Gears of War Ranked
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2024
- Taking a break from my usual content, I felt inspired to run through the Gears of War series again and I think I've finally settled on where I land with each of the 6 mainline shooters. Gears of War was a staple of my high school days, and I have a lot of fondness for its particular flavor of gameplay, violence and storytelling. After 3, I dropped out of the series for a while and came back to it after all the heat had died down so I could get an honest impression of the divisive newer entries. Turns out, there's a lot to love!
Unexpected but I am here for this.
Same here. I'm subscribed because I'd like to hear what he has to say.
Gears of War is my all time favourite franchise! Ahhhh. I miss the good ol days of rushing home from school to play with friends and having non stop gaming sessions over the weekend lol.
Can't think of a single game that made a better horde mode. Great review.
Gears 1 was my favourite for those pseudo-horror elements you mention. I really liked how low stakes it felt in some ways- just a couple guys desperately trying to survive an impossibly harrowing situtation, all while being badass as hell. such fun
Ok, this caught me off guard. I was expecting another Roger Moore movie review!
Working on For Your Eyes Only, but I needed a break before tackling that one. It's a favorite of mine, and I needed time to get it just right.
@@stephenjarvis534 Please take your time! Looking forward to it.
If Halo represents the Original Xbox and Xbox in general, then Gears of War represents the Xbox 360 in particular. The original Gears is the killer app of the 360 for good reason: It took the cover-based shooter gameplay of Bandai-Namco's Kill Switch and refined it, marrying it with a fascinating world populated with likable characters and frighteningly awesome enemies, and wonderfully gothic environments inspired by Resident Evil 4. And Gears of War 2 is even better.
Really, I think most of the games in this series are genuinely good and I'd happily play through them. From Gears 1's pulse pounding train finale to the emotional storytelling of 2 & 3 to the night time mysteries of 4 and even to the Rashomon-flavoured origin story of Judgment. The only game in this series I refuse to play is Gears 5, which not only sells out to chase trends that were prevalent at that time, but also features a genuinely bad retcon sandwich of a plot on par with Highlander II: The Quickening and the Anderson Resident Evil movies apart from the first. However, I'll give Gears 5 this: It's definitely better than a certain OTHER console exclusive starring Laura Bailey as the voice of the other playable protagonist [COUGH] The Last of Us Part II [COUGH]
What? Selling out and derailing a plot by taking full control of it with your own character at the centre is better than hijacking a beloved story for a mean-spirited, badly written spiteful guilt trip about how revenge is bad that only appeals to pathetic stans on social media.
Right before COVID, I got back into Gears. I played Gears 4, and moved pretty quickly into 5.
My god, Gears 4/5 are what Halo 4/5 should have been. Great follow ups to a great original trilogy. Gears 2 is my GOAT too.
Oh, and I mained Cole Train online. Wallbouncing and gnasher gang!
EDIT: I know it wouldn't be in this list, but I would recommend Gears Tactics if you enjoy XCOM games. I loved it, easily the best XCOM clone that I've played.
"Gears 4/5 are what Halo 4/5 should have been."
*NO.*
@@NebLleb Gears 4 and 5 are significantly better than what Halo 4/5 are.
I really liked Halo 4, but I would agree when you add in Halo 5.
@@Paul_Whaley Except Halo 4 has a competent storyline. Unlike Halo 5 and especially Gears 5.
Okay in all seriousness, to each their own, but I'm sorry. Positive opinions on Gears 5 really make me hung up. In fact, Gears 5 is the reason the franchise is currently in a hiatus, because after all the retconning they did, The Coalition are taking time with deciding what to do next.
@@NebLleb I’m not saying that Gears 5 is the greatest gift to mankind, but Halo 4 and 5 are really significantly worse. From a raw gameplay perspective, Gears 5’s level design, gameplay loop, and progression were significantly better than the two Halo games. Halo 4 easily has my least favorite campaign in the franchise, and with Halo 5 not far behind it. Level design is crap, as was the balancing of weapons and enemies.
Story wise, sure, Gears 5 isn’t amazing. I didn’t hate it, even with the changes to the Locust origins. Halo 4/5 have horrible, horrible stories. Halo 4 has some good dialogue between Chief, Cortana, and Lasky, but all of that Forerunner junk is unnecessary and crap. The best part of the game is having the cohones to get rid of Cortana, but then they undo that in the second level of H5. Halo 5 has the worst plot in the franchise, but at least the level design and gameplay loop are better than Halo 4.
I really enjoy both series, warts and all. I’m just extra hateful towards Halo 4/5, because they were both massive disappointments compared to the good Bungie games. At least Infinite made up a lot for Halo 4/5, imo.
I appreciate this list and your perspective, but I have to argue that Gears 5 was TERRIBLE. Kait is a terrible character who never gets criticized for her abhorrent actions and JD is villified for defending his own life from rioters; they have to make him look bad in order to justify the perspective change to Kait. There's no discussion of what JD did at Settlement 2 which was already a retcon because he and Del talked about it as if they weren't there, and Jinn spoke about it as if she was commanding the violent attack. JD's redemption arc is rushed and is complete nonsense. Kait's connection to the locusts makes negative sense and her just being the new squad leader talking down to even Jinn is just ridiculous. She has no personality outside "get the Hell out of my way" and is insufferable even to those (allegedly) close to her. This is easily the worst narrative of the entire franchise with fan-fiction tier writing, horrific retcons that actively work against its own story, and a narrative that has no driving goal outside "let's go look for stuff based on my hallucinations and this symbol on the back of this pendent (which I kept a secret from everyone, and never got criticized for it)."
