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LTTP: Gear of War 4 what a disappointment

Not sure what the fuck happened to create such a wide gulf between my personal tastes and the tastes of everyone else this gen.

People saying Sunset Overdrive and Quantum Break are mediocre. Ryse is apparently mediocre. Voodoo Vince is coming soon and I'm incredibly excited about that but surely it will come and go with no fanfare from gamers at large. :/ And Gears of War 4 is apparently a bland, safe game. Safe, sure. But I've put in close to 100 hours into Gears 4 and all three of its components (campaign, multi, Horde) are excellent for me.

The campaign has numerous beautiful set pieces. The chapter where Marcus joins you has incredible trees. The environments were so drop dead gorgeous I had to stop at times and just look and enjoy the scenery. The trees and shrubbery in particular were beautiful. And any time a wind storm appeared in the campaign it was more beauty displayed on screen.

The game has so much attention to detail and beauty wrapped up in it. I was playing dlc maps the other day and couldn't get over how good the colours in War Machine looked.

Game play was fun as heck and I loved Kait, JD, and Del especially.
 
Looking back, the campaign was a bit disappointing apart from a few set pieces. I only really liked Kait and Oscar out of the new characters and the Swarm's origin wasn't as interesting as I was hoping. I got a kick out off Marcus, Baird and Cole reuniting for the finale though and the ending was a nice little twist.

I spent most of my time with it in Versus, which is still a lot of fun and unlike anything else out there. The RNG skin unlocks are irritating though.
 
The microtransactions did much to push me away from the game and I'll never have as fond memories of it as the original trilogy, but I still thought it was pretty great. As a Gears fan the intro sequence was just amazing, the shooting was good throughout and the package really comprehensive (even had splitscreen). And let's not forget how wonderful a PC version they made, though I suppose tying it to the crappy Windows Store did them few favors.

Next time give it more unique setpieces, make the characters less lighthearted, have a better final boss and fewer microtransactions (which won't happen) and it might reach the originals in quality.
 
The campaign was very Gears.

Coalition played it safe and made another Gears game. And It seems most people didn't like that. Go play Gears 1 again and see that the campaigns are largely the same.

Ive been a Gears fiend since 2006, put endless hours into the Mp. I bought Gears 4 on release and finished the campaign and went straight back to BF1 and Overwatch. The garbage unlock system turned me off altogether.

In December I decided to try again, and I've been playing since. That classic brutal fast paced shooter has me hooked again.

Love this game
 
Loved the campaign. Wasn't convinced all the way through Act 1 but it picked right up after that. 2nd best campaign after 1 in my opinion.
 
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
The campaign was very Gears.

Coalition played it safe and made another Gears game. And It seems most people didn't like that. Go play Gears 1 again and see that the campaigns are largely the same.

Ive been a Gears fiend since 2006, put endless hours into the Mp. I bought Gears 4 on release and finished the campaign and went straight back to BF1 and Overwatch. The garbage unlock system turned me off altogether.

In December I decided to try again, and I've been playing since. That classic brutal fast paced shooter has me hooked again.

Love this game
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Yeah I think my main issue with the game is the damn unlock system in multi-player. Should have went with gears 3 character unlock style.

As for campaign. I enjoyed the new gears characters than the old ones. People mention that they miss gears be all moody but that would be played out at this point. JD definitely could use better voice lines though, but the team chemistry works.
 
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
The campaign was very Gears.

Coalition played it safe and made another Gears game. And It seems most people didn't like that. Go play Gears 1 again and see that the campaigns are largely the same.

Ive been a Gears fiend since 2006, put endless hours into the Mp. I bought Gears 4 on release and finished the campaign and went straight back to BF1 and Overwatch. The garbage unlock system turned me off altogether.

In December I decided to try again, and I've been playing since. That classic brutal fast paced shooter has me hooked again.

Love this game
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And yet, if they'd changed it up you can guarantee they'd catch as much flak.

