Gears of War 4 Review
Gears of War over the years has formed into one of Microsoft’s biggest exclusives. It defined 3rd person shooters back in 2006. After Epic games sold the franchise, a new studio took the reigns called The Coalition. Lets start by having a look at their take on the campaign.
Campaign – I didn’t really like the campaign to be honest. The story did have some funny quirky moments, the characters are likeable and there were some interesting moments, but the story didn’t have that much impact like the older gears had.
The real problem with the campaign was the boring gameplay set pieces. It just felt like I had been there done that. It didn’t interest me and it felt like a chore playing through it.
The linear push through and shoot enemies level design is something I have grown tiresome of. Yes there are moments where you hold off enemies at a position in a horde style meta game, but it’s still essentially just shooting lines and waves of enemies through a level to progress the story.
It doesn’t try to do anything drastically different and each set piece feels familiar to what had been done in the previous gears games. The gameplay of the campaign is unoriginal. Overall I found the campaign to be boring.
Campaign – I didn’t really like the campaign to be honest. The story did have some funny quirky moments, the characters are likeable and there were some interesting moments, but the story didn’t have that much impact like the older gears had.
The real problem with the campaign was the boring gameplay set pieces. It just felt like I had been there done that. It didn’t interest me and it felt like a chore playing through it.
The linear push through and shoot enemies level design is something I have grown tiresome of. Yes there are moments where you hold off enemies at a position in a horde style meta game, but it’s still essentially just shooting lines and waves of enemies through a level to progress the story.
It doesn’t try to do anything drastically different and each set piece feels familiar to what had been done in the previous gears games. The gameplay of the campaign is unoriginal. Overall I found the campaign to be boring.
Multiplayer - The multiplayer is where this game shines. Gears 4 multiplayer starts right where Gears 3 left off but with some fantastic refinements and additions to it that make it really worth revisiting.
More of the same in the multiplayer department is no criticism. Gears of War’s core gameplay formula defined 3rd person action games in my opinion and the fluid cover based controls still hold up fantastically well today.
The new modes in Gears of War 4 are fantastic. The thing I absolutely love about the modes in gears is that they are never just the bread and butter standard modes you get in other shooters. They always take a known shooter mode, and then add a massive Gears twist on them. It’s no different with the new modes in gears 4.
For example escalation is essentially domination. Capture 3 points on the map. However the Gears twist is that holding more capture points allows you to respawn faster. Not just that but if you dominate, aka capture all 3 points, you win the round. This makes the mode play out very differently to your normal domination and sets for some tense and frantic moments.
Then we have dodgeball. This mode is genius. If you have played Warzone or Execution or any mode on a different game where you can’t respawn you might enjoy this. It’s like the middle ground between a non respawning mode and a respawning mode.
Dodgeball takes the rule of the real life sport where in dodgeball if you get hit, you’re out, until your team mates gets someone else out and then you can come back into the game. That is what applies here, so if you die, you have to wait for your team mate to get a kill before you can come back. This makes for a constant yo-yo tug of war like battle within the mode.
There’s been some great moments in this mode. Moments where you think you’ve won when there’s been one guy left, 4 of us and someone on our team got complacent and got killed by the last guy allowing the other team back in it.
Or when the last guy sometimes being me has clutched it and managed to pull off 2 kills when being the last one left on the team. This then allowed two team mates to spawn back to then end up completely turning the table and winning when you was just about to lose. Such a simple concept works so well in gears and it is incredibly fun.
More of the same in the multiplayer department is no criticism. Gears of War’s core gameplay formula defined 3rd person action games in my opinion and the fluid cover based controls still hold up fantastically well today.
The new modes in Gears of War 4 are fantastic. The thing I absolutely love about the modes in gears is that they are never just the bread and butter standard modes you get in other shooters. They always take a known shooter mode, and then add a massive Gears twist on them. It’s no different with the new modes in gears 4.
For example escalation is essentially domination. Capture 3 points on the map. However the Gears twist is that holding more capture points allows you to respawn faster. Not just that but if you dominate, aka capture all 3 points, you win the round. This makes the mode play out very differently to your normal domination and sets for some tense and frantic moments.
Then we have dodgeball. This mode is genius. If you have played Warzone or Execution or any mode on a different game where you can’t respawn you might enjoy this. It’s like the middle ground between a non respawning mode and a respawning mode.
Dodgeball takes the rule of the real life sport where in dodgeball if you get hit, you’re out, until your team mates gets someone else out and then you can come back into the game. That is what applies here, so if you die, you have to wait for your team mate to get a kill before you can come back. This makes for a constant yo-yo tug of war like battle within the mode.
There’s been some great moments in this mode. Moments where you think you’ve won when there’s been one guy left, 4 of us and someone on our team got complacent and got killed by the last guy allowing the other team back in it.
Or when the last guy sometimes being me has clutched it and managed to pull off 2 kills when being the last one left on the team. This then allowed two team mates to spawn back to then end up completely turning the table and winning when you was just about to lose. Such a simple concept works so well in gears and it is incredibly fun.
Conclusion
Horde is essentially a ramp up and refinement of previous hordes, the campaign was quite uninspiring and too familiar in my opinion. The multiplayer is essentially more gears which is a good thing personally and the new additions are enough but if you are a long time gears player like me, you might start to grow tired of it in the long run.
Overall Gears of War 4 is a good game. Although Gears of War 4 plays it safe on the most part, it is very promising signs that a new developer can make a successful Gears game. It’s a real worthy entry to the series.
Horde is essentially a ramp up and refinement of previous hordes, the campaign was quite uninspiring and too familiar in my opinion. The multiplayer is essentially more gears which is a good thing personally and the new additions are enough but if you are a long time gears player like me, you might start to grow tired of it in the long run.
Overall Gears of War 4 is a good game. Although Gears of War 4 plays it safe on the most part, it is very promising signs that a new developer can make a successful Gears game. It’s a real worthy entry to the series.
Pros:
Excellent innovative new Multiplayer modes The core signature gameplay still holds up well Overall: 8.1/10 |
Cons:
Boring Campaign Too familiar at times |