Is this title worth the look or is the Gears of War franchise starting to run out of fresh ideas? Let's find out.
Note: This review only covers the single player component of Gears of War: Judgment.
Plot: (full spoilers)
Kilo Squad is put on trial for various crimes by Colonel Ezra Loomis and is given the chance to explain their actions:Following orders, Kilo checks out a convoy in the Old Town part of Halvo Bay only to find it destroyed. Kilo proceeds to battle through Old Town and into the Museum of Military Glory where they encounter the fearsome Locust General Karn and his mount Shibboleth accompanied by hundreds of Locust. Contacting Colonel Loomis, Cadet Sofia Hendrick suggests using a powerful weapon known as the Lightmass Missile to take Karn out, but Loomis is against the idea. Realizing how dangerous Karn is, Kilo decides to do it anyways and travels to the Onyx Guard Academy where they find and protect the missile's targeting beacon, a bot that Lieutenant Damon Baird later names Troy. With Troy in their possession, Kilo travels to the Seashore Hills to the mansion of Professor Elliot, creator of the missile in order to get the launch codes needed to fire the missile. Fighting into the mansion, Kilo must defend Troy from repeated waves of Locust as he downloads the launch codes. Once they have the codes, Kilo travels to the island of Onyx Point where the missile itself is, fighting through entrenched Locust forces to reach and arm the missile. Despite orders to the contrary, they arm the missile and head back to the museum where they figure Karn is heading to lay a trap. Fighting across the rooftops of Old Town, Kilo sends Troy in to guide the missile and despite Loomis threatening to execute them if they go through with their plan, Baird fires the Lightmass Missile at the museum, blowing it up and killing hundreds of Locust, Karn presumably among them. Kilo then defends themselves from a massive Locust attack on their rooftop and once its over, are arrested by Loomis for their actions.
In the present, Loomis prepares to execute the squad when the Locust break into the courtroom. Private Garron Paduk, who particularly hates Loomis, saves his life and he flees while Kilo must fight their way out and to a nearby King Raven. Reaching the King Raven with Loomis, Karn is revealed to have survived the Lightmass Missile and he attacks Kilo and Loomis who manage to kill his mount Shibboleth. Loomis executes the heavily injured Karn and drops the charges against Kilo, but demotes Baird from Lieutenant to Private for his actions.In the Aftermath campaign, Baird and Cole return to Halvo Bay during Gears of War 3 with Clayton Carmine to find a ship and reinforcements for the assault on Azura. There they encounter Paduk who left the COG with Sofia sometime after the original battle and set up a community in the ruins of Halvo Bay that has both COG and UIR members with no one caring about sides, only survival. He agrees to lead the three to a ship that can take them to Azura. As they make their way through the ruined city to the washed-up Imulsion rig where Paduk's people are located, the squad comes into conflict with the Locust. Finally arriving at the rig, the group finds no living humans and it occupied by packs of Formers, Lambent Humans. Fighting through the Formers, they send off a flare from the roof of the rig and the survivors of Paduk's people, who have moved to another part of the city, send a King Raven to pick them up but they first have to hold off a determined Locust and Lambent assault. Finally, they board the King Raven and Paduk takes them to the flooded part of the city where a tidal wave from the sinking of Jacinto in Gears of War 2 has beached a ship on the roof of a hotel. The squad collects explosives from an armory at a police station and Baird sets them on columns at the hotel while the others cover him. Unfortunatly the explosives fail to collapse the hotel and the team must come up with an alternate plan. Making their way into a restaurant in the hotel, Baird opens three gas valves, releasing the gas into the building then detonates the gas with a grenade while he, Cole, Paduk and Carmine use a zip-line to get off the building. This time the effort is successful and the building collapses, putting the ship back into the water. Having explained their plan to Paduk, Baird asks his old friend to come with them, but Paduk refuses as a group of Gears kidnapped Sofia who he was romantically involved with, causing him to hate the COG even more than he did before. Paduk leaves and tells Baird to never see him again if they are to remain friends. Baird, Cole and Carmine set sail for Azura on the ship, joining with Gorasni forces to help Marcus and the others in their assault on the island.
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| Headshots in this series NEVER get old. |
Gameplay:
At it's core this is STILL the same game that we have come to love since it's original outing and set the standard for cover-based shooters on the market ever since. You can still duck and peak out and around cover while sitting behind cover and firing shots blindly as well.Active reloads are back but it tends to be a LOT easier than the reload timings for the last two games as roughly every firearm has the almost the same timing for it.
