Best Job of Living Up to the Hype: Gears of War. Even before the Xbox 360 came out, Microsoft was talking an immense amount about how Gears of War would redefine console shooters for the next generation. Every time Sony showed off Resistance: Fall of Man, Microsoft said, “Just wait for Gears.” It took long enough, but Gears delivered, even surpassing some of the superheated expectations Microsoft and the developers at Epic Games in North Carolina had created. In fact, they set a high bar for the next installment of that other Xbox shooter series (due in 2007), a little franchise called Halo.