Gears 5 (2019)

I don't really have much to say about Gears 5. Being this far into the series, the game has followed the same formula pretty much all of the way through, being an aggressive third person cover shooter where its humans/COG vs. the Locust. Gears 5 picks up where 4 left off, which was a new story separate from the happenings of 1-3. There is character carryover, but the younger COG generation has now stepped up to the fight.

I will say, this is one of the best Gears games to release in my opinion. The areas are interesting, the fights are good and it is fun to play. The developers introduced some open world formula to the mix here by introducing a wind sail snowmobile. This was kind of a neat idea because it allows you to interact with the world by doing some off the path exploring for some other encounters and side quests.

The one thing that has always been lost on me with the Gears series is the tough guy marine attitude of every character. Like everyone has to be a total cocky badass with all the macho quips, attitude and carnage. I get that it is part of the Gears formula, but for me its eye rollingly over the top.

Overall, very well done. A series highlight for sure.

On a hiatus from gaming I went over to my best friend's place during the Christmas of 2007. He couldn't wait to show me his new Xbox 360, complete with Bioshock and Gears of War. Gears of War rightfully blew me away both in the looks department and the gameplay. I'm an action gamer at heart and loves when a game throttles me viscerally never letting go until the credits roll. Gears of War did that in all its roadie running waist high cover glory

I have played every main line entry in the series, even dipping my toes into Gears Tactics for 10 or so hours (it's good!), but no Gears entry since the first one has captured my attention the way the first one did.

With that being said, this is good Gears of War gameplay minute to minute and I had my share of fun throughout the campaign. There were even a few tearjerker moments around Marcus and Kait's stories that I didn't expect. That speaks to the excellent work by The Coalition that you can get me crying at giant muscley people having their feelings!

Excited to be blown away by Gears 6 technically given it will be on Unreal 5, but I hope they find some ways to innovate and inject some new excitement into the whole experience.

The Gears of War franchise, to me, has always been a deceptively smart franchise. On the outside, Gears of War looks like little more than a blood-soaked, brutal game with chainsaw guns. And while it is that, Gears of War also managed to be a surprising indictment of war, how war is waged both on the ground and via politics, and the massive amount that soldiers lose through war. At its best, Gears of War is both a gory and ridiculously fun game, while also a shockingly emotional story about what war costs both individuals and communities.

At least, it was. Gears of War: Judgment focused on more run-and-gun gameplay that favored a no-frills action experience, while Gears 4 attempted to reboot this franchise with mediocre new characters, a story that wasn’t engaging, and gameplay that had somehow regressed. I personally love the original trilogy, and find them to be some of the best games on the Xbox 360, even playing them recently after all these years. But Judgment and Gears of War 4 really shook my position on this franchise, becoming the dumb action franchise that people looking fro the outside in always thought it was.

At least, it was. With Gears 5, new developer The Coalition figures out how to handle this franchise in a fresh and effective way. For the first time in almost a decade, Gears of War has an intriguing story worth telling, a cast of characters that have a genuinely interesting dynamic, and gameplay that pushes this franchise into a whole new era. I had sort of given up on this franchise before this installment, and I’m glad Gears 5 revitalized this series.

The gameplay here is arguably the biggest shift. Instead of telling a fairly linear story, Gears 5’s middle acts allow for a more open-world type of exploration. This isn’t as sprawling as one would expect with that term, but it does offer the player several missions to explore in whatever order they choose. This isn’t get from point A-to-Z, while shooting B-Y, but rather, allowing the player to explore this world at their own pace and discretion. Also open to player choice is the customization of Jack, allowing for even more ways to tackle a fight. While playing this installment, I frequently forgot all the new options I had that didn’t rely on the same old run-and-gun gameplay.

But maybe the secret key to Gears 5 is how this open-world exploration allows for more intimate moments with this new cast, finally giving us a reason to care about this next generation. The game swaps lead characters at one point, allowing us to see this story from multiple perspectives - something that made Gears of War 3 so special - and spend more time with individual characters. For example, Act 2 unites Kait with Del in a way that makes the audience actually care about this dynamic and a friendship that clearly can’t be destroyed. Act 3 integrates characters that the game had made us question, yet then makes us care even more about this group than we did before. By advancing the gameplay in this way, The Coalition has found a way to strengthen the bond that players with have with these characters in an extremely smart way.

