Gears of War 4

[DisturbedSwan]

13 hours ago, bellow said:

then there's this tower defense thing going on, which seems to be a primer for things that must be part of the multiplayer. Fine. But I couldn't give a fuck for multiplayer (outside of racing games), and I don't want to be pulled out of my story by this arcadey bullshit.

 

Yeah I remember having that issue with it too. 

 

I actually prefer this to Gears 5 though (seems I'm a bit of an outlier on this) so will be interesting to see how you get on with that, I got so bored I couldn't finish it.

[Maryokutai]

I didn't like those mini horde missions in the campaign either. Probably the primary reason why I never even bothered trying a higher difficulty in that game. But I still think it's a solid Gears overall and definitely better than the really rough first one (which as a proof of concept was still a good showing). You can kind of feel The Coalition decided to stay a bit on the safer side when they did 4, which makes it seem a bit run of the mill at times, whereas Epic was really pushing it with 2 and 3 back then. Gears 5 is the studio finding its own groove.

[mfnick]

Yep the ‘horde in single player’ sections were shite. 

[bellow]

7 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

I got so bored I couldn't finish it.

That's interesting. The games struggle with pacing a little bit because there's no real opportunity for down time, and I'm always ready for the end by the 10 hour mark. So I was looking forward to 5 because I heard it was a bit more....er, relaxed.

[DisturbedSwan]

8 minutes ago, Nag said:

There's plenty of downtime in 5 what with the Skiff exploration and a couple of slower paced segments... Gears 5 campaign is awesome, trust me.

This is exactly what bored me about it. 

[DisturbedSwan]

28 minutes ago, Nag said:

Plus the lack of friends to play it, right?

True, playing with randos definitely didn’t help as well.

[bellow]

Done. Meched up for the endgame and went on robo-kill crazy rampage, including a final boss who, when you think about it, basically allowed you to kill him piece by piece.

 

So the whole game was mainly a rescue mission. I had to Google the very end reveal as I wasn't sure what was being implied. Of course it's easy to miss story beats in this franchise when the bullets are (constantly) flying. And I was never that sure why the Locust had a human queen from the start. If it was mentioned in the first game I must have missed it in the crossfire.

 

Still, it sets things up for 5, which I'm looking forward to. I've had it downloaded for a while, and the sneak peaks I've had tell me it's just about the best looking game I've seen up to now (although I never got to see God of war on the PS5).

 

Might play Resi 7 first. Or plague story.

[hinn888]

I missed out on a lot of Xbox exclusives but I did manage to complete the campaign for GoW4 on hardened.

 

Fighting robots for Act 1, lack of using the old characters well and Marcus being the most interesting over the new characters as well, it just felt a bit lackluster to me.

 

I loved the original three, even enjoyed Judgement but this GoW4 was a big disappointment for me.

[bellow]

I hope you had the permadeath option turned on, @hinn888. Otherwise it doesn't really count as a playthru. According to Nag.

 

I haven't played Judgement. I mightn't get around to it as I've heard that's where they introduced those tower defense bits. And while I didn't hate them, they did pull me out of the game a bit. Overall, tho, I ended up liking 4.

[bellow]

4 hours ago, Nag said:

5 has a lot of story that goes back to the original trilogy, it even tries to give you a back story to the whole Locust race (including the Queen

What I've read on the queen's relationship to the Locust is definitely on the bizarre side of sci-fi.

 

I easily buy into that stuff, tho. Life's too short to start questioning. If you can get thru FFXs story you can get thru any, I say.

[Maf]

Eyy @bellow finally at the good one. When you get to Gears 5 lemme know and we can play co-op. I need the achievements and you’ll probably need the help. Don’t worry I carry you. 

[bellow]

Interesting. I've never played co-op before. I'm not being the girl.

[DisturbedSwan]

14 hours ago, bellow said:

I'm not being the girl.

 

Why? ?

 

I've said before and I'll say it again, I think 5 is trash so it'll be interesting to see how you find it.

[Maryokutai]

Kait was cool in 4, she's a bit too intense in 5 but it kind of makes sense considering what's going on.

I'm really glad they put her in these games, makes the entire thing feel less like a testosterone-fueled steroid show.

[Nag]

Blakey = secret sexist.?

Spoiler

Joking...❤

 

You should always be a woman in Gears... smaller hit boxes (according to the online community)?

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, Maryokutai said:

Kait was cool in 4, she's a bit too intense in 5 but it kind of makes sense considering what's going on.

I'm really glad they put her in these games, makes the entire thing feel less like a testosterone-fueled steroid show.

 

I agree, she was a breath of fresh air over all the masculine dick measuring nonsense. 

[Maf]

Who cares about the characters or story in Gears. It was pedestrian going on wannabe/semi-parody in the original trilogy. Then it got over reaching and too magic based in the new trilogy.

 

Who the is Kate I don’t even know. The only names I know in Gears are Lancer, Retro Lancer,  and the thing where you shoot it and let go of the trigger over people’s heads and they go boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

 

I like the part where you crouch behind the wall and then they come too close and you jump out with a fucking chainsaw BOOM BOOM BOOM

 

I’m a big Gears of War fan but I don’t know about no story, man. All I know is ahhh Wretches kick em

[Nag]

And Skittles.

[Sly Reflex]

Started this with @Duck last night. Company aside the whole thing is a bit whelming.

 

The intro covering the events leading up to where we are now was fantastic. I actually got a bit of feels hearing Bernie again. Shame it was only for a few minutes.

 

JD is not very likeable. Kait seems more important.

 

The robots are not fun. In fact I feel like they've done the same thing as they did in Halo 4 making enemies that are sort of like the others functionally, but worse. I think we're going to get a mix of organics and robots from where we got to, but yeah. Not overly please with the Shepard stuff. 

 

New weapons are a mixed bag. I really like that timed sniper rifle though, I think it's called the Ember.  Feels good to use and has the same anguish of some of the other weapons in the previous games in that it's tense, but super satisfying to use.

 

The precision weapons feel especially nice to use with mouse aiming, but that chunky movement doesn't really feel at home on keys.

 

Not so keen on the tower defence bits.

 

Flow feels a bit weird, I know the previous games were action, walk action walk, but this feels very disjointed. 

 

Bit concerning that the main bad person appears to be digital Lauren Boebert. Story is next level stupid as well. How many monsters are there on this planet? And how the fuck does anyone live with all the crazy weather they're having. The weather isn't even this bad in Scotland.

 

I know this game is considered a bit of a black sheep out of the main cannon, and I can see why. Got to play it before I can go on to 5 though.

[Nag]

It becomes a proper Gears game from chapter 3 onward... it's a shame that two chapters are pretty much wasted on shit enemies though.

 

Think I said at the time of playing this that the lack of enemy types (compared to 3 especially) hurts the game.