New developers of an existing franchise can't win. Vocal gamers will always find fault.
 
Theorry said:
No idea what that means really.
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It doesnt feel like anyone had a strong vision of what they wanted it to be. Instead they try to appease everyone, over design everything as not to offend or frustrate a player and remove absolutely any character.

edit: Im just talking about the campaigns.
 
I thought it was pretty alright. The campaign story was rather whatever, and I kept forgetting the squadmate names throughout the entire game.

The DEEBEE weapons (other than the SMG) were really nice even if fighting against the DEEBEEs should have been a lot more like binary domain (more pieces falling off, more kinetics for them being blown apart, still being fight-capable with no legs). The new whatever locusts are not as cool as the original locusts.

I also thought the campaign in general lacked any feeling of desperation due to the strangeley forced humor at all times on the MC. Gears 1 felt like the world was falling apart and everything was rotten and shit; i liked that.
 
Disagree hugely. It's my second favorite gears game. It's pretty damn obvious that Gears 4 is setting up another trilogy. The game doesn't look under budget at all, they intentionally left stories elements or specific character and enemy development for future games, not future DLC.

Yeah the huge set pieces isn't there but it is the developers first real shot at the series and the game looks gorgeous in exchange. Gears 5 will be amazing because of the work done to Gears 4.
 
FUNKNOWN iXi said:
What I'd like for MS to do is separate Gears multiplayer into its own platform that's continually updated, and the same goes for Halo. Then every 3+ years they could drop the campaigns along with their own post launch strategies/DLC. Allow developers to focus on these things separately without releasing them all in one package with every release, sometimes wondering if they need to reinvent the wheel with multiplayer.
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I feel we would just end up losing singleplayer campaigns entirely if they went down that road. There's a reason they don't have a single large singleplayer focused studio anymore. They're trying to avoid investing in too much one and done content as campaigns often are.
 
I enjoyed it.

It was true to the universe. It was not a rehash of the first trilogy. It also honored the old guard like Marcus Fenix.
 
I never felt two or three had much of what your saying either. First game was good and had good atmosphere though.

Third game was very lackluster but haven't played 4.

Maybe you can specify what atmosphere was so great in the other games? Football stadium was about as interesting as it got.
 
The campaign was ok. The multiplayer is the only reason I still play my Xbox One. Its fantastic. The micro transactions are kind of meh, but it's all cosmetic stuff and XP boosters unless your playing Horde. Even in horde, you need no special abilities to make it through wave 50.

Good maps and they brought back Guardian which is the best versus mode. It's exactly what I wanted, but I realize I'm probably in the minority.
 
Disagree. It was a great ride, though extremely safe (which was deliberate). Looking forward to the next one as Rod has said he intends to shake it up.
 
What was confusing to me is that I thought the entire point of releasing Gears of War remake was so coalition would have the freedom to do something new with the IP.

Lots of people don't seem to want to acknowledge that by the time Gears of War 3 came out, the franchise fatigue was taking hold already. Judgement failed because people didn't want four nearly identical Gears games in the span of eight years. Switching the controls around and focusing on horde encounters in campaign is not what put people off of Judgement pre release. It just looked boring and more of the same, like some tacked on DLC but for a bigger price. Then it also turned out to be bad, apparently, but that came to light after its release.

In my opinion, Gears 4 ran into the same problem as soon as they had their first real gameplay reveal and showed everyone that they were releasing more of the same shit everyone had played four or five times before. I mean this game is so similar it's brand new enemy reveal is literally the Locust with white and pink skin, whoopty fucking doo.

A Gears 5 with bigger and badder setpieces isn't going to light the world on fire. We already played Gears 2 and 3. Do something different with the gameplay, anything. Use the advancement in tech to do something besides pretty textures, implement truly destructible environments with dynamic cover. That alone would change up the gameplay and turn some heads. Drop weak ass gimmicks like scripted weather and smash button to move thing events.