Gears 5 even finds a way to integrate the last generation of characters, without ever having them steal the focus. Even characters from Gears of War: Judgment start to become worthwhile. Gears of War has built up two generations of characters that we now care about, and has found a nice balance of these two, without ever doing what would be easy, which is to put the player back in control of Marcus.

And for the first time since Gears of War 3, the Gears of War franchise finds the emotion in war, the loss and pain that inherently comes with such battles, and makes it integral to this story. Gears 5 makes players make a critical choice near the end of the game, and I found the aftermath of that choice to be genuinely effective, to the point that I wondered how other characters would react to the choice I had made. By the time I saw the scenes that came after the choice I had made, I knew Gears of War was back on track.

Gears 5 is such a welcome surprise, a franchise I once loved righting itself and remembering exactly what made this franchise so special in the first place. I truly thought the glory days of Gears of War were over, but after playing Gears 5, I feel like this franchise might only just be getting started.

Duración: 14 horas

-Pros: Divertido, definición de épico, buena jugabilidad, variedad de enemigos, variedad de armas, buena duración, buena historia, excelentes gráficos y sonido.

-Contras: Debería haber/agregar: Mas habilidades y con mas frecuencia , mas armas equipadas y mejoras permanentes de reliquia, algún boss mas, mas ágil movimiento, mejor aprovechamiento del esquife (disparar mientras conducimos), mejores físicas de destrucción, mas secciones especiales como controlar locust o el robot, new game plus

No debería haber: mundo abierto, hace que pierda el ritmo la acción.

Tengo que jugar los demás juegos para ver si es mejor o peor que los demás.

(Reviewing solo campaign only)

Coming from GoW4, the story is a lot more interesting and much better told. Lead character Kait is your typical alpha-woman character, who's trying to figure out her past while being super-brooding ("She-Marcus", basically -- which there's even an in-game joke about at one point). And Del is your prototypical "Yay team!" Millennial-type personality. Both fill their roles well. JD Fenix from GoW4 makes a return appearance in a supporting role, and new-giant-douche-character Fahz fills out a sort of comic relief.

The gameplay is very uneven. When you're actually in gunfights, the guns & fighting feel really good -- better than any of the previous games available on PC. Unfortunately, to get to those fights, you spend a lot of your time roaming around on a skiff, which is basically a sled pulled by a kite/parachute. When you're on the skiff, nothing really happens. It's basically a glorified Super Mario Bros. 3 map screen that eats up about a quarter of your playtime.

The graphics and audio in this game are absolutely superb, and ran fairly smoothly on my GTX 1060 / Ryzen 1600 / 16GB RAM.

Near the end, the game presents you with a very Wolfenstein-esque choice. I'm curious how they'll handle this in future games. Though I've gotta think that nobody ever lets JD live to the end. But, if you did, Jack sacrificing himself at the end would be more impactful, with his human buddy Del being gone.

Good game. As a PlayStation lifer who only recently got a chance to play Xbox games on PC, I'm really looking forward to Gears 6.

I give Gears 5 a 3.5 out of 5 beefy muscly gun-dudes.

This is a 2.5 for me but since I cannot I am rounding it up to 3 stars. I am a fan of this series in both its cover-based shooting and most of its lore and story. This felt like a step backwards for both.

The gameplay loop is still a lot of fun but the controls feel less... "smooth" even with all the settings made full and the dead zones made smaller, it just feels, choppier.

The story broadly speaking is interesting, I care about Kait and her family and what it means for the broader planet. But the way the COG are represented (as a Colonial Imperialists, but also, as the best option/the flawed best way for the planet to live) while all the minorities and women, save for Del, are annoying or evil or unintelligent OR, as the leader of the COG, all things: annoying and evil and not smart and a woman and a minority!

Basically I think this is not as good as the best Gears but also not as bad as the worst. There are some strong moments especially in the end, based on a choice I made but one I assume MOST people will make.