One major difference on gameplay is weapons are not mapped to the d-pad anymore and players are forced to only carry two weapons at any given time, with a max of 4 grenades of one type. Instead, the game takes a page from Halo and Call of Duty's playbook, forcing you to swap weapons by hitting the Y button by default. It's a bit weird at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll be back to chainsawing and executing your foes like the best of 'em.
One major difference in gameplay compared to the previous entries in this series are the Declassified bonus objectives in missions. At any point during the main campaign, players can activate these objectives to continue the level with a tacked-on handicap for the duration of that section. Some of them are simple, such as low visibility or restricted weapon usage, while others crank up the difficulty with timed objectives or stronger and more dangerous mobs of Locust forces to combat against. And these enemy archetypes aren't canned either as they could range from armored/elite Locust guards to the newly added Ragers (Locusts who mutate into a monstrous raging Hulk and charge at Gears much like Halo's Brutes). These 'handicaps' keep things fresh and interesting in the campaign and helps alleviate some of the repetitive nature that this series is known for.
After clearing the game, players are welcomed to play the Aftermath chapter that takes place during Gears of War 3. During this VERY brief campaign, the game literally turns back into Gears of War 3. Unfortunately, players will be disappointed to know that the Declassified options are not available in this mode. Why People Can Fly didn't bother to add them to this mode is a complete mystery.
The Verdict:
I won't lie, I had fun breezing through this campaign in roughly 6 hours over the weekend for the main campaign while taking an additional two more hours for the Aftermath chapter, but I think Gears of War has fallen into that pit of redundancy. Gnasher and Longshot headshots never cease to make me laugh while Lancer chainsaw kills and the various weapon executions manage to make me crack a smile as I lay waste to the Locusts but at the end of the day, this is still the same damn game we have been playing for roughly 4 games now. The story is what we have come to expect from a Gears game by now - TONS of macho guys dropping sarcastic and comical remarks off anything and everything that happens throughout the course of the story. Then you got your typical cliched as fuck additions to Cole and Baird's squad in this game - the by-the-book rookie cadet (Sofia) and the bad-ass Russian spy turned anti-hero (Paduk). Seriously, if you are playing these games strictly for the storyline then something's obviously wrong... People Can Fly have done next to nothing to reinvent this series or revamp it to hold players' interest over the next few years if they wish to continue cranking out more sequels.
Sure, the Declassified missions were cool for the most part, but it doesn't seem to remedy the redundancy that this series is suffering from at this rate. Most players will still gravitate to the Lancer & Gnasher shotgun for the bulk of the game while there are other and new weapons to be found and utilized, the game makes no real effort to express their worth in battle. For example, I liked the new sniper rifles for both the COG and Locust, but at the end of the day I found myself going right back to the Longshot and Torque Bows for ranged combat. The Booshka (grenade launcher) and Tripwire Crossbow were cool, but I can only see those being useful for Horde Mode for setting up traps if that mode was even in this game. Seriously, WTF? Why trash the most popular mode to come out of the last two entries of the game?
If it wasn't for the Declassified missions, I wouldn't have even touched the pistols in this game, even though I was a huge fan of the Snub and Boltok pistols in the last few games. I thought it was a great addition that players can use almost any firearm with the Boom Shield now instead of forcing players to 'glitch' their preferred weapon with it. As a result, it makes the combination a bit overpowered as there's little that the Locust could do against that from a distance. I can only imagine how this would fair in multiplayer. I haven't touched GOW3's multiplayer since the first few weeks of it's release after growing the disgusted from growing popularity of shotguns from the beta migrating into the main game. If People Can Fly wants to deter players from relying so much on this weapon they should either bump up the firepower on the other weapons or reduce the power of that one. Hell, I say give it the slower reload time like the Sawed-Off does. Did anyone else notice that weapon has a MUCH smaller hitbox now? I was like wow, back in the GOW3 beta that window was about 3/4's of the screen. Now it's barely a faction of that. Geez, talk about a damn nerf...
At the end of the day, this game, much like several annually released shooters on the market today, suffers from SOS (same ol' shit) syndrome. Gone are the days of over the top boss encounters and riding larger than life enemies - see Gears of War 2 and 3. Instead, players are confined to mostly battling through corridors and open city areas that really don't look much different at all. The optional Declassified missions and the Horde Mode-like attributes that are contributed to the campaign spice up the missions a bit, but it's not enough to truly earn the merit of breathing new life into this aging franchise. There is some fun to be had here, but this campaign could have easily been more DLC for those faithful players who purchased the Gears of War 3 Season Pass. There's not enough 'new' content here to warrant this as being a brand new entry in the series. As as result, I'm giving this a 7.75 out of 10. Gears fans, you can wait until this one hits the bargain bin before picking this up while most players will be satisfied with a weekend rental.
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