Bring some dynamism and emergent gameplay into the firefights, give the player tools to mess with the AI. How bout a gun that shoots a brain controlling slug into a locust and makes them manic. I don't know, just make it feel like there's been some thought put into the game other then:
"Hey, how can we not piss off the hardcore fans who just finished playing our Gears of War 1 remake a few months ago.
- Let's make the same game except now the locust are pink.
- Brilliant"
 
When Gears 3 came out I played horde mode every day for 3 months.

I bought Gears 4 day one expecting the same awesomeness in horde mode. Ehhhh I've played horde mode maybe 9 times since release. Somehow they managed to take my favorite thing about the series and make it meh.
 
Only played the first few chapters and multiplayer and horde with my brother


All I will say is that the robot enemies are boring as all fuck to fight against. Its like the boring Prometheans in Halo. They seem to add new enemy types just for the sake of making their new 'trilogy' of games seem new without ever asking 'Are these guys fun te fight'
 
R aka Bon said:
What kind of discourse is that, i hate it when people slam everything into one argument just because it fits their agenda. I guess i can see you are making your opinion be known but what are you basing mediocrity on? SO is surely the most fun i have ever had in a game, for a very long time, and i doubt Quantum Break is really all that poor as you seem to present it, (although i haven't played it myself, but it had an overall positive reception on XB1). The only metric i think you are going by, other than yourself, must be sales and nothing else, which doesn't equate something being good or bad.
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Quantum Break is far from a poor game. Was one of the main reasons I got the Xbox One last year (already had a ps4 since launch) and it did not disappoint. The person you quoted must have an extremely high standard for games if he can label Quantum break and Sunset Overdrive 'mediocre'. Shame that both games seems to have under performed business wise though.
 
Audioserf said:
Yeah man, the single player was garbage, but for real they delivered with Horde and the MP modes and maps. It's easily my favourite MP iteration of the series. Single player is nearly as bad as Gears 2.
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Seriously? As bad as that over rated (in my opinion) slog of a game? What about all those people claiming it is more similar to Gears 1 in tone and action? Guess I'll have to find out by myself. The opinion on this game seems to be all over the place, lol.
 
I agree they played it safe and stuck to the same formula. Gears 4 SP wasn't bad but it wasn't exciting either. New characters were so generic too it's ridiculous.
 
Moofers said:
I strongly disagree. No memorable set pieces? How about Marcus' estate? How about the motorcycle chase? The elevator to hell? The entire end sequence? Man, you're hard to please.
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Totally agree. Lots of great moments in the campaign. I was a little wary at the beginning when the only thing to shoot was Deebees but it was a campaign that grew progressively stronger.

MP is a full and robust package. As good as any Gears offering.
 
pixellated_man said:
Seriously? As bad as that over rated (in my opinion) slog of a game? What about all those people claiming it is more similar to Gears 1 in tone and action? Guess I'll have to find out by myself. The opinion on this game seems to be all over the place, lol.
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I just got combat fatigue because all of the scenarios were extremely similar (walk into arena, trigger enemy hordes, kill enemy hordes, move to adjacent arena to repeat), and horribly paced ultimately as a result of the lack of encounter variety. Additionally, there are some unbelievably cool weapons in that game, but you can't use them because they're essentially ammo limited burners. Can't find ammo for the quad shotgun or embar rifle almost anywhere, which means you're pretty much going to be rolling with a gnasher + lancer/hammerburst combo 99% of the time, which wouldn't be such a colossal bummer if there was variety elsewhere in the campaign. Original Gears had cool, simple scenarios like where you'd scoot a car up to a troika emplacement, using it as movable cover until you could get within grenade range of the grub manning it, and then use it as a staging ground for attacking the emergence hole. Or where you'd have a set of characters taking an upper route with sniper/torque bows, while the lower route pair would have a closer encounter with mid/close range weapons. Negligible amount of that going on in G4.

I played the whole thing in coop, and it was still a fucking slog.