What I really liked: Story, gameplay, graphics, variety of locations.

What I didn't like: I like the idea of the open world but it feels strange because you can go to a location where you must do something in a mission, but if the mission is not activated, you can skip things. I didn't like the ending (careful spoilers). The end battle it does not feel the end battle and then... suddenly, the credits. It feels unfinished.

I recommend the game, of course.

My biggest issue with Gears of War 4 was the new characters. I didn't like them. I found them boring, and I hated their banter. Gears 5 isn't any better. Kait is the protagonist this time, and they attempt to tell a more emotional story since a good chunk of this has to do with Kait's family history. This isn't handled well mostly because Kait's emotions go from 0 to 10 in such an unnatural way at times that I can't feel anything for her. Kait and Del are more emotionally supportive of each other than I remember ever seeing Gears characters be, but they even go overboard with this to the point that I wish they would shut up. This team really needs to work on the dialogue for characters. There isn't much personality to the characters' interactions. They feel so bland. The odd thing is that Marcus Fenix is great here and in Gears of War 4. He is funny and has more personality in the brief moments he's in this game than any of the other characters. He even gets a moment in this game that had more of an emotional impact than any moment with Kait and Del. He is the best part of these new games. I wish they just put focus back on him.

The other issue with the character interactions is tone. There's a new character Fahz. He is the jerk from work in this game. It's the trope from dumb action movies where there's a jerk who is always trying to prove he's better than the lead character. The audience is supposed to have fun seeing the lead characters beat him. He either takes the loss hard or finally shows some respect. Fahz is introduced when he challenges J.D. to a fight and loses. J.D., Del, and Kait make fun of him about it. It's a lame attempt at a fun scene because I've seen this too many times. The tone issue comes later when it is revealed why Del in particular doesn't like Fahz. Fahz killed a group of protestors. WHAT!? That reveal is way too dark for how this character was introduced. The whole game is like this. They bring up the different atrocities committed by the Cog, and there are also dumb action movie banter between characters. It's weird. The fact they are fleshing out the world more and adding more backstory to the Pendulum Wars is interesting, but it's hard to care about that when the game can feel so silly.

The structure of the game has had a major change. In Act II and III, the game drops the characters into a large open area. The characters use a vehicle called a skiff to travel around to their different destinations. These areas also have hidden locations where you can uncover more details about the world or find collectibles and weapons. Once you make it to your mission destinations, it becomes more of a normal, linear Gears of War level. It's cool Coalition is trying new things with Gears, but I'd rather they ditch this idea. I'm not the biggest open world fan. These new open areas just mean it takes longer to get to the action. I like Gears because it's a great cover shooter. This new exploration really wasn't doing much for me.

Jakk is the best new feature. Instead of Jakk being a invisible companion that you forget is there until he is used to open a door, he is now a character you can use for support in battle. He has passive abilities and active abilities that you can gain and upgrade over the course of the game. He can electrocute enemies, blind enemies, give you a temporary shield, and other things. He is really useful and has saved my ass many times.

I can't remember if this is a new feature or if this was introduced in Gears of War 4, but you can direct your squads fire to enemies you mark with the left thumb stick. It's an incredibly useful feature when I was in levels that were crowded with strong enemies. Every fight I was stuck on was because I forgot that I could focus my squads fire on specific enemies. It is vital in shootouts.

For new weapons, Lancer with a grenade launcher is my favorite. It doesn't work like a standard grenade launcher attachment would work. Instead, you mark a target with a laser and release rocket-propelled grenades that fly up in the air and come down on targets. It also has a faster fire rate than the original lancer. It feels good. The Saw is the worst new gun. The longer you fire the gun, the lower the firing rate goes to make it more accurate. it just doesn't feel good to shoot that weapon. I like the Hammerburst in this game. I never liked to use it before. I think this improvement to the gun was made in Gears of War 4 though.

This is the best looking game I've seen all year, and it runs at a smooth 60 frames per second. I was never not in awe of how this game looked. I love the look blue lights on the character's guns and armor as it shines in dark spaces in this game. It's all gorgeous and gives me chills at times.