentioned, are unfortunately a little choppy, but that doesn't mean they aren't super cool and really well directed, and they let you appreciate some of the insane detail that went into this. What got my jaw to drop? When someone died in slow motion and a spray of blood crashed down around and on top of him... the blood literally bouncing into tiny droplets as it hit solid objects. Wow. Camera work is astounding here as well, and there's all sorts of tiny little things that add consistency from the character to the world. The animation isn't perfect 100% of the time, but it's amazing how many little things they got right that make it seem really real.
So yes, this game is amazing and a half. Anybody with a 360 should have it or there should be attempts on their life while they attempt to do so. And Cobra, I think even if the game is rather short and such, this isn't a "let's get you ready for multiplayer!" thing. A lot of thought obviously went into this, and I can tell you right now that each little "scene" is over far too quickly. I'll definitely be playing through this again by myself, and since I have a friend nearby, at least once with him as well.
