Gears of War 4 - Review

I wanted to give my Xbox One X some love so I decided to play Gears of War 4. I got very invested in the original trilogy that came out on the Xbox 360. Playing those games alone and with friends gave me some of my best gaming memories in my teens. Curb-stomping and chainsawing friends and enemies it was fantastic. A bit of me wanted to relive some of that. How did I get on? here goes...

First, let's get into the visuals. It was a noticeable step up from the Xbox 360 days. The landscapes look great and you really get that gears of war grit. If you've ever played any of them you'll know exactly what I mean. The locations are more varied than ever from villages, factories, and greenhouses to giant lifts fighting off waves of enemies just to name a few. The new enemies look terrifying along with some older more familiar foes. Set 25 years after the original games took place the world looks tired with the scars of the original war, but this only adds to the intrigue if the world. The game runs smoothly and there was never any noticeable frame drops as far as I could see.

The gameplay will have you gunning down enemies left, right and center. wether it be COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) sanctioned robots or our old friends the Locust. While going through the game you will use an assortment of weapons including lancers, Gnasher Shotguns, Boomshots, Torque Bows, and Sniper Rifles just to name a few. Mine and many people's favorite is the Mark 2 Lancer Assault Rifle (the gun with the chainsaw) There was a noticeable absence of the hammer of dawn but that wasn't the end of the world. As you go through the game you will use a combination of shooting, cover, grenades, and flanking to get your way through hoards of enemies. Your opponents come in different forms depending on who your fighting. The Locust will have you fighting fast monkey-like newborns, foot soldiers, snipers, snatchers, gorilla-like creatures that shoot seeking projectiles from there chest, and many more. The COG use robots they also have foot soldiers, heavy solders that will kamikaze into you and explode, seeking balls that seek and explode on contact, drones that have guns and shields, and more. As you can see there is a varied selection of enemies and that keeps the game challenging. In addition to enemies, you will also need to fight the elements as high-speed winds and massive electrical storms threaten to kill you. In the game, you will sometimes need to bunker down and fight waves of enemies to pgogrdss, this can be very challenging. There are also vehicle segments that are so fun and give the game good variety. finally, as you go through the game there are a host of collectibles that give you information and really pad out the world, it gives you a nice side project to find them as you traverse the game.

The story of gears of war 4 picks up 25 years after the first trilogy as mentioned previously. The game starts with a commemoration of the victory over the Locust. Your character J.D (son of Marcus, Who you play as is the first 3 games) and his friend Del have recently left the COG due to disagreeing with there policies. You join an outside group and decide to help them steal a fabricator from the COG. Because of this First Minister Jinn and the COG become your enemy. They attempt to destroy the village you have settled in but are only partly successful and you repel them. After the fight, an unknown enemy attacks the village and kills/collects the villagers. J.D, Del and Kait come out of it unscathed after being locked in the power station but Kait's mother is taken. Now the race is on to find Kait's mother. D.J goes to the only person he thinks can help, his dad (Marcus) once they find Marcus the four-person team sets out to find out what the creatures are and to find Kait's mum. I'll stop it at that as I don't want to give everything away but I found the story to start off a bit too slow. But after for the hour or so, it really ramps up. It's worth giving a chance. In conclusion its a welcome continuation of the gears of war story.

I got what I wanted out of this game. When I started playing the controls came back naturally, it was like turning the clock back a decade. It was the story-driven, curb-stomping action game I wanted it to be. There were also a couple of emotional moments that I didn't expect. One in particular almost forcing a tear due to my affiliation with the characters. Now I'm frantically looking for Gears 5 at a reasonable price to continue the story. If you have an Xbox one and love the gears of war franchise its well worth getting. Even if you've not played Gears of war before, its a great action game and Xbox one exclusive. If you like sold fun shooting games you can't go far wrong with this.

Meme of the Game:

By Nathan (Joking Dolphin)

Thank you for reading. If you liked/disliked or would like to continue the conversation please comment below.

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