"Continuing the innovation was Gears' cover system. At the time, the idea of tapping a button and sticking to cover was still fresh and novel, which is surprising given how long we've been holding a gun and shooting baddies. However, Gears was one of the first to dedicate a large chunk of gameplay to finding and sticking to cover, and the system is beginning to show its age. First off, everything is handled by the A button, and I do mean everything. Tapping it brings you in and out of cover, holding it goes into the now infamous "roadie run," and using it in conjunction with the control stick governs SWAT turns and diving rolls. Strangely, it also handles jumping down from raised platforms and hurdling over obstructions. It can be somewhat irritating and immensely counter-intuitive to force your character to press up into cover against an object just so you can vault over it and continue with your objective. Even when the game was first released many reviewers harped on these items as issues, and now as we look back and see just how many nuances you can put into a cover system, we'd be remiss if we didn't call out Gears seminal gameplay mechanic as overly-simplified and somewhat wonky."
