It's February and Valentines Day is right around the corner. Now is the time when you cannot possibly forget to get your significant other something nice. If you don't have a significant other, this might be your opportunity nab a hubby or wifey by checking out some local outdoor events, visiting a local church pic-nic or even checking out Craig's List!

But when you are buying endless amounts of chocolate encased in pink and red boxes shaped like hearts don't forget about one of your old friend Pete's favorite events: the 2007 Game Developer's Conference. It's right around the corner and in this month's edition of Press Start, I will be looking at a handful of pretty outstanding games some of which are sure to win something at this year's GDC Award ceremony.

Gears of War lives up to hype. With the implementation of Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.0, this is the kind of game that makes an Xbox 360 worth buying. All Gears of War images © Microsoft Game Studios, Epic Studios.

Gears of War for Microsoft Xbox 360: Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios; Developer: Epic Games; Release Date: November 7, 2006; ESRB Rating: M for mature; Genre: shooter; Players: 1-2; Support: LAN gameplay; Online: eight player co-op/head-to-head

Lock and Load
Even before Gears of War was released it was given monikers like "The Halo Killer" or "The next step in videogame evolution" or even "The game that will help realized the Xbox 360's full potential." Personally, I just didn't buy it. I am never really impressed with how much hype a game can gather even before it has been released and it goes without saying that many of us have often been disappointed when a highly anticipated title is released and just can't live up to it's own propaganda.

But (and this is a big one), when I heard that Epic Games was implementing their new Unreal Engine 3.0, I decided to give it a shot. As you play Gears of War you begin to realize that not only does it live up to the hype but this is the kind of game that makes an Xbox 360 worth buying. Could this be a sign that people in the game industry are starting to realize just what the game industry needs? Maybe.

Watch Your 9!
Our grisly hero of this story is Marcus Fenix, a former military commander who has just been busted out of prison and immediately reinstated into action. We later find out that a struggling human race is at war on a foreign planet with a blood thirsty species known as the Locust.

Just by looking at the gameplay footage and screenshots of GOW you can tell that it is not a First-Person-Shooter. It is actually a Third-Person-Shooter that plays very similar to an FPS. You got the traditional controls; the left analog stick makes the character walk while the right analog stick makes the character aim. What is not traditional about the controls is that the maneuvers used to take cover from enemy fire are essential to the gameplay. Players can hide behind rocks and walls while enemies are shooting or just to reload their gun and can pop out at any time to let the Locust eat lead, toss a fragmentation grenade or take aim for a headshot. Players can also dive and dodge from cover to cover in an attempt to get in a better firing position.

The gameplay feels very concrete and the controls become second nature after a few fire-fights. As you begin to convert the endless hoard of Locust Grubs into canon fodder you'll find that some of them will either just die and some of them will just become so badly injured that they can't fight anymore. GOW allows you to perform a coup de grace on a fallen, but not quite dead, enemy by stomping on his head; not very "Jesse Colin Young" if you catch my drift, but it's still fun to do.