The sixth Gears of War game explains more about the state of the Gears universe than the other games combined. It features a female protagonist mentally linked with The Swarm, and the Jack robot has been upgraded with a whole host of combat abilities, including freezing enemies, reviving downed COG soldiers, and taking control over enemies. The game has two open world areas that are somewhat empty compared to the current state of open world games, but the linear areas make up for this by being incredibly detailed, and full of fun and interesting combat encounters. This has been the most enjoyable Gears of War game I have played since Gears of War 3.
Image source: Oluasc at resetera.com
log entries
- 9981My free Xbox Game Pass subscription has run out, and Gears 5 is coming out now, so I re-joined the 'Ultimate' Game Pass for the excellent price of 2 USDs for the two first months. In November, I should downgrade to the basic Xbox Game Pass, I don't use 'Ultimate' for anything.
- 9982I played through Act I with JD (Marcus Phenix's son) and so far, I'm very happy with this game. The story is as dumb as always, but the characters work reasonably well in their primitive way, and the levels are extremely entertaining and everything looks amazing. The campaign seems to run at a solid 30 FPS, which seems very reasonable giving the level of graphical detail. I hope Horde Mode runs in 60 FPS.
- 9983An icy area has opened up, and I'm now free to explore. The area seems pretty small, and graphically it is less detailed, but it's an interesting addition to this franchise, and I enjoy finding these little areas with upgrade parts and a few gunfights.
- 9984I returned to the lab from Gears of War 2. This game reminds me a lot of Gears 2.
- 9985I'm upgrade hunting in the snow.
- 9986These post were entered after I migrated the server to a new installation. I had to replace the Ruby mysql gem with mysql2, which has a slightly different interface, causing a whole bunch of trouble for the site.
- 9989I played through the mines, but I'm too tired to play properly tonight...
- 9990The secret research lab in Mount Kadar explained more about the universe than all the other games combined. All my suspisions were true, The Locust are mutated humans. Also, The Locust Queen is Kait's grandmother. Why not?
- 9991I had a fun glitch where I fell through the world during the boss fight with the Matriarch.
- 9992Act II is complete.
- 9993Act III switches blue for red, ice for desert. There are some new weapons to try out, which is going to be fun.
- 9994The second open world area is becoming a little boring for me. The side missions are fun, but travelling around the areas on the skiff is just too boring. I think the game would benefit from having some sort of skiff combat, anything to make it a bit less boring.
- 9995The variety of Jack abilities are making combat feel pretty interesting. I now have the ability to freeze enemies, place a shield in front of me (Borderlands-style), or even take control of enemies. And cool how the fit all these ideas into Jack, a classic feature of the Gears series.
- 9996The rocket hangar was a bit too long and boring for my taste.
- 9997The 'Russia' chapter ends with a rocket launch, very 1960s cold war space race. I was happy to be done with this chapter, that was a bit boring, even despite of some powerful visual ideas, such as the glass trees created from the red sand by lightning bolts.
- 9998The Kraken attacking the rocket and constantly grabbing COG soliders was silly, but fun.
- 9999The street fights of Act IV were super cool, I feel like the game is really back on track now. The Hammer of Dawn is active, and everything is exploding. :)
- 10000completed the game on Intermediate difficulty (Campaign). I completed my sixth Gears game, 11 years after completing the first game. This entry in my gamelog has the ID 10,000, but after counting the total number of entries, there are only 9335. I guess I have deleted a bunch along the way. Still, I consider it an anniversary of sorts.
- 10038I managed to complete wave 1-9 in solo Horde Mode (beginner). When playing solo, getting caught by a Sire is automatic failure, so they are the most dangerous enemy so far. Another big problem is flash grenades, which obscures your vision for a long time. I'm not sure what to do about them. It's very fun though!
- 10162After trying Halo 5 on Project XCloud, I played a few minutes of Gears 5. It totally works, and I hope the latency will be as good in Denmark when it rolls out here.
- 10340completed the game on Beginner difficulty and got the score: 5979 (Horde). Malu and I went through all 50 Horde waves in a single 4 hour marathon sitting. The end boss that we managed to beat was the Kestrel attack helicopter. We learned that you can level up and buy weapons and fortifications using Power, and that Power Taps that generate additional Power can be captured. Fortifications and Power Taps are attacked by The Horde, and players get a warning in the form of an annoying sound when this happenes. Beginner difficulty was very forgiving, to a degree where we rarely had to use cover. Playing this again on a higher difficulty could be interesting.
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