Gears of War 4 (2016)

I enjoyed this well enough. Pretty standard Gears gameplay. The locations in the first half were gorgeous and surprisingly colourful, not just drab shades of brown and grey. The characters are likeable, though JD might be the blandest character design I have ever seen. He just looks like a beefy Nathan Drake.

It felt like there was more enemy variety than previous entries. Cover-based robot shooting just makes me wish I was playing Binary Domain though. I wish they had made more of an effort to integrate the Swarm and Deebees into the same combat scenarios, so you could fight them while they fight each other. It happens very briefly, so I assume it will be expanded on in later games.

The story is fine. It is very simple and feels like the first act of a larger narrative. The ending is very abrupt, but sets up some interesting plot points to be explored later. Overall Gears 4 plays it very safe. I had a fun time, but there wasn't a whole lot to get excited about. The exception being old man Marcus growling about robots destroying his tomatoes. Reboot this franchise as a Fenix farming sim.

Gears of War 4 was exactly what I needed right now: mindless violence with a vague suggestion of plot. I loved how linear it was, with the only detours being branching slightly off the obvious path forward to nab the occasional collectible. I loved how simple it made the world - good guys and bad guys, no nuance, no need. And, I must admit, the combat was spectacularly satisfying, from nailing those perfect reloads to chainsawing a goon in half. It's also worth noting that most of the boss battles gave me a thrill of excitement, and I really enjoyed the challenge of those levels.

The characters were mostly hypermasculine and one-dimensional, leading to some cheesy dialogue and zero development. Without exception, they were all super strong, tough, and angrily pushed away anything that came close to vulnerability. They almost mocked the idea of intelligence, celebrating the idea that violence can solve every problem and science just gets in the way (unless it's to make better weapons). It makes me worried about the young men playing these games looking for role models to aspire to.

Nevertheless, Gears 4 scratched that itch I had for dumb, violent explosions. Glad I got a chance to play it with the $1 Xbox Game Pass.

Beat on Hardcore during free trial of xbox game pass and this was the first game in the series that I played through. I found the game to be good and had quite a bit of fun; I especially liked the flexible weapon system where you can carry 2 primary weapons and a pistol. I preferred the long range single shot weapons though I mostly used the assault rifle due to ammo availability. I disliked many of the series staple features that overall make the games more awkward to play than necessary: the awkward controls, cover system, active reloading, low mobility and chainsaw (which I had to completely give up on using).

After beating the campaign I tried multiplayer horde mode. First tried by myself and quickly found that to be a complete waste of time. I then played a single game online with a random group. I played the sniper class and used as my skin a fully armored female soldier which I guess I randomly unlocked in the initial free set of loot boxes. It was either use her or one of the default skins and I like the fully armored hidden face look. I actually think I would keep using her if I unlocked the equivalent male skin because of how the female takes up a little less of the screen. It was funny at one point one of the other players offered me his shotgun yet I think I ended up with the highest score from all my headshot kills with the sniper and battle rifles; at least I assume seeing my name first on the end of game score list means I was the highest. Horde mode is quite fun; maybe I will play it again if the game goes up for free on xbox gold. I did not like the loot boxes though. The overly garish waste of time that is the opening of these boxes combined with the random nature of the rewards really turns me off because I despise gambling.

7.2/10

I liked the main characters better in this one than 2 or 3. Still, the story is more or less a retread and pretty dull. The final story missions are mostly just fun without being overly challenging, and so I enjoyed them.

Horde mode is still the main reason I play it and there is a lot of leveling, customization, and challenge from that.