Cheese Cutting Tools
Soft cheeses are best sliced using wire, which is easy to work with and avoids squishing the cheese. Hard cheeses, like Parmesan, are difficult to cut with a wire. These cheeses are often (as you say) scored and then split with a prying action. If the cheese is sufficiently dry, it will easily break apart in sections. You can do this with an ordinary knife, or use a specialized cheese knife such as these.

Gouda is kind of in a middle ground, being a semi-hard cheese. Some specimens may be too soft to pry apart, and others may be too hard to easily cut with a wire. That said, I would probably try the wire first (the prying apart method usually only works with very hard cheeses). The age of your cheese will give you a rough indication of how hard it is-- Gouda is usually aged anywhere from 1 month to 3 years.