I completely agree with OMAHA16's assessment of the narrative and just how badly this game was bungled. The open-world is boring, they completely ruined the point of active reload, the new weapons feel more like gimmicks rather than interesting new weapons on their own, there's still no meaningful difference between the Swarm and the Locusts (getting some Empire vs. First Order vibes here), and the story comes across like a side-quest. The main outcomes of this story is "the Swarm get a queen, the COG get a lazer, and one of the main protagonists dies". And I assume that last bit was added in because they realized how light the actual storytelling and character writing is.
8:33 - "Generic white dude number 5"
If you want to convince people to not make judgements of characters based on immutable traits like you did with Kait for being a woman, then maybe don't boil down a character to his race. Just saying.
You brought up a few points I want to address:
1. You are absolutely correct in your observation about the comment I made about JD being a generic white dude. It came out the wrong way and I apologize for that. My point was that based on Gears 4, I saw nothing inherently different about JD from a really standard leading man in an action piece, and that Gears 5 did more to make me care about him. However, I did not make this clear at all, and I apologize for the implications of that poor joke. That's on me.
2. I'd argue a little on Kait suffering no consequences for her decisions (someone major does die due to her actions, plus she is saddled with a horrible truth about her heritage), but I'll completely agree with JD's redemption arc being fumbled. There's no discussion to let JD answer for himself and we are just supposed to write him off so we can have the arc later (though I think an argument could be made that JD did nothing wrong, even if I might not agree with it). Going back to Kait, I never once interpreted her as "get the Hell out of my way" and insufferable. Mostly because she's doing something I can get behind. Jinn is a misguided leader much like Prescott, the COG is a horrible piece of trash organization and I only tolerate it because it's the best out of a lot of bad options they have to defeat these monsters, and people like Marcus and Baird argue against Jinn, so why is it a problem that Kait (someone who hates the idea of the COG and only joins out of desperation) stands against her? I also don't think she's supposed to be the leader of the squad within universe; she is just the player controlled character, but that might just be me. Maybe I missed something, but I don't think she understood the implications of the necklace in the first game, and so it never came off to me that she was hiding that. She was indeed hiding the hallucinations, and I think that is a problem, but so many characters make the choice to keep it from people because it would lead to them being removed from their personal search, and a young and brash person like Kait wouldn't understand the wisdom in taking a step back. Mind you, this is a three part story (allegedly) and so I'll wait until the third game until I call foul on her not receiving enough consequences for her mistakes.
3. I'm a bit out of my depth as to these retcons the story makes. Unless it contradicts material presented in the books/comics, I didn't see much that didn't make sense with what I understood about the Locusts from Gears 2/3. I'd be interested to know more about how the origin of Locust doesn't fit with the established lore as presented just in the games, if only for curiosity's sake. I did admit that I felt that Gears 2 was too subtle in revealing the details of its story, but I'd love to know if I'm just unobservant or not connecting the dots correctly.
4. Boring open world I agree with completely. New weapons being more gimmicks than meaningful, I can buy that. No meaningful difference between the Locust and Swarm? Absolutely correct, though I'm fine with revamped versions of older bad guys as long as there is a direct line between the story as to their evolution, though it does make both 4/5 feel like a retread of past titles and I get why these kinds of antagonists irk people. The death being an afterthought? I think so, too. I don't understand the active reload comment. I thought active reload adds both a boost to your shots and makes a great rhythm to combat, as executed perfectly it helps, and done incorrectly it is an hinderance. I saw nothing about what Gears 5 did to mess that up, other than letting you start out a scenario with boosted damage, which I was personally fine without, but whatever.
5. I'm fine with a narrative that is mostly a "side-quest" to the larger narrative, as long as it reveals more about our characters and directly impacts the narrative in some way. Some of my favorite games ever, like Mass Effect 2 and Arkham City, have large portions of their narratives built around diverting from the main plot so that the whole game feels like one big side quest. Yet, ME2 is all about character over plot and how Shepard's leadership is what the galaxy needs, and the ending of the Suicide Mission wouldn't have the same gut punch if I hadn't spent the past twenty hours getting to know those people. Arkham City's main plot of Protocol 10 gets sidetracked because of the Joker's disease, but A: the Joker would do something like that both to screw up Batman's mission and so that he can get the last laugh before he dies (which he does), and B: it leads to a fascinating look at this Batman and Joker's relationship. So, Gears 5 being a more personal story that has little to do with driving the larger narrative is fine to me, as a lot of great sequels do the same thing. And with the points you mention about what the narrative accomplishes, the death of a main character and the Swarm getting a queen so that they are now organized feel like fine progressions in the story. I will agree that the COG regaining the Hammer of Dawn is like me getting a shotgun to help in my plan to kill all spiders. Sure, it's helpful, but not in the most significant way to best accomplish an enemy that lives underground.
If nothing else, your post was insightful in several ways and caused me to think about the story more. I still stand by my ranking, but I'm open to changing my mind in the future. These lists are never definitive, even for me, and so they are likely to change. Thanks for commenting!