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Gears of War 4: Review Thread

For Gears 4 it doesn't seem to be hitting the heights of Gears 1-3. I'm not a fan of the series but can appreciate Gears 1-3 as industry defining games, an ip in full swing on 360. This is not the case with Gears 4 and its not the full dev team who created the first 3 games.

Also as an outsider, the original cast had some character and were engaging.

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These are quite bland.

The game is probably solid and an improvement of Judgement.

Gears Judgement got a 79 on metacritic. It wasn't' given a great score despite it being a last gen game. Same with God of War Ascension. Nothing to do with being harsher this gen and more to do with ip's getting stale and being done by others teams with a few of the original team and no new ip breaking ground like they did in 2006/7.

Majority of reviewers have said the opposite, it's the best Gears has been. And it's supposed to look spectacular on PC.
 
Ya funny enough in our reviewer podcast, NDA'd until tomorrow. Some of the other reviewers that noticed the same thing discussed how it seemed to happen on the higher AI levels but not the lower ones. Which...I mean it could be possible.

That one sniper area was just a combination of various things. Uhg. Don't want to remember it. I could have got closer I supposed lol
Hmm, I'll have to test higher difficulties as I played through the campaign on Normal and ran into few issues.

I know how annoying those types of frustrating battles can be, though. I hate running into scenes like that.
 
The industry has moved on a lot since gears, but the core gameplay is super fun. I think playing it safe is fine, but I can see why it might get docked a few points for sitting in its comfort zone.
 
I think suggesting the character designs of the early games "had character and were engaging" is some major nostalgia goggles bullshit. They looked too samey, and I doubt anyone was like "oh man, this Baird guy looks interesting." when Gears 1 was launching. Marcus, sure, and Cole wins you over with his voice acting but there's nothing notable about his design.
 
Reviews for sequels, especially in longer running series, seem pretty pointless these days.

Either you're blasted for innovating and changing the formula or you're blasted for staying true to everything that made the series great.

I guess it just depends what you're looking for out of it. For me, I'm happy that Judgement was the experiment and Gears 4 is the back to basics.
 
The industry has moved on a lot since gears, but the core gameplay is super fun. I think playing it safe is fine, but I can see why it might get docked a few points for sitting in its comfort zone.

And new gamers are jumping in. Thats the great part. Its the great ego of gamers to somehow think that NO ONE ever enters the industry lol

That is interesting as gamers we had do the MP tests had never played gears so we went back and played them all then this. Everyone liked the characters in the previous titles to these.

Reviews for sequels, especially in longer running series, seem pretty pointless these days.

Either you're blasted for innovating and changing the formula or you're blasted for staying true to everything that made the series great.

I guess it just depends what you're looking for out of it. For me, I'm happy that Judgement was the experiment and Gears 4 is the back to basics.
and again new gamers who are getting their first experiences.
 
Hi from Ars Technica! All 5,000 words of my take is here.

Versus is great. Performance on a solid Windows 10 rig is bonkers good. Horde plays well but has a couple of issues. And the campaign... well...

The entire campaign mode. In my dream world, fans would be given the option to drop $20 from the box price to skip it.
oof

85/100 is only decent ? ok

Normalization is important.
It's decent for a series that consistently held some of the top scores on their last console. Gears 1 is the 10th highest rated Xbox 360 game at 94 with Gears 3 being low 30s at 91.
So yes, it's like an MGS getting a ton of 8s, that's going to be considered decent when normalizing the scores- they're all good scores in comparison to most games, just not good for the series.
 
Reviews for sequels, especially in longer running series, seem pretty pointless these days.

Either you're blasted for innovating and changing the formula or you're blasted for staying true to everything that made the series great.

I guess it just depends what you're looking for out of it. For me, I'm happy that Judgement was the experiment and Gears 4 is the back to basics.
If the end result is great, why would you get blasted for innovating?
 
Some of my favorite memories in the previous gen were playing the Gears campaign with my brother in couch coop. I skipped judgement because that looked really meh, and I'm glad Gears is still going strong.

I'm just sad that my PC conked out on me before I was able to play this lol.
 
So looks like it lands somewhere near an 8 overall, be nice to play a gears game after so long and I'm looking forward to hoard mode, however I'm worried the mp time has passed for me as someone who was heavy into the mp through to gears judgement having played the beta I don't think the style of play is for me anymore, I'm hoping it clicks again but the beta left me super cold on the mp.

To be honest I felt the same. Ever since Gears 2 the very first thing I've jumped into when playing a new Gears for the first time is PVP multiplayer. This might be the first Gears since the original where I initially jump into campaign and Horde and simply leave the MP altogether.
 
If the end result is great, why would you get blasted for innovating?

I mean, look at Judgement. Epic innovated a lot with that and the most recurring complaint about that game was "it's not Gears."

I think TC made the right choice with Gears 4 though. Pumping Gears 4 full of the lifeblood that made the original trilogy great is what they needed to do in my opinion. Now they have the foundation to build on.
 