I will say that I liked the protagonist chatter. Less of the brozone gruff dickthroatedness from the EPIC set of games, and more lighthearted jabs and camaraderie.

And Horde/Multi is just absolutely fucking incredible. Best of series good.
 
gatti-man said:
Gears single player is a shadow of itself in Gears 4. It's a safe, by the numbers corridor fest that feels like I spend the entire game walking forward. The story has no amazing set pieces like classic gears games, no memorable bosses like RAAM, no memorable characters besides the classics, and the new enemy never even reveals its motivations or what the hell is actually going on. And the ending is a gross tragedy that feels like either a window to forced DLC or just where they ran out of ideas/budget.
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Corridor fest? What? That's what made Gears 1 so great, those moments when you're closed in and you are given time to take in the atmosphere. Gears 3 just ignored all that and threw set piece after set piece at you. Gears 3 is my least favorite because of that.

And the motivation of the enemy is revealed... You probably missed it.
 
Audioserf said:
I just got combat fatigue because all of the scenarios were extremely similar (walk into arena, trigger enemy hordes, kill enemy hordes, move to adjacent arena to repeat), and horribly paced ultimately as a result of the lack of encounter variety. Additionally, there are some unbelievably cool weapons in that game, but you can't use them because they're essentially ammo limited burners. Can't find ammo for the quad shotgun or embar rifle almost anywhere, which means you're pretty much going to be rolling with a gnasher + lancer/hammerburst combo 99% of the time, which wouldn't be such a colossal bummer if there was variety elsewhere in the campaign. Original Gears had cool, simple scenarios like where you'd scoot a car up to a troika emplacement, using it as movable cover until you could get within grenade range of the grub manning it, and then use it as a staging ground for attacking the emergence hole. Or where you'd have a set of characters taking an upper route with sniper/torque bows, while the lower route pair would have a closer encounter with mid/close range weapons. Negligible amount of that going on in G4.

I played the whole thing in coop, and it was still a fucking slog.

I will say that I liked the protagonist chatter. Less of the brozone gruff dickthroatedness from the EPIC set of games, and more lighthearted jabs and camaraderie.

And Horde/Multi is just absolutely fucking incredible. Best of series good.
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Thanks for elaborating. Gears of War 1 was the only Gears I liked and even that was not 'amazing' to me. I think Halo 5 or Forza Horizon 3 will be my next xbox one purchase - Gears of War 4 can go on the 'waiting for budget price or GWG giveway' list for now.
 
'Memorable bosses like Raam' lol

Funnily enough I also can't seem to remember the motivations of the Locust being explained in the first game. I must have forgotten. Surely I have forgotten about that.

I agree that the game does play it a little too safe, but I sure as hell had more fun with 4 than with the campaign of Gears 3, maybe even 2. There are plenty of nice set pieces, like the hellish ride upwards out of that hole and fighting enemies while a freaking storm was going on.
 
I really enjoyed the SP despite it having no ending.

The MP was solid but felt half-dead and therefore unexciting.

The emphasis on micro transitions cheapened the quality of the MP, I was getting mobile vibes from it.
 
The motorcycle chase was so dull and scripted without allowing more than the minimum amount of player agency beyond moving left and right. Set pieces actively taking interaction from the player compared to the regular gameplay isn't exciting, it's lame.
 
Greatest Ever said:
The motorcycle chase was so dull and scripted without allowing more than the minimum amount of player agency beyond moving left and right. Set pieces actively taking interaction from the player compared to the regular gameplay isn't exciting, it's lame.
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You can blame Uncharted for that one.
 
Greatest Ever said:
The motorcycle chase was so dull and scripted without allowing more than the minimum amount of player agency beyond moving left and right. Set pieces actively taking interaction from the player compared to the regular gameplay isn't exciting, it's lame.
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Better than the AWFUL car sequence in Gears 1, God that was so fucking tedious on insane.

People really need to play the original Gears 1 again for some perspective.


