Review: Gears Tactics
Now what kind of drugs was Microsoft taking to make them come up with this idea? Let’s take the fast paced, violent 3rd- person action shooter and make it into a turn-based tactics game! Because that’s what I think of after violently sawing my enemies in half like I’m a steroid filled tonka truck of a man is man I wish this was slower and more methodical.
It starts out fairly good. The cut scenes and the game itself look so pretty. Everything is finely detailed and looks pristine and clear cut, but then in the first 2 minuets in a PRE RENDERED CUTSCENE there’s a clipping issue and yeah it’s not that bad, but if that wasn’t the best way to foreshadow how lazy everything about this game is then I don’t know what foreshadowing is then. I can understand an in game cut scene where things mess up, but in the first two minuets of a PRE RENDERED (and I can’t stress that enough) cut scene *at 3:27 in the video* there’s a clipping issue in an entry of a big Triple A franchise jumping genres? Like really?
The trailer really tells the whole story but in the exact opposite way. You can recruit soldiers! Except for your soldiers can’t get injured in battle or be taken out of the roster for any reason other than their grewsome death so once you get about 8 extra people there’s no reason for any others and they just keep giving you them until you have 26 different people and you just use the same 4 people. There’s 150+ skills to unlock, but once you get to level 3 the experience gain comes to a GRINDING halt. So much so that the people that I have to use in almost every mission (The main 4) were only level 6. 40+ hour campaign, yeah because you guys made the side missions MANDATORY. You literally have to beat the side missions to unlock the next story missions in between every other main story quest. Hmm you know what you call missions that you have to do in order to further the plot? A FUCKING MAIN MISSION. If it is mandatory, it isn’t a side quest. I didn’t choose to do it. I fucking have to. So no shit it’s 40+ hours, it’s stuffed with more filler than fucking Naruto in a weighted blanket in a fucking OREO factory. There’s tons of rewards and customization! The rewards are so abundant that at a point in the game you could deck out all 26 recruits with top level gear and you’ll still have some left over, and the customization is a joke. You can change the hair and color and that’s about it. No gender changes, no face changes, no voice changes. Oh, but you can put tattoos on! That you immediately cover with armor. Oh, and that armor you can change the patterns and sheen of it. From metal covered in shit to slightly shinier metal covered in shit. Oh, and you can also alter the colors so you can really halt the serious tone of the story by making everyone fucking clown colors. No microtransactions! It says something in our gaming world when that is a fucking selling point to a video game. Look! We won’t try and take even more money from you after you spent 60 bucks on the game by making cosmetics and things that should be free in this game cost money or have some randomized lottery scheme behind it! Yay, that’s like having “doesn’t explode anymore” on all your cars at a used car lot. Give us good PR because we aren’t being dicks! That’s not how this works.
And I could go on…Which I will. To give the game credit it has all the quintessential Gears stuff. Old weapons, violent executions, and more body parts flying around then at Joe Exotic’s Zoo, but the problem is, is that this isn’t really the type of game a Gears fan would enjoy. As a tactics game it is mediocre at best. There is a total of 5 different types of missions on 3 different types of maps. That is it. There are 3 boss fights that are a welcome change to the gameplay but there are so many monotonous overplayed missions in between them that it almost becomes a chore to go through them. Not to mention the story is so stupid and boringly predictable that at the end the characters themselves don’t want to go through with it. *spoiler* After you finally kill the big bad dude and know you can confront the main guy that sent you on the mission whom tried to kill you Diaz just says nah and instead just decides to settle down like they won the war even though everything is still fucked and all they did is kill one dude.*spoiler*
Fact is I really wanted to like the game because I loved the gears games (the original trilogy anyway) and I absolutely love tactics games. And my love for tactics games is what really pushed me through this grindfest of a video game. I liked it at first, but it got repetitive REALLY quickly and then I started to notice glitches, like my guy getting shot mid run and just floating off into space while downed. Enemies dying that just end up standing still and just floating instead of falling to the ground and textures failing to load or just freaking out and turning random colors. I’m sure those glitches will get fixed, but it was just disappointing to see such lack of polish in this big named franchise. If the series hasn’t gotten desperate yet, it sure as hell is now with this game. Also, the game is a prequel and you run into enemies that don’t exist in the rest of the series at all. Anyway, it was a meh experience from start to finish and I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy this game at full price. If you really want to check it out get it on Gamepass or wait until it is on a deep sale, but otherwise steer clear of this one because it really needs some work that I really doubt the company is going to put the time in to fix.
I hope you enjoyed this post and lemme know if you agreed or disagreed if you also played through it! Have a good one guys. PEACE