Honestly, from what I've read, they've accomplished what I wanted them to do with the game. I needed a Scifi 80s inspired action game that scratches that itch that only films like Total Recall and Predator can scratch- GEARS is the game to do just this.
 
Meh. Decent scores but I was expecting it to do better.

How much better could it have done? Its gears, there's only so much you can do to begin with. Its a good score for what it is. Great score even
 
I am still pending with the score because I want to spend way more time with the multiplayer (I got to level 15, spending around 7 hours between PvP and Horde) but I did enjoy what I played, as I wrote on IGN Italia here.

Pros:
Impressive graphics
Fun and entertaining campaign (even the DeeBees are better than expected, and they bring some good new weapons along!)
Still the best gunplay ever
Marcus is as cool as he ever was
Superb multiplayer

Cons:
Shallow new cast
Bad campaign ending (not the epilogue per se, but I absolutely didn't like the last 20' of the campaign)
Campaign co-op limited to two players (could have been at least three)
Gameplay is still fun and rewarding, but feels a bit stale as well
 
Thanks sir.
Like I said in the review it may be a bit repetitive at times but the subtle changes to the AI, new weapons, and enjoyable gameplay and the PACE which I loved really helped.

It was so nice to feel a game knew its strengths and was comfortable with it. Slowly unfolding the larger story.

Sounds really good. Can't wait to dive in next week.
 
It would be more irritating if it got 5/5 and 10/10 and 9/10 like most review sites give things, because it skews expectations. giving something a perfect score despite issues being present and noted is doing a disservice to the entire point of a review scale.
 
It would be more irritating if it got 5/5 and 10/10 and 9/10 like most review sites give things, because it skews expectations. giving something a perfect score despite issues being present and noted is doing a disservice to the entire point of a review scale.

I agree, I would be annoyed too if a game was better and he--
what

it's a number representative of a product
if it got 90+ that would mean more people liked it, meaning it was a better game
I'm so confused.
People are saddened when something isn't 90+ because the game wasn't better, not "aww my favorite reviewers were having an off week!"
 
MS are on fire lately, game looks amazing I can't wait to pick it up. I haven't been this hyped for a Gears game at all.
 
I agree, I would be annoyed too if a game was better and he--
what

it's a number representative of a product
if it got 90+ that would mean more people liked it, meaning it was a better game
I'm so confused.
People are saddened when something isn't 90+ because the game wasn't better, not "aww my favorite reviewers were having an off week!"

I'm not talking about the game itself, the quality of the game stays static. I'm talking about reviews in general. People seem dissapointed about the game not getting perfect scores across the board as if that would have made any more of a statement than reviewers just not having any nuance to their reviews

After Bioshock Infinite, i learned that review scores MUST be looked at critically and fans should not be taken in by hype or disappointment with them in general
 
Reviewing really well so far. I can understand a few jibes at the cut down co-op but at the same time it's better than constantly having a campaign designed for 4 players. I felt a lot of the areas in Gears 3 were unnecessarily large to accommodate for that and I hope Gears 4 feels a lot more intimate as a result of the smaller co-op size.

Looking forward to grabbing my copy tonight.
 
To be honest I felt the same. Ever since Gears 2 the very first thing I've jumped into when playing a new Gears for the first time is PVP multiplayer. This might be the first Gears since the original where I initially jump into campaign and Horde and simply leave the MP altogether.
Yeah it's not slight on the game just my tastes and reflexes have changed in the ten years, it's the reason I can only play cod a certain amount now, insert getting to old for this shit meme.
 
Any game in it's FOURTH iteration is not going to suddenly reinvent the wheel. An 85 for a AAA game in this day and age is damn good.

Well, there was Resident Evil 4... :P

I agree in general though, and would argue that there's only so much reinventing the wheel you can do before it becomes a different series under the same name.
 
I'm not talking about the game itself, the quality of the game stays static. I'm talking about reviews in general. People seem dissapointed about the game not getting perfect scores across the board as if that would have made any more of a statement than reviewers just not having any nuance to their reviews

After Bioshock Infinite, i learned that review scores MUST be looked at critically and fans should not be taken in by hype or disappointment with them in general

People aren't disappointed because of the number, they're disappointed because the number is representative of something, and that representation is a product that's under the average for an amazing series.

I agree with infinite, but I think that this type of stance basically destroys any legitimacy reviews have, as we'd have to section off 90+ as untouchable, similar to how 1-65 aren't used except for games you should not buy without knowing what you're getting into.
 
Pretty solid. Better than I thought it would get honestly. The demos looked like more of the same to me. But it seems to have turned out nicely with a current metacritic at 85, and many reviews over 90.
 
Very solid scores. I can't see how any one that was looking forward to this would disappointed especially when you factor in a new, completely unproven studio taking over.
 
The dream (for another MS exclusive with a 90 metacritic) is dead.

But, the game still seems awesome. Reviewing 85 across the board. I'm sure it is a fantastic experience. Can't wait to play the game this Friday.
 
People lamenting that Gears of War 4 didn't get the above 90 score of its predecessors without factoring in just how much more critical game reviews have become in the past 5 years
 
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