Beat on Experienced difficulty free from gamepass core, using my xim4 for mouse and keyboard. This was more of the Gears series, with the many clunky mechanics that I dislike. The annoying sticky cover system that I avoided using as much as possible. Many times I had to use it, but whenever possible I preferred to stand behind full height cover while aiming down sight and strafe out to shoot. The cover system was especially bad when trying to run the hell away from enemies; whoever had the genius idea to make take cover and sprint use the same button. And why the look controls while sprinting used a completely different stick than normal, which for me was turning with the keyboard instead of the mouse. This also applied to using the chainsaw bayonet and was why I never used it. I turned off aim assist and had sensitivity maxed. My aim was too jittery at first, which I fixed by bumping inner dead area up to the max so that it took larger mouse movements to move the crosshair. Aiming was still difficult and I found that I could not keep up with a moving target, almost never hitting them. Recoil was obnoxious and the enemies were ridiculous bullet sponges. Often times I was sniping with the pissant assault rifle for minutes per enemy. My ideal weapon loadout was sniper rifle, battle rifle, and revolver; all about the long range precision high damage. But there was not enough ammo to only use my preferred weapons so I had to use what was available. The lancer ARs were good general purpose weapons that excelled against snatchers and the kraken. I preferred the grenade launcher variant though I think the standard chainsaw one had the best accuracy. It was weird that they did not share ammo, and that relic weapons did not share ammo with the base weapon; why I ended up ditching any relics I found. A couple times I had to use the lousy smg because that was all the robot enemies had. Shotguns were good against the robots and close range enemies but I preferred to snipe from afar. The locust claw AR was the biggest piece of shit, with poor accuracy that only improved after firing for a bit but then quickly lost most fire rate. I enjoyed using heavy weapons whenever possible but they slowed movement and prevented dodging, which got me killed sometimes. The rocket launcher was my favorite with massive accurate damage, then the tri shot which I used more like a sniper rifle. Heavy weapons worked best using the cover system because they were braced to give less recoil than free firing. I hated the very concept of active reloading. It is bad enough to have to reload in the first place, but they expected me to play a stupid timing mini game to reload faster and get boosts. I had to look away from the action to watch the reload bar, though I can see the skill ceiling for memorizing the timings for each gun. I don't want to learn that so I usually focused on moving or looking at the environment rather than fool around with timing.

I died many times, mostly at certain tough parts where there were enemies that could instantly kill me with 1 hit, and/or 2 flanks with a mix of enemies assaulting. I hated dying suddenly to massive bullet sponge enemies, especially when the checkpoint saves were sometimes too far apart. If a sequence went fight, then lull, then another fight then why the hell was there no checkpoint save during the lull?! There was a lot of frustration for some encounters, which led to me having to play like a super coward and abusing the near invincibility of the AI teammates, while plenty of other fights were a breeze. I had the most trouble with the matriarch boss fight and had to look up online how to win, because of the boss insta killing me in melee and being faster. I was trying to freeze it with Jack, snipe, then hide until the next freeze, but the battle was taking forever. I learned online about grenade tagging (meled in melee range with grenade out) and that gun fire could break the ice. Up until then I thought only explosions and heavy weapons could. The fight was significantly easier now that I could destroy ice with lancer fire to prevent from being charged and insta killed. The 2nd hardest fight was near the end of act 3 against 2 snatchers, and other enemies that joined later, including damn boom shots. This was the only time I had reload the checkpoint previous to the current because I had swapped out my lancer for a boom shot just before the save, and the lancer was gone upon loading. Boom shots should have been heavy weapons. I really needed that automatic fire to keep pressure on the snatchers and prevent them from carrying anyone off. My other weapon here was the battle rifle. I finally beat it by falling back out of range and sniping the last snatcher as it carried someone off. After that, all 3 allies were down and being ignored by the enemies as they slowly crawled to me at the opposite end of the map. Thank god they were invincible. There was no way I was risking a 1 shot death, so I hid and waited until they were close enough to revive, then let them handle most of the battle. Coward mode to the max. The battle on the ice lake was the most egregious example of 2 battles that should have had a save in between. It took many attempts and the key was saving the buzzsaw to insta kill the tough enemies by breaking the ice, then moving around the area as needed to keep distance. Another tough part was the mine where Jack was carrying volatile explosive that led to insta death if it took too much damage, and he was too stupid to hide out of the way. I hung back for most of it and only had trouble at the very end because of a chaingun scion that steadily advanced and triggered the explosion once he got close enough. Even when I ran as far back as I could I barely killed him in time. The kraken boss at the end of acts 3 and 4 was surprisingly easy. More tough fights were every time against the giant swarmacks, because of having to get behind them to target weak points while not dying. The one during the truck escape in act 4 bugged out by getting on the truck and riding with us. When we stopped to fight he was floating in the air right next to a turret and I was not able to survive. Upon loading the checkpoint it was revealed that the beast was killed in a cutscene before getting close to the truck. Act 4 seemed to be less polished than the rest of the game with occasional finicky obstacles and npc behavior.

