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+--- Thread: Gears of War 4 Review (/thread-3647.html)
Gears of War 4 Review - RepentantSky - 10-16-2016
This is my own review of the game. You'll have to excuse me if it seems a little rough around the edges, it's been a while since I did one of these outside of a top 10 list. That said, let's get to it.
Gears 4 is an interesting game. It without a doubt plays like the previous ones. You are in an area for some reason or to obtain some objective, and waves of enemies, along with the occasional boss come to try and stop you. That much hasn't changed even a little, but that said, Gear of War 4 is a reminder of why that's okay every now and again. As I was playing it, I couldn't help but feel like i was playing Gears 1 all over again, although with mostly new character as Marcus is a part of my team most of the time, and that was okay, It was like, experiencing Gears for the first time again, accept that now there were characters and and weapons that had become iconic to the series, so a good amount of throwback was put into it as well. I would say, the gameplay of Gears 4 was nearly without a hitch. It was missing some of the more action-packed scenes of previous gears, but given that the story wasn't all about saving the world, it fit, and rather nicely at that.
The thing that dragged the game down the most were sadly, two of the main characters and the main human antagonist. JD, the character you play as the whole time, is without a doubt boring and uninteresting, and hi best friend Del, is in no way breaking the stereotypes of mandatory black character that needs to be everywhere so people don't complain about a game or movie or whatever being racist or whitewashing. It's like Gears forgot how to make the black dude fun and interesting, even though Cole does make an appearance in this game, which actually reminded me of how much I don't like Del. He seems to be the tech guy of the group, but he's really bad at that, he's also a huge coward in a lot of situations even though he goes through and survives the the same crazy things as everyone else. I feel like Del is there just to fill a spot for above listed reasons, the same thing is true of JD.
The Character that shines the most, and the one I hope we get to play as for the rest of the game is Kait. Not only is she just as good as any of the other members of your Squad, but she has better moments in the story than anyone else does. She is the one who has the most reason to be fighting, she's the one most everyone is fighting to help, yet she not only carries her own, she's more likable than anyone else, possibly even more than Marcus. Were not for Kait, the whole game would have suffered, but she make the whole experience worth it when she does things like getting revenge on the monsters that attacked her home, or at the end, which I dare not spoil. More of her please, she's the future of the franchise.
The story of the game is also pretty strong as well. It's not a save the world story as of yet, it's more about saving Kait's family and friends who have been abducted by an unknown enemy called "The Swarm" which are so named because of Del saying when they attacked for the first time, that they came in like a "Swarm." That leads me to my one problem with the story, because the different creatures that you fight get named almost without a thought by your squad that's fighting them, and even though they literally come up with names almost too scripted for me take interest, yet alone remember the names of each enemy (which I honestly would have forgotten had they not been shouted out by at least one person every time you fought them) they will end up sticking, for some pointless reason.
The story beyond the pointless naming of foes is pretty good though, and honestly worth more than one playthrough just to experience it, and also to try it at higher difficulty's because of how much you'll need to switch up your style to accommodate. If your in for just the story, it's well worth it.
I haven't played the multi=player because I don't have a gold account, but my overall score of this game, is a solid 4.5/5 and it would probably be near perfect if I got into the online bits. The few flaws the game has, are easily covered by the parts that are great. If you have an Xbox one, I suggest that you play this game, it'll make the money it took to get the system, that much more worth it and honestly, despite the gore and everything else, the game is amazing to look at, one of the best this year easy.