Bill Gates notoriously promised that when the PlayStation 3 launched, it would run right into the buzzsaw of "Halo 3." But with the boys at Bungie not expected to "finish the fight" until sometime in 2007, it's Epic Games' "Gears of War" that Billg is counting on to fend off the impending arrival of Sony's big black obelisk. And rightly so. The graphics are incredible (of the PS3 action games available at launch, only "Genji: Days of the Blade" matches "Gears of War'"s visual prowess.) The gameplay is tight, replacing the run-and-gun dynamics that typify most shooters with a more rewarding stop-and-pop system that requires gamers to carefully move from cover to cover to avoid being blasted by the evil Locust hordes. And the controls are extremely well thought out, far more so than we've come to expect from Western game developers, especially those like Epic whose background lies in PC games.

So it's all the more shocking to discover, as Epic and Microsoft steadily lift the kimono on their Next Big Thing, that the writing in the game is simply atrocious. (You can see the video for yourselves here.) My guess is that Cliff Bleszinski and Susan O'Connor--the game's designer and screenwriter, respectively--are deliberately going for an '80s action flick vibe. But even by the standards of '80s action flicks, the writing in Epic Games' "Gears of War" could use a page one rewrite. Witness exchanges like:

"Welcome to Delta Squad."

"Where are we going?"

"Embry Square. Colonel Hoffman's waiting for us."

"Hoffman? Ah, s--t."

And:

"Hey, are you the Marcus Fenix? The one who fought at Asphyo Fields?"

"Yep."

"Wow! Cool!"

"Not really."

Now, we like good '80s action flicks as much as the next person (think "Predator," "Alien" "Die Hard".) Unfortunately, as evidenced by the aforementioned clip, Bleszinski and O'Connor seem to have been inspired by bad '80s action flicks (like "Raw Deal," "Cobra," or "Marked For Death".) Compounding this problem is the pace and delivery by the voice talent, complete with monotonous line readings, drawn out pauses and strange beats. Good actors and direction can make even bad lines somewhat bearable, but there's no such saving grace here. Obviously, the dialogue in a videogame doesn't need to be good in order for the game itself to be worth playing, and in this regard, Gears of War is far from the worst offender. But it is baffling to see such cutting-edge visuals and cinematic camerawork being undermined by such mediocre lines. If there's a Gears of War 2--and we strongly hope there will be--we'd recommend that Epic leap forward a decade and look to quality movies like "Three Kings" for guidance.