Gears of War 4 Review

Review Gears of War 4 | Boom, reader – you feelin’ that shit?! Hell yeah, Gears of War is back for Xbox One! The gruesome third person shooter has a new developer so we are all wondering if this flagship franchise is in good hands. Let’s find that out in this Gears of War 4 review!

THE GOOD

• Gears fans rest assured, the new developer Coalition did the franchise justice. Right from the start you know that your favorite franchise is in good hands. Throughout the campaign you feel the love from the developers for Gears.
• One thing that the new developer did was bring much more variation to the campaign. New enemies that change how you play the game or, although weird at first, robotic Deebees. It was actually the set pieces, for example a vehicle section that made the campaign much more varied than before.
• Weather effects influence the gameplay in a big way and it simply looks fantastic too. Avoiding electric bolts from storms, heavy winds that make it much harder aiming grenades or one of Gears new weapons the Buzzsaw.
• The new weapons from Gears 4 gave me a small Insomniac (Sunset Overdrive) feeling. Let’s take the Dropshot for example, you can compare it with the digger launcher but it’s much more fun shooting the aerial mines.  Oh, and the Overkill Shotgun is brilliant, forcing you to be precise with the pull and release from the trigger.
• Without a doubt, the online from Gears of War has always been my favorite on Xbox. And I don’t see that changing with Gears 4. The new game modes Arms Race and especially Dodgeball are a blast to play. Whenever you kill someone a teammate can spawn again, you will have to kill all five opponents before you win the round. Trust me when I say that the feeling is epic when you are the last one standing versus an entire team and still manage to kill a few so your team is back from the dead.
• The new characters and my best old friend Marcus bring something entirely new to the Gears franchise. Believable emotions that make you care for the characters. Having a veteran like Marcus with his son and much younger people brings some really funny dialogue and situations.

Mixed Feelings

• I have to be honest and say that I’m still not sure if I like the new Horde mode more than before. Previously you had to hunker down but with Horde 3.0 everything is focused about the fabricator, forcing you to move around to keep the machine going. Don’t get me wrong, this co-op game mode is still really fun to play, having different classes is a nice touch and surviving wave 50 is really, really difficult.

The Bad

• Nothing, expect to lose yourself for many, many hours in the online modes 😉

Score: 96% | The Coalition did an awesome job and I’m very glad to say that my favorite franchise is in excellent hands. Great new characters, fun new modes to play and the violent gameplay is better then ever.