Quick Look: Gears 5

ok

If donuts are possible, it will open the Quick Look. It is known.

THE GERST BRAIN RUNS ON WHOLE GRAIN BABY, WHOO!

revving up my do-rag right now

The PC Gamepass is wild because i'm just gonna play this even though I got the pass for the Blair Witch game.

this sounds kinda like Rage 1

Shit...looks like they upgraded.

Can't wait to play the same game for the 5th time.

HEY!...There was also Gears of War: Judgment...so 6 times.

@ice_queen: wait, what?

Vom'd by the seventh donut

Self-contained missionaries?

The most Ubisoft of Gears games. Game Informer gave this one a pretty high score. I'm surprised Jeff is a little more tepid on it

This looks uninsuninspired. They need to move the Coalition off the franchise and give it to a developer willing to take risks.

Give me back my sawed off shotgun and Alex Brand cowards

It's unfortunate that Jeff isn't clicking with this. From what I saw of act 1, this game is not afraid to go places, and I've enjoyed what I've seen of the characters (again first 2 acts). I think anyone calling this uninspired is squinting a bit too hard. Yes, the core gameplay is the same. That's because it's good (according to reviews and what I played in the tech test).

Beyond that though, the story seems intriguing. I'll be disappointed if the story takes a back seat or plods further on, but I'm not too worried about that. I'm honestly a bit surprised at how tepid Jeff is on this as well, considering he was at least more accommodating to gears 4 (his is probably the only review I paid any attention to then). Hope it's fun at the end of the day, this is the first gears game that has caught my interest.

(BTW, act 3 is diff environment, heard mixed reviews on its open world. Tech test was slow because there were too many players and the servers were being tested for exactly that. They sorted it by the end though). From what I played, competitive nubs like me had far more fun in the arcade mode. It plays very differently and I quite enjoyed it. Escalation and the serious ranked stuff is not for me.

Game Pass Ultimate is $2 for two months and comes with Gears 5 Ultimate Edition. Why the hell not?

Gears 1 and 2 were some of my favorite gaming moments ever. I got really into the MP... so I'm hoping this will rekindle some of that magic.

Game Pass is so good it’s criminal and borderline foolish not have it. Even DmC5 is on it!!

Game Pass is 100% worth the money

Seeing normally proportioned people in a Gears game is always so weird.

Gamepass Ultimate w/gold upgrade was $1 for 3 months , I couldn't find a good reason not to.

Jeff is the least excited person about video games. Ever.

@kanerobot: He was super excited about Control on the Bombcast today.

So excited for this, just finished off reading Ascendance last weekend.

this is.... bizarre.....

@kanerobot: He also freaks out about Doom Eternal. Hes been around games a long time and seen a lot of them dude. A lot of them are kind of just rehashes, yknow?

This game needs a little bit of the bubbly.

Boy are you going to be disappointed

This looks fine, but it’s hard for me to feel excited about it at all. I wish Microsoft’s exclusives were more interesting; I think Gears and Halo have both run their course but given the very small selection of big exclusive franchises for Xbox it seems like Microsoft is going to keep putting them out.

@kanerobot: I think he’s just an adult and isn’t looking to appeal to the pre-teen/man baby YouTube audience.

About to start this; hope they didn't go open world.

This feels somehow so old... like a game from 15 years ago that dropped through a time portal that upgraded the graphics.

Great to see Jeff back doing Quick Looks. Looking forward to playing Gears 5, antiquated or not.

I still think there is a demand for games like this. I'm still playing The Division 2 and like the cover shooter mechanics a lot, and it work well for folks not accustomed to first-person shooters. I have an easier time with friends playing games like Gears and The Division.

Hi. Welcome to the site.

Looks great, can't wait to play it!

@jeff, @brad any chance that you guys will be playing through Horde mode in a video?

Can't wait to play this exactly once on game pass co-op

Like 'Halo', 'Gears' felt done by the end of '3' (though in the case of the former, I did enjoy '3: ODST' and 'Reach'.) And watching this...I dunno, this game's just not inspiring me all that much.

Jeff noting the general emptiness of the open-world - and seeing it here - is surprising, too (especially since it's: a) a big change from what one expect from a 'Gears' game, and b) coming out post-'Horizon: Zero Dawn' and its massive, roaming constructs.) Couldn't the player(s) encounter some of Sera's wildlife? Perhaps see some earlier evolutionary steps for the more-subterranean mutations the Locust or Swarm use?

My brother and I will probably Game Pass/co-op this at some point, I guess.

Thanks for the QL, Jeff, Brad and Jan!

With you on this. And with 'Halo', with 'Gears'...to me, the recent entries, while well-made, have just seemed kind-of flat? Of course, money makes sequels makes money makes sequels and on and on...it just seems more apparent for new entries in franchises which, as you observe, have run their course. I wish the best for anyone picking this up, but from this QL at least, the game seems a bit charmless? I'd love to be proven wrong, but...yeah.

I get the sarcasm there, but having seen a lot of the content from 5 now. I am disappointed. I won't deny its a spectacle and visually Gears have always had good set pieces and often incorporated new tech into their engines really well.

But the gameplay loop has not changed much in all the years going from 1-5. And that is where the series fall flat for me. Its just not as enjoyable as it once was, its the same feel with the same predictable kill-room you can spot a mile away.

I tip my hat to the people who still manage to find that experience awesome. I wish i did.

So this game really has nothing going for it huh? Story seems terrible ("old stuff bad," "new stuff good," also now the game is focused on a badly written side character who happens to be related to the enemy...blablabla more "chosen one" bullshit), gameplay hasn't changed, the open world is useless, etc.

It is pretty impressive the way they managed to dumb down the concept of "burly guy shoots baddies"—you'd think there'd be nowhere to go but up.

Let's call 343 and the coalition what they really are: life support.

Thanks for the great quick look as always you guys!

@kanerobot: A cover shooter set in an open world where you reveal the map through towers is making me roll my eyes so hard they're bleeding. I don't blame Jeff for not being super-hot on it.

Man this looks boring. Gears peaked at 2. I’m totally not going to waste my time playing this.

I’ve never clicked with Gears of War but I’ve tried a few times. Was hoping this one would change my mind but this looks boring AF to me. I’ll probably give it the same 2 hours I seem to give everything on GamePass.

For 1 USD on PC Xbox Pass, this is a no brainer.

open world.. the last thing i want to hear in a gears game....

LOL at some of the comments. Funny how games with many sequels doing mostly nothing new get them all happy and hyped, but for others... Mostly because of who is publishing it and the name attached to it. (I don't remember everyone shitting on the last Uncharted for having shitty open world segments BTW, or Zelda for basically being a Ubisoft game with some neat, if badly balanced mechanics thrown on top, but horrible repetitiveness IMO)

Also, can someone other than Jeff be 'The MS guy' (he seems to be the one that handles their games more than the others at the site who don't even turn on their Xbox's most of time, based on the outdated or incorrect things they frequently say about it are) - I mean his tone here is not far off from his review and coverage of the last Forza Horizon game (which was in stark contrast to what basically everyone else was saying and feeling, etc.).

No, I don't need someone who is just go to blow sunshine up a games ass - but someone who seems to initially approach a certain publisher's games with a sort of jadedness doesn't make the coverage good for anyone other than anti-fanboys. (I mean, yeah, he is kind of like that with most games, but it seems worse for MS first party). Of course, for THIS gen, the anti-fanboys are out of control, so... maybe it's good for traffic.

I've been playing all day and this game is fucking incredible. Campaign act 1 has been awesome, escape is fun, and I've spent most of my time in Horde and it's so fucking good.