Gears Tactics is a very competent, if excessively macho, iteration on XCOM. The streamlined character classes and reduction of base-building is part of a larger design philosophy which throws you into the action faster and encourages aggressive tactical play. Mission and enemy designs were well-done, but many enemy types were hard to differentiate visually and mandatory side missions eventually become tedious. Difficulty on Intermediate was well balanced to feel challenging without actually requring a lot of checkpoint reloads. Overall did not overstay its welcome, but did not leave me wanting more.
A story focused tactics game with an exceptional combat system brought down by repetitive level and mission design, under baked squad management and forced side missions with no story development.
The boss fights were also pretty unique for the genre and a nice change of pace.
There is a lot of potential for an amazing sequel. They just need to keep the same combat and flesh out the other systems surrounding it.
The boss fights were also pretty unique for the genre and a nice change of pace.
There is a lot of potential for an amazing sequel. They just need to keep the same combat and flesh out the other systems surrounding it.
Uma perspectiva diferente, e muito boa, para jogos de Tactics. Me deu uma impressão de ser um jogo de tática misturado com ação, com mais direcionamento em sobreviver dezenas de inimigos, sem muita história, do que o que é típico de TRPGs. Funciona surpreendentemente bem.
Foco em times pequenos (4, ou até 2 personagens em algumas sidequests) com habilidades fortes enfrentando inimigos de uma forma mais afunilada que outros jogos do estilo. A ênfase em habilidades torna o jogo interessante, com você podendo destruir um grande número de inimigos com apenas um personagem se calcular direito, e os inimigos são poderosos, podendo acabar com a missão em uma rodada (no nível hard).
Como problemas, os mais óbvios são algumas poucas sidequests que são muito mais dificeis que qualquer missão do jogo, e a quantidade de sidequests obrigatórias e com variedade limitada. Há também pequenos bugs, como habilidades que não são usadas e mesmo assim gastam o turno, o que pode levar imediatamente à derrota devido à força dos adversários. A história é interessante por ser pontual, não do tipo de "salvar o mundo", mas ao mesmo tempo é um jogo da saga Gears, então não é complexa e o visual, apesar de bonito, é repetitivo e chato.
Foco em times pequenos (4, ou até 2 personagens em algumas sidequests) com habilidades fortes enfrentando inimigos de uma forma mais afunilada que outros jogos do estilo. A ênfase em habilidades torna o jogo interessante, com você podendo destruir um grande número de inimigos com apenas um personagem se calcular direito, e os inimigos são poderosos, podendo acabar com a missão em uma rodada (no nível hard).
Como problemas, os mais óbvios são algumas poucas sidequests que são muito mais dificeis que qualquer missão do jogo, e a quantidade de sidequests obrigatórias e com variedade limitada. Há também pequenos bugs, como habilidades que não são usadas e mesmo assim gastam o turno, o que pode levar imediatamente à derrota devido à força dos adversários. A história é interessante por ser pontual, não do tipo de "salvar o mundo", mas ao mesmo tempo é um jogo da saga Gears, então não é complexa e o visual, apesar de bonito, é repetitivo e chato.
I got bored after some point and couldn't finish the campaign but it was a great game. Maybe I'll pick it up later and finish the campaign.
Managing the collected gears is really frustrating, I hated those menus.
Character customization options are diverse enough to play with different styles and have fun.
Managing the collected gears is really frustrating, I hated those menus.
Character customization options are diverse enough to play with different styles and have fun.
Gears Tactics (2020): Es tal plagio de XCOM que comparten incluso bugs. Lo he pasado realmente bien jugándolo aunque se acabase haciendo un pelín repetitivo. Pese a una historia mala incluso para el estándar de la saga y algunos bugs bastante molestos, ha merecido la pena (6,40)
They look like tall dwarves why do they-
-Muito inspirado em Xcom, só que com menos estresse.
-Ele é mais simplificado, e não tem toda aquela parte de ficar gerenciando base que não curto muito.
-O personagem não morre de primeira, podendo ser revivido por aliados, como no Gears normal. E não ficam indisponíveis para se recuperar de ferimentos.
-Mas perde na questão de progressão dos personagens. Você não desbloqueia novas armas, nem novas armaduras que permitem uma mobilidade diferenciada.
-O jogo peca em variedade também, pouca variedade de mapas, de objetivos de missões, e de inimigos. No jogo todo tem só 3 lutas de chefe, são boas mas podia ter mais.
-A maior falha do jogo é a obrigatoriedade de fazer inúmeras missões secundárias para progredir na história. O que ressalta a falta de variedade e tornando mais repetitivo do que deveria.
-Ele é mais simplificado, e não tem toda aquela parte de ficar gerenciando base que não curto muito.
-O personagem não morre de primeira, podendo ser revivido por aliados, como no Gears normal. E não ficam indisponíveis para se recuperar de ferimentos.
-Mas perde na questão de progressão dos personagens. Você não desbloqueia novas armas, nem novas armaduras que permitem uma mobilidade diferenciada.
-O jogo peca em variedade também, pouca variedade de mapas, de objetivos de missões, e de inimigos. No jogo todo tem só 3 lutas de chefe, são boas mas podia ter mais.
-A maior falha do jogo é a obrigatoriedade de fazer inúmeras missões secundárias para progredir na história