Gears 5

I noticed a very peculiar thing while I was playing through Gears 5 (the series has re-branded to drop the "of war") and its challenging, yet engrossing campaign. 

There's really not an added-value element to the Gears franchise anymore. When you boil down the gameplay it's very essentially one thing: run and gun. It was a sobering and somewhat saddening thought I received throughout this great game (make no mistake that this is a great game). But in a time where other games offer so much more, Gears 5 feels forgettable and no longer the powerhouse exclusive it used to be on the Xbox platform. 

Take any other AAA title for example, even exclusives. Uncharted is comparable. With Uncharted you have very similar cover-based shooting but you also have traversal and climbing, puzzles, and epic set-pieces. Halo? The gameplay can be switched up on you depending on the level, available vehicles, etc. Sure it's still a shooter, but there's other stuff you can do too. And with comparison to much deeper games like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Gears fades quickly in the department of "variability". 

I profess this conclusion not to start some flaming console war discussion, but more so to recognize why I, at times, wasn't having as much fun with Gears 5 as I'd hoped. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome, big game, but it also feels like it's lacking something and not quite stepping up to the plate (as a series) to define what its next directions are, outside of compelling storytelling. 

Sneaking up on Matt Damon in The Martian to put him out of his misery...

Do you feel cold yet?

What Gears 5 has in spades in shooting and cover-based shooting tactics. And it does this incredibly well - I'd even argue it's potentially unmatched in this way other than a few small gripes. Gears combat feels intense on a regular basis and this time around it felt far more challenging than in the past, in a good way. Part of that could be because I played through the campaign on hard mode, but in general I was pressured, flanked, sighted, and killed on a consistent basis. A large reason for this is Gears' enemy variety of which not many games can compare. You have your usual grunts but then there are other enemy types in the form of creatures that can carry you away, kamikaze mindless enemies, menacing and violent Wardens, and many more. The game knows this is a strength and often throws every combination imaginable at you throughout the lengthy campaign. This creates some gnarly difficulty spikes, only a few of which felt ridiculous, but makes the result of getting past it all that much more rewarding. For the heroes, you're outfitted with a plethora of weapons to combat these foes, most of which I enjoyed. There are certainly useless ones (looking at you, Klaw) and ones that I'd rarely trade for (Gnasher), but there's enough variety to shake things up. Unique feeling and playing shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, assault rifles, and special weapons all make their claim here and serve different purposes throughout. Going into some tight spaces? Bring an Overkill shotgun. Looking to have some mid-range superiority with some backup? Use the glorious new GL Lancer that has a laser-targeting grenade launcher and wonderfully gleeful grenade launching animation (seriously, it was my favorite). The point is that Gears combat is great because it acts like a chess match, not just in your movements. It challenges you to match the enemy variations and combinations with different weapons and it will make sure you know when your loadout is wrong (read: you'll die a lot). 

I imagine this is nearly physically impossible in real life, but damn it looked fun

Within the combat there are some new power-ups courtesy of your flying droid, Jack. These are fairly useless at first but become integral to your strategy later on as you unlock new abilities. In fact, I'd say that changing my ability loadout on Jack was often the deciding factor in getting past difficult sections. Things like shock traps (the MVP), invisibility, shields, and health buffs all can be used to great effect to shock and overcome your foes. Unfortunately it's here where I ran into a few very frustrating bugs. There will come times where you use Jack's abilities to escape near-death. On more than one occasion I would be pounding the button to use an ability that I very clearly had ready to use and nothing would happen. Then I would die. Again, this was only a handful of times but it often came during the difficulty spikes and makes them that much harder to swallow when you feel like a game inaccuracy killed you rather than your skill. Within combat there's also a few frustrating moments of getting stuck on walls - it's a very sticky cover system - or enemies lobbing multiple one-hit grenades without any indication right by you. They're very small frustrations, and they don't add up to much given the core gameplay is so great, but they're worth mentioning. 

Gears 5's story picks up after the previous, also great but somewhat forgettable Gears of War 4. I've found myself invested in these characters, even though I don't find myself caring all that much about the enemies or the world-building aspects. Kait, JD, Del, and others are all memorable and acted out well, offering lots of humor to lighten up the dreary "end of the world" tone, but also able to captivate during the emotional beats. More so than other shooters, I could tell you generally why I was doing what I was doing in the game and what the end objective was, which is always nice and makes it more intriguing to pay attention to the story overall. The game itself brings you to a variety of planets and locations and, much like last year's God of War, offers you some flexibility and free-roaming capabilities via a very cool wind-based skiff. Mind you, this isn't all that much in terms of variable gameplay and certainly not enough to overcome the qualm I started this review with, but it does offer up a unique exploration angle that can reward you for going off the beaten path. 

No. The game is not gory at all...

More ominous lighting!!

The worlds themselves basically amount to an ice planet and a mars-like red planet. You'll spend the majority of your gameplay time here and they're intriguing, colorful, striking worlds. Gears 5 is a graphical powerhouse that always looks gorgeous. Each world has specific weather phenomenon that makes this readily apparent and your interactions with these segments are some of the game's highlights. You have gargantuan ice storms on the snow planet and the red planet's lightning strikes create automatic trees of resin (or some type of solid) that is shocking at first and awesome to watch. All of these storms - and the rest of the game's nice graphics - are complimented with awesome sound. Guns each have unique sound outputs, enemies will growl or bark commands in the distance, and when you explode one of them or get a headshot you're greeted with a delightfully disgusting bursting and plopping sound signaling your success. 

The multiplayer offers a very full package in terms of PvP, Horde mode, and the new Escape mode. I haven't delved too much into PvP, but I've played several rounds of Horde and Escape. Escape acts as a quick-burst format where you try to get through waves of enemies on your way out of a proceduraly generated maze-like map. It's fine, but not something all that captivating to keep me coming back for more. Horde is the star MP format here and the rounds I've played are wonderful, intense, but also not all that much different than the past. I even ran into some technical hiccups that forced me to quit and it's still shocking that there's no group pause functionality in a mode that can easily start to hit 30, 40, 60+ minute marks. 

Gears 5 is a great game that's a lot of fun and has some incredibly strong core gameplay that carries it through. The problem is that it has carried the series through for 5 games now and little tweaks like riding around on a skiff or the Jack robot abilities aren't enough to push Gears into the next generation. It's a AAA exclusive title that I'll likely forget about in a few months until Gears 6 comes out. And of course I'll play Gears 6, but given what some other franchises are offering these days, it shouldn't be a surprise that a new Gears game doesn't carry the excitement it once used to, despite how solid the resulting game is. 

CONS

• Had a few frustrating technical hiccups throughout, mostly relating to controller button presses not registering
• Doesn't offer much new to the series. It's largely "run here, shoot this, run here, shoot this". There's no added-value element - or even really any big set pieces - where the gameplay varies itself enough to keep you on your toes
• Some silly difficulty spikes
• Some useless weapons
• No true advances in multiplayer. Escape is a okay mode that I'm sure will find its niche, but doesn't play all that different than the core game
• How is there still no group-pause button in Horde mode? 

PROS

• What Gears does, it does very well. This is one of the best cover-based shooters on the market
• Consistently challenging and will make you vary your tactics and techniques in order to get past difficulty spikes
• Loads of variation in enemy types and the game will throw every combination of them at you
• Strong weapon variety with lots of unique ways to do damage to your enemies. New favorite is the GL Lancer's grenades
• Jack powerups become highly integrated into your approach and most of them have tremendous value
• Engaging core story with highly memorable core heroes at its center. Balances humor and emotion well
• Gorgeous graphics, particularly with the open worlds' weather segments
• Equally strong sound design with some hilarious "gross out" effects
• Rounds out as a full package with MP modes that are worth returning to. Horde mode is still the king of these

Rath's Review Score | 8/10