Multiplayer is much more enjoyable when you just ignore the unlock system. Just scrap everything, and buy the skins/characters you want with scrap.
 
nekkid said:
You can blame Uncharted for that one.
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None of Uncharted's set pieces were as boring as that one, even the lame chases in Uncharted 3. Uncharted 4's set pieces delivering a shocking amount of player agency just makes Gears 4's look worse in comparison.
Enter The 36 Chambers said:
Better than the AWFUL car sequence in Gears 1, God that was so fucking tedious on insane.

People really need to play the original Gears 1 again for some perspective.


Multiplayer is much more enjoyable when you just ignore the unlock system. Just scrap everything, and buy the skins/characters you want with scrap.
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I did, played the remake with the same friend I played 4 with and the original was much better.
 
I thought it was pretty solid overall although agree with most points just see their impact as lesser.

It's a decent Gears game.

The issue I feel is that, by time of launch, interest in a Gears game so by the numbers was relatively low.

This has happened to a number of key franchises this gen with only Uncharted 4 - of the big exclusive franchises - seeming to get it right enough to show sales growth and generate desired impact.

Ultimately the issue - and I'm not sure this is a bad thing truth be told - is that the current market doesn't seem to be willing to make every cookie cutter "yet another one" sequel a hit to equal earlier instalments.

Some franchises are pulling through but many have faltered and to be honest if that means more focus on new IPs and ideas then I don't see it as a negative overall (although it is for those specific franchises suffering notable regression of sales and impact).
 
I rate it over 3 and judgement's (lol) campaigns but there are definitely areas they can improve. Mainly better pacing and getting rid of those dumb horde sections.
 
For the first 3 chapters I wasn't really feeling it, but it ended on a great high and I'm excited about where the franchise is headed story-wise. It played and looked great, so overall I was happy with it.
 
I feel like Gears 4 was a much better designed summation of the gears series. Many of the enemies had an equivalent in some previouse gears game but the way they moved/reacted in Gears 4 made them much better than their counterparts. The story wasn't much but presentation was definitely much better than previous Gears games. The new weapons were also super cool and satisfying to use, especially the revamped boltok.

I still hate the multiplayer though. I have said this before but I hate the damn shotgun in multiplayer. I know there is a large group of people that like that type of multiplayer but I really hope they one day add a mode that does not allow for wall bouncing and forces people to actually use cover and rifles. It is so annoying that there are all these cool weapons in the game and the multiplayer drills everything down to the shotgun and maybe a couple power weapons. The current state of the multiplayer makes me think of all the halo fans that only want to use the battle rifle in multiplayer. What fun is it when one weapon dominates everything else?
 
I thought it was a great gears campaign, second best after Gears 3. I feel TC proved they can use the original formula successfully, so I'm hoping Gears 5 shakes it up big time.
 
I finished this game last month and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I really loved the art and scenery, and i spent a lot of time walking slowly admiring the backdrops. On a downside, set pieces weren't that amazing and the game ended abruptly imo.
After getting out that first mine shaft our heroes decided to get some help from Baird and Cole because the next locust hold up is bigger, deeper and more dangerous. It made me think that we were to go deep down and kick a lot of ass, but instead we didn't really go anywhere and found Kate's Mom without much trouble right near the entrance. Why? It felt like they rushed the ending big time. I'd give this game 7.5 out of 10.
 
I enjoyed the campaign quite a bit myself. Need to get back and do a higher difficulty run and play some more of the horde mode as I barely touched that for whatever reason.
 
I got Gears 4 bundled with my Xbox One S (in addition to BF1 ) which I bought right before the New Year.

It's pretty boring and bland. The first boss fight looked pretty cool, but havent played it since. Too many actual amazing games released in the last 3-4 months. Know what I mean?
 
Gears of war 4 didn't introduce anything new to the series, just the same formula, and the game barely improved upon the first on, that's a 10 years gap

i was surprised that i actually enjoyed the game, at least it still an action game like the previous games, unlike that walking simulator who abandoned who it was
 
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