Jack's abilities made the battles easier and there was some strategy involved in choosing how to upgrade them. I maxed out pulse first because of how useful it was to see where the enemies were. It was also useful to locate ammo and weapons. Next I did stim and loved the upgrade that revived everyone. I used it often to revive myself and the others, and used it preemptively to avoid getting killed during close range combat. Then I got carry heavy weapons, flash (which was amazing against tough enemies with the freeze ultimate), health and damage passives, and finally the late game powers. Barrier replaced stim as my go to for tough fights because it blocked boomshots, drop shots, bows, snipers, and snatcher/pouncer spikes. Stim was still better in melee range. I hardly ever used cloak, pretty much only using it to get behind the swarmack, even though I seen how it could help during the stealth robot sequences. I never tried shock trap, apparently it is good for holding off flank attacks. I mostly used hijack to take control of tough enemies so they would kill their own instead of 1 shotting me. I did not upgrade shock trap, stealth or the core recharge passives. Not sure if I found every upgrade point or not, I know I did not find every collectible. I was mixed on the open world aspect of acts 2 and 3. It was not bad but it did not really add anything to the game. Each area was linear with plenty of points of no return, so the open world aspect could just as easily have been a mission select menu. The wind powered skiff was somewhat fun to drive though in reality it would be limited by wind direction. I liked the story and characters, even if a lot of the dialogue was pointless filler. I saved JD towards the end because he was Caucasian, and also being the protagonist of act 1 and the previous game.

Hivebusters

Beat on Intermediate difficulty because I wanted to see if there were so many cheap 1 hit deaths on this difficulty. This difficulty was far more forgiving as I mostly only died when the other 2 were already down, thus combat was more enjoyable. Unfortunately these allies were not invincible and could easily result in game over if they were left to bleed out. I liked the main guy's ammo resupply, which meant that I effectively had infinite ammo for whatever weapons I wanted and did not have to worry about scavenging as much. So of course I went for the sniper rifle. Unfortunately, the loadout reset back to default with every new chapter. The other 2 characters had their own specials which were similar to Jack's flash and barrier but not quite as effective. The dlc was fun with more of the same gameplay, minus the open world part. The final boss fight was unique and piloting the little mech was fun, but the campaign was fairly short and ended on a cliffhanger. The entire story should have been resolved in the 1 dlc with 1 more big mission. Rather they will probably continue it in another dlc, which is scummy.

