Gears Of War: Judgment Review
Gears Of War: Judgement, brought to us by the people who gave us Bulletstorm, is the latest entry in the generation long Microsoft exclusive franchise. Gears Of War: Judgment, brought to us by the people who gave us Bulletstorm, is the latest entry in the generation long Microsoft exclusive franchise. Gears Of War: Judgment, brought to us by the people that… I’m sorry, am I repeating myself? Does this feel like Deja Vu? The point that I’m really awfully trying to get across here is that the new Gears game feels like a retread of places we’ve been before. Although this time you are staring at the back of a different meat head.
This time around you’ll be playing as Kilo Squad, led by blonde square with facial features, Damon Baird. You know, that guy in the original trilogy that no one wanted to be…Him. The squad is being on trial as war criminals by the dickish General Loomis. You will be playing through their recounts of the events they are being persecuted for. It’s quite a neat way of telling the story. Sadly, that’s all the story you are really going to get. Even with movie writer and former journalist Tom Bissel drafted in to craft the story, it still manages to do nothing. It’s a case of “here is a mission we did. End.” No characterisation. No development. People may chastise me, saying that Gears Of War is all about the gameplay, but when you are left feeling really underwhelmed after some sweet gameplay, something is wrong.
The basics of gameplay are largely unchained from other GOW games. You will find yourself shoulder barging into cover, peeking out, unleashing a hail of bullets then slicing bad guys in two with your chainsaw bayonet. Then the ‘Cole Train’ says “woo” and maybe something about bitches. People Can Fly have, however, changed things a small amount by switching up the controls and making a few additions.
Switching weapons has now been a placed on the Y button. Similarly, grenades have now been put upon the LB button. This simple changes affect the gameplay towards the positive a surprising amount. Having those actions mere millimetres away from the where your fingers actually are, rather than on the clumsy 360 directional pad, allow for a faster than action oriented style of play. New bad guys like the Rager and new weapons like the tripwire crossbow and gas grenade also add an extra layer of gameplay. The game also introduces a new smart spawn system for the campaign and multiplayer, which is supposed to make sure that each encounter is unique; types, timing and location of enemies change will with each new checkpoint reload. However in the grand scheme of things, they don’t do much to improve on the old Gears gameplay.
However, the mission declassification system is a different matter. In each of the levels in the Gears Of War: Judgment, the game gives you the option of tweaking your experience on the more difficult side. Anything from limiting your ammo or weapons, to giving you a time limit to complete the next stage. Declassified mode gameplay modifications allow for new of Gears Of War veterans a new challenge when they approached this new game. However, the variations they implement throughout the game are less than numerous and you will encounter a lot of repetition. In another attempt to give some variation to gameplay, People Can Fly have decided to put Horde mode style levels mixed into each act. Again, a nice attempt, but we have an entire mode for that. All credit to the developers, but they have tried admirably to give older fans a reason to come back, but it all feels half baked. Especially as a majourity of the levels can last anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes, adding up to a short seven hour campaign, that feels even shorter.
The campaign is slightly bulked out by the addition of a separate story. Aftermath is a chapter set during the events of Gears Of War 3, during which Baird and Cole head off in search of help to give to the rest of Delta Squad. It adds about an extra hour of playing to your experience and rather awkwardly wraps up the fates of some of your friends from the original campaign, however it still does not have any moments that wow you and, like the main story, leaves you underwhelmed.
Speaking of Gears 3, the whole experience outside of the game, ie the user interface, is ripped straight from the last game. All of the stats, ribbons and unlocks, both in single and multiplayer, are almost the same as Gears Of War 3. It does not bode well for the overall feeling of the game.
Judgment dishes out your multiplayer options in six, less than distinct, flavours. Over Run is the best of a bad bunch. It combines the beast and horde modes of previous Gears title into a competitive experience. The COG are defending important points, like a generator, with the locust attacking. Similar to this is survival, a co op only mode, where the AI takes the place of the locust squads. What set these apart from the other game types is the class based systems in place. Humans have the option of picking their focus in the game, from healing to dropping ammo. Both modes are fine, but survival is lacking and a rather lazy replacement for the fantastic Horde mode from previous iterations.
In addition, you can play basic deathmatch, team deathmatch or dominiaton modes. How inspired. More worrying is the front loaded microtransactions that are on offer. You can go ahead and buy XP doublers on a whim or you can pre order the DLC season pass for access to the VIP matchmaking playlist that generates much more XP than normal playlist. I’m a realist and am all for companies making money off the back of their product but it’s a bit too much when the game only ships with four, yes four, multiplayer maps, even though they are rather well designed.
Of course you can go and play the campaign with four player online which, thanks to the short levels feeling like a series of repetitive killing rooms, does add to the replay value.
Gears Of War: Judgment is odd. Is a weird mixture of the classic Gears gameplay you know so well, tweaks to attempt to keep it fresh and a story that doesn’t really pay off what so ever. You will slip comfortably back into the minshua of the series, be impressed by the addition of declassification but ultimately become disappointed at a package that doesn’t feel like a full price retail product.
