Gears of War: Reloaded - Review

It has been 10 years since I last played Gears of War and that was done via the Ultimate Edition and while it had a number of issues, I still enjoyed the game. Now for some inexplicable reason, Xbox have remastered the game yet again and many of the same issues are still hanging around. Is this worth picking up yet again, or are the teeth finally wearing down on this cog?

Let’s begin by taking a book out of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, “Okay, let's do this one last time, yeah? For real this time” Gears of War tells the story of the humans of Sera and their fight against a group of enemies called the Locusts. One day, those beasts burst from beneath the planets surface and started a war against man kind and while E-Day was devastating, it would not be the end as the humans were fighting back. The Coalition of Ordered Governments, or COG, brought everyone together to fight back and while many did, some did reluctantly, even going so far as to go against orders. Marcus Fenix was one such soldier and as such he was court marshalled and thrown into prison. That is where we pick things up, the tide for the humans is turning and as such Colonel Hoffman has released everyone from the prison and brought them back to fight.

The story that is told here is the same story was told in the Ultimate Edition, so those hoping for another chapter of content for things are going to be left wanting. It does contain all the DLC that the Ultimate Edition received, but there is no new single player content to enjoy. All this really means is that if you like the story that the Ultimate Edition, or before then the PC version of the game told, you will like this. However, the lack of new story content highlights the biggest issue with the game, the fact that we have seen and done this all before. If this was the first remaster of the original Xbox 360 release, then sure I would have no complaints, but that is not the case. The game was first ported from Xbox 360 to PC and that is where the Brumak encounter was added. That was then ported to Xbox One and the story slightly tweaked so we got to see the Locust Queen, as opposed to her being just a voice before. Gears of War now has more in common with Star Wars than anything else, as things just keep changing and not always for the better.

Right, so lack of story changes aside, there has to be more going on here, right? Wrong, the gameplay is the same as it always was. Now there is nothing wrong with that gameplay, it is why there are 5 main entries and the spin-off in Judgement. The problem is that while those games evolved over time and with Gears 5, there was a lot more variety in how players could approach things, here there is none of that. Again, I don’t think this is a bad thing, if this was the first time since the original November 2006 release that we got to enjoy this again, but that is just not the case. I do understand, this release is a remaster that basically ups the graphics to 4K, but at this point, that is just not enough.

While the main gameplay loop is fine, the issues that plagued the Ultimate Edition are just as prevalent here, the AI is dumb as heck. Now I am not going to complain about someone getting stuck on a door or such, as that can happen in any game, but if that was all that happened, I would not complain. The best example I can provide of the AI being useless was in the level with the Beserker, when you have to get her to knock down the doors by charging at you. I had her follow me through to the room with the first door, but Dom got in her way and for a good number of minutes, Dom and the Berserker basically had a slap fight. Dom would get close to the Berserker, she would swipe at him and he would dodge out of the way, he would then go back towards her and the cycle would continue. I had to reload the game to get that to stop and if that was the only time, I likely would not complain, but there were more instances of Dom or the Locusts just doing the dumbest stuff possible. All this does is take you out of the game and highlights the issues, rather than amplifying the fun.

The biggest reason for this release is that it has been given the 4K treatment and ok, I kind of hate that as a selling point. There are times when the game can look stunning, the characters being highlights, but then there are times when you can see where the original Xbox 360 version used slight of hand, in order to get some stuff together. One great example of this is when you have to drive the junker back to the Stranded and while the highway you drive on is good, you only get about one layer of decent buildings, before things become much less detailed. There are other times when this happens in the large open city spaces, but as a lot of the game is brought in close, thanks to the camera and the locations, you won’t spot it all the frequently. There were also times I spotted the characters essentially floating above the ground, not by meters or such, but centimetres, enough to show that they are not connected to the ground.

Again, there are times when the game looks amazing, the time you have to run across the streets of Ephyra as the sun sets and the lights are few and far between, or when you first enter the mines and see all the Imulsion lighting up the dark mine walls, it will make you stop. As I said before the characters do look great at times, being able to see Marcus face off against Hoffman early on or Raam towards the end, they have their moments and it does make me excited to see where the series will go from here.

The one area that I really have no complains on is the audio side of things, because the game still sounds as awesome as ever. As this is a remaster, the games voice work was not touched, so it is still the same from the Ultimate Edition, but has been cleaned up a bit. The music is still as rock as it was before and when you finally clear out the last enemy around you and hear that satisfying melody, it sounds even better.

Gears of War: Reloaded is a hard game to recommend. If you have never played the game in any form over the years, then this is a great way to experience the origin of Marcus, Dom and the rest of Delta squad, but if you ran the Ultimate Edition into the ground, there really isn’t anything new for you. There are also so many stupid things that the AI does, including just running into the middle of firefights, that will leave you slapping your head. The game does contain a lot of multiplayer offerings, but pre-release that is hard to test, so we have nothing to add on that at this time. Reloaded is an ok release, it does not change the game, just makes it look marginally prettier.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Xbox Game Studios

The Pros

This is likely to be the final version of the original game and looks the best it ever will

Gameplay wise there is the same familiar active reload happening and cover mechanics…

The Cons

… but it also brought with it from the last version jank AI that loves to just get into stupid positions which cause pure frustration

There are some weird visual issues, which really just highlight how many tricks the original game used