Last year developers The Coalition and Splash Damage created a new game in the Gears of War Series - Gears Tactics. Being a Gears of War fan since the early days I was naturally curious, the only thing that put me off was the turned based combat. Until now Gears of War has always been played out as a third person fast-paced shooter so the idea of changing gears so much (couldn't help it) seemed a little strange. All that being said I liked The Bureau: XCOM Declassified so why not Gears Tactics?
I love many types of chocolate and chocolate bars, one of my favourites being Kinder Bueno, especially the white ones. Naturally when I saw that Jacobs had something similar called Elite Special Moments Hazelnut Cream Wafers I thought they would be tasty. They look the same, smell the same but are vastly different. From the outside, it all seems good but once I bit into it and had the first taste I was not impressed. The chocolate had a weird consistency and there were bits in it that tasted more like sawdust rather than hazelnut. Playing Gears Tactics I found myself asking was more like a tasty Kinder Bueno or just a poor imitation?
Story
Gears Tactics is set after emergence day and over a decade before the original Gears of War. The game features a new character to the series, Ukkon, a Locust Scientist. Becoming more unstoppable as the days pass Chairman Prescott sanctions Sargent Diaz and Major Redburn to take him down with extreme prejudice and by any means necessary. A small way into the story you manage to recruit militia to your cause who also isn't a fan of Ukkon. Its hard to say much more without giving away spoilers, what I can say is things are much darker then they seem and some of the COG's deepest secrets are going to come to light but will anyone be alive to talk about them?
Overall the story is pretty good and helps expand Gears lore - and the story has a similar theme/feel as Gears 5 which was really cool. The characters are not massively memorable which is a shame but I get the impression there won't be a sequel.
Visuals
The visuals are very different from the rest of the Gears games but equally, they are very similar. The world is still in bad shape between the COG using the Hammer of Dawn to destroy most of their cities and the constant battles taking place. The big thing that has changed is the perspective, with it now being top-down rather than third-person. Similar to XCOM you get to see up close animations when carrying out actions; like cutting off an enemies head with a bayonet, using a chainsaw to cut them in half or watch a grenade decimating a group of enemies. As the game introduces enemies (some of them never seen before) you get a really cool intro of them and what abilities they have.
Overall the visuals are pretty strong, the only thing that lets them down is that many of the levels are rehashed a number of times, not just inside missions but also main missions which gets boring over time especially with the games having a large number of missions.
Music
The feel of the soundtrack feels very removed from the rest of the series, it's more sci-fi, and doesn't use any of the classic gears music that remade and reinvented in other games. The soundtrack is composed by British based composer Edward Patrick White. White has a rather varied background having worked on an animated movie called Battlesuit, documentaries' All You Need Is Love and Nine Lives, along with creating some of the music for Bear Grylls TV series.
The soundtrack is less than an hour which seemed short for a game that takes around thirty hours to complete. My favourite tracks were; 'The Wrong Gear', 'Brumak' and 'Asshole Factory'. Overall as a soundtrack, it is okay, as Gears soundtrack is the least memorable to date.
Gameplay
The gameplay moves from being a fast-paced third-person shooter to a top-down turn-based strategy game. The change is refreshing even if it a little jarring to start with. The team consists of four players (some missions are reduced down to two), each has a number of action points (AP). These can be used to move, attack or set up overwatch. The overwatch ability is one of the most useful in the game as it allows a character to cover an area and if any enemy walks into it then they get wounded or killed altogether.
What was really interesting is that each character has their own special abilities and can be upgraded and new ones earned as they gain experience points. Especially later in the game, you can end up having a great healer, and sniper, and you are going to need them. If you are unhappy with how you have used your experience points you can redistribute them.
There are main missions and side missions, side missions often entail holding an area for a set amount of moves, destroying an objective, rescuing prisoners in a limited number of moves, and collecting cases before being bombed into oblivion. The main missions are also similar to the side missions, when I say similar they are almost the same except for the boss fights. There are few slightly frustrating things with side missions, firstly you have to pay x amount of them before you can proceed with the main mission, making them feel less like side missions. There is also the oddity that if you use one of your main characters in a side mission they will then not be available to use in the main mission. This issue is a pain as it means you don't get to gain additional experience for those characters and then use them in the main mission, which seems bizarre. This means for side missions you have to use recruits that are never as strong. I learned much later on that if you fail all the side missions you can then just proceed with the main mission like normal, with no penalties. It seems strange to not allow your main characters to take part in side missions without sacrificing being able to use them in main missions (you know the time you actually want and need them).
Some missions can take around half an hour or less, others significantly more. An example of this would be the boss fights. The last boss was a giant pain in the ass and took me many, many attempts to beat it and even more hours. By the time I was done with it, I could not have been happier, not because of beating the boss (although that was part of it) but also to be finished with the game.
Overall the key mechanics in the game work really well, but some odd choices and repetition of maps really let them gameplay down.
Final Thoughts
So, after in excess of thirty hours how did I feel? Glad the experience was over. The story adds new lore to the gears universe which was quite interesting, but the unmemorable main characters certainly took a little away from it. The visuals are strong, the addition of new enemies and animations are very welcome. The music is underwhelming, not just for a Gears soundtrack but even in general. The gameplay has some really strong mechanics that have clearly been borrowed from XCOM, sadly those some strange choices and level repetition stopped the game from being all it could be. Overall this one just about slides in with 3 out of 5
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