With the release of Gears of War 4 it is fascinating to see
that the Gears franchise is taking pretty much the same path that Halo
did. Both franchises were given over to
new developers when the original creators wanted to move on. Both times the new developers got their feet
wet by remastering a past game. And
both times the new developers had the unenviable task of coming up with a
compelling reason to continue the story after players had already finished the
fight in the last game.
Microsoft seems to have learned a few lessons from Halo 4,
however, as The Coalition’s Gears of War 4 is a much safer and by-the-numbers
sequel than 343I’s first original Halo game.
The core gameplay is the same as ever and the new enemies and story
mostly make sense and don’t change too much.
The campaign starts out pretty awful, but picks up steam right through
the finish and ends up being pretty darn awesome overall. Pair that with great multiplayer and horde
modes – both with A.I. bots and splitscreen – and you have a pretty solid
package in Gears of War 4. See all of
the details here in our full review.
Game Details
- Publisher: Microsoft
- Developer: The Coalition
- ESRB Rating: “M” for Mature
- Genre: Third-Person-Shooter
- Pros: Satisfying gameplay; solid campaign; bots in multiplayer!; splitscreen!; great presentation
- Cons: First chapter in campaign straight up sucks;
- MSRP: $60
Gears of War 4 takes place 25-years after the events of
Gears of War 3. In the years of peace
after the defeat of the Locust, some citizens wanted to move away from COG
controlled settlements and form their own independent villages, much to the
dismay of the COG, of course. J.D.
Fenix, Marcus Fenix’s son, goes AWOL from the COG to join a group of these
Outsiders. What starts out as simply
infiltrating a still-in-construction COG city to steal a fabricator device ends
up uncovering a brand new enemy that once again puts the citizens of the planet
Sera in grave danger.
I’ll be honest, the first chapter of the campaign in Gears
of War 4 straight up sucks. The COG has
created an army of robot soldiers to keep the peace (or something) so you fight
these bland, boring, uninteresting robots for the first chunk of the game and
it doesn’t really feel much like a Gears game.
Even though you’re still fighting the robots, you meet up with Marcus
Fenix in chapter 2 and things start to pick up with some crazy set-pieces and
awesome battles. Then the real new
enemy of the game, monsters eerily similar to the Locust, appears and the rest
of the game is totally nuts.
I really, really hate stories where, in the absence of an
enemy to fight, the good guys fight each other because of “reasons”. That is where Gears of War 4 starts, and why
the first chapter sucks. When the new
enemy, the Swarm, is introduced, however, Gears of War 4 gets awesome. It is no longer political infighting and
boring nonsense. It turns into classic
chaotic man-versus-monster battles that the series is known for and it is
incredible. It escalates and escalates
and keeps getting crazier and crazier, too, until the final section of the game
that can only be described as “badass”.
It has to be noted that the gameplay in Gears of War 4 is
pretty much the same as ever, which is a good thing. It is still a cover-based third-person-shooter where careful
advancement, cover fire, and flanking the enemy are the keys to success. Despite being “new”, the Swarm are pretty
much exactly like the Locust save for a couple of mini-boss variants, so the
gameplay is very familiar. One new
thing I love is the “Juvies” variant of Swarm that are basically mindless fast
moving zombies that let you put the chainsaw on your Lancer to good use
(seriously, I killed more stuff with the chainsaw in GoW4 than the previous 4
games put together …). Gear of War 4
plays fantastically well and is extremely satisfying all around.
In addition to the campaign, which only took me 6-hours to
complete, there are also co-op modes, multiplayer, and horde modes to play
through. I won’t speak on the specifics
of multiplayer, because honestly that isn’t where my interest lies for this or
99% of other games, but I will say a few things. You can play local splitscreen in all of these modes, and I am
forever grateful for that. You can also
play all of the modes with A.I. bots, which is the best feature ever. Not everyone wants to play online with a
bunch of hardcore dudebros and get yelled at, so being able to experience
multiplayer modes offline in splitscreen and with bots is awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
One of the nicest things about Gears of War 4 is that it
paints a fairly different picture of the planet Sera than the previous games in
the series did from a visual standpoint.
Since it is 25-years after the defeat of the Locust, you get to see
sterling and clean cities and there is actual green grass and colorful flowers
all over. Sure, the game turns into the
familiar gray and brown color palate when you get into the meat of the story
and start fighting the Swarm, but seeing a more colorful side of Sera was
nice.
The visuals overall are pretty great thanks to the use of
the Unreal 4 engine. Everything is
nicely detailed, character models look good, and blood and guts and chainsaw
gibs look fantastic. Special effects
for lightning, dust, smoke, fire, and everything else are also very well
done. Gears has always been a graphical
showcase, and Gears 4 is no different.
The game also runs at a silky smooth framerate with no noticeable
hitches even when things get intense.
The sound is great all around with solid voice acting and
excellent sound effects for all of the weaponry. The soundtrack is … not particularly memorable. As in, I can’t actually remember any
music.
In the end, Gears of War 4 is exactly what fans of the
franchise have been waiting for. It
brings some new things to the series while keeping the core intact which, while
a safe play and somewhat disappointing since it is largely more of the same as
past entries, was definitely a smart move in the long run considering the
finished product is so polished and near-perfect. It looks great. It plays
great. It has a ton of features and
modes including splitscreen and bots for all modes. Gears of War 4 is just a fantastic new entry in the series that
fans will love and we can’t wait to see where the story goes next. Buy it.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher.