Next I checked out multiplayer, starting with 1 escape mode as a tactician, since I did not realize how to switch my class. So this was the extension of the dlc story. Rather than a cliffhanger for another dlc it was a hook to get into multiple. Still lame. I didn't like this mode because it was a mad rush past enemies on a timer, though I only did 1 match so no idea if there were other variants. I never tried versus, instead playing a dozen or so Horde mode matches; enough to get level 15 marksman, corporal V rank, level 100 and then level 10 again after re upping. It was very similar to Gears 4 horde mode (only frenzy, didn't see any other option). I didn't know much going in and really just shot stuff while letting everyone else handle the building. Eventually I learned about power and how to put it in the fabricator, then later noticed that I could spend it to power myself up. From that point on I focused on maxing my damage and ammo capacity rather than donating anything for the others. As a sniper, I found my role was best suited to quickly taking out dangerous enemies and that my personal damage was incredibly important for 1 shot kills. I mostly used the battle rifle and revolver to take out generic enemies, saving the longshot mostly for snipers, scions, and wardens. Ammo was a big limiting factor so I had to regularly go for ammo crates. On some of my early matches I had to swap out for enemy weapons, and of course I used heavy weapons whenever they were available. The X ray shoot through walls ultimate was powerful and best for the matriarch. I had the most trouble with the damn melee robots, and really any time I was forced to fight at close range. As I played later into the night and into the morning the amount of other people playing went down to the point where I did a few matches by myself with bots. I was not able to beat the final wave on beginner with only bots because the boss enemies were too overwhelming and the stupid bots did not stick together. Before this though I had upgraded to advanced difficulty as I leveled up, got better cards, and felt beginner was becoming too easy. Beginner with 1 or 2 other people and the rest bots was the most fun; a full team of 5 made it too easy. Advanced was significantly more difficult and we failed any time it was not a full team of players. I did pretty well though I found the damage difference between headshots and regular shots so huge that it was better to be patient and ensure a headshot rather than just getting the rounds out quickly, unlike in beginner. Some of the high level players were doing absurd amounts of damage, which I assume was from playing extensively and having maxed out cards. I did see a lot of shotgunning and chainsaw kills, and I was impressed at how often the Jack players brought me ammo boxes and longshots from enemy snipers. I can certainly see how people could get into playing this extensively, but a couple nights was enough for me. Looking at the other classes, I could see playing the anchor (barrier, revolver, retro lancer and battle rifle) as a more tanky sniper type, maybe switch out the lancer for longshot. The protector also looked interesting with its bubble shield, battle rifle, shotgun and auto pistol, and the gunner with invincibility and heavy weapon healing.

I spent a little gold to upgrade cards that did not quite have enough duplicates, and did not spend any iron. I used the Kat character from Halo Reach with all default skins because I did not care about cosmetics. My loadout was: lvl 4 exploit weakness, lvl 5 steady hand, lvl 2 longshot handling, lvl 4 ambush, lvl 3 mod longshot. I wanted to max my headshot damage (especially with the longshot) because advanced difficulty had many enemies surviving with a sliver of hp after a headshot. I did not have the freeze card so that would probably replace steady hand.

Overall I think this game was a little better than Gears 4. I will always prefer FPS over TPS, free and fluid movement over clunky awkward controls, no cover system, no recoil, and no reloading. The campaign was fun with plenty of bombastic scenes, though I felt the slow non combat parts went on for too long by reducing movement speed and encouraging exploring. I could see playing again coop but probably not suffering through higher difficulties, and playing more horde. But it is tough to justify grinding multiplayer when there are so many singleplayer experiences yet to have.

7.5/10

What a disappointment. The Gears franchise has lost its soul and become a padded out bore. The main character and story are the stuff apathy is made of.....I just dont care about either. Was it just assumed i would because she was around last game. Bad call there. She is an passable side character but doesnt have the gravitas to carry a whole chapter let alone a whole game.

The story is cliche and predictable. Young girl with a strange power needs to find answers. There are whole book stores of that YA garbage. Its what teenagers write after seeing the latest straight to Netflix dumpster fire and being "inspired". The lack of writing talent at a prominent studio like The Coalition is hard to accept. They must do better.

I remember when Gears of War was a tense, unpredictable adventure.....now its paragliding jaunt looking for something to do.

I dont know how the franchise continues to exist from here. Its obviously no longer made for those of us who grew up with the games.....im not sure its made for anyone.....but thats the trend in game development. Screw the fans, right?

Unless there is an obvious change in direction, i probably wont even bother with a "Gears 6". I can only imagine the depths of boredom now acceptable for the once proud franchise.

Gears of War is a dead franchise. Another smashing move by Microsoft.