Been playing Gears of War 4 since it’s release, practically. I have some mixed feelings towards the game at the moment and felt the need to throw them out. If you worry what my opinion on the game overall is, I can say it’s positive. I’m most likely gonna compare it to Gears 3 a lot, though with slight nostalgia goggles as I haven’t played it in maybe 6 months. Some spoilers here, so read at your own risk.
The gameplay is solid. It combines the gameplay of Gears 3 with being able to drop off higher altitudes sort of like in Judgment and adds the Yank & Shank, which is like a reverse mantlekick, as well as the ability to jump over covers while still running. The new additions are great and improves the flow of the gameplay, making you not have to release the A button while running and giving you a cool new execution.
The campaign doesn’t feel too grand, it’s mostly a rescue mission where we learn these new things along the way. No problem with that, just a bit disappointing after the story in Gears 3. Of course that was the end of a trilogy and here we’re just starting to get to know these new people. Only real complaints are that Carmine felt thrown in and I wish the old cast had a bit more screentime.
Some missions seem to be inspired both by Judgment and Horde mode, taking place where the last mission ended, except now you have to fight waves of enemies with the help of sentries and such. Some missions were vehicle stages but not in the way they were in 1 and 2 These were closer to a stage in modern Sonic games where you go in a line and can control the sidestepping with some shooting.
Campaign also gives me more of a Halo 4 vibe than I’d like. There are robot enemies, one that’s flying, and they have their own weapons. Compare that with Prometheans. That’s basically it though, and since most of the other things are faithful, I can’t complain too much.
Something about the difficulty feels off as well. I remember being able to kill enemies with one Gnasher shot on most difficulties in previous games, here you’re only able to do it on Casual. On Insane you also seem to take more damage than previously. On Normal, every boss is a bulletsponge except for the last which is one with X amount of hits.
Versus had some problem with connections before patches, but ever since it seems Social Quickplay (SQ) take mere seconds to find matches. Loading the maps however can take up to a minute. In SQ, matches are played based on a voting system, consisting of 3 options. Same mode same map, same mode different map, different mode different map. Then we have Core, which is essentially Ranked. Matchmaking, no bots, server ends after one match, then it’s back to the main menu again. Both of these are ok.
What’s not ok however, is that there is no continuous playlist for any game mode. Say you just wanna play Dodgeball for a day, you would either have to be lucky in SQ and have it picked after every match, or you would have to go to Core and search for a new one once it’s over. Why are there no single mode playlists with rolling matches?
The modes you expect are there. Warzone, TDM (in the vein of 3, not Judgment), KotH, Guardian, and if I remember correctly, Execution. New modes are Escalation (haven’t tried), Dodgeball, Arms Race.
Arms Race is your typical “get kills with weapon to advance to the next” and so on. Unlike the similar mode Master at Arms found in Judgment, this one is team-based, and to compensate for that your team needs to get 3 kills with a weapon before advancing. I tend to like these type of modes, but in a team it can be domewhat annoying, especially if they have 5 players that are experts in different weapon types. It’s good, but I think I’d prefer if it stayed a Free for All type of game mode.
Dodgeball is basically an alternate version of Warzone. If a player dies, they’re dead. If an enemy is then killed, the dead player gets resurrected, and the enemy team is now a man short. This is a great mode in my opinion, as it gives the underdog a chance of a comeback, leading to some intense matches. Definitely the bedt new mode.
I haven’t played enough of Horde mode yet to have a definitive opinion, but early impressions are that some enemies, like in campaign, are too bulletspongy (on Casual no less) compared to Gears 3. Then again, in Gears 3 I had damage and ammo buffs activated most of the time so my memory could be wrong.
One thing I can say with certainty is that I don’t like the in-game purchases one bit. Skins, bounties and Horde upgrades are all locked inside chests, and to get these you either have to buy them or unlock with in-game currency. There are 4 types of chests and each contains random items based on whatever chest you bought. You can get duplicates as well.
Once you’ve opened a chest, there’s an option to scrap a card for a different currency. This currency is used to craft specific items. You don’t get enough of this currency for scrapping though, so you’re gonna have to buy tons of chests to be able to craft what you want. If you only wanna buy chests with in-game currency you’re also out of luck since you barely get any of that either! Anything to get your money, I suppose.
So to wrap it up, Gears 4 is a good game that mechanically is the best in the series, but overall doesn’t top Gears 3. If you’re against microtransactions of any kind however, avoid this, as it in my opinion has one of the least consumer friendly microtransactions in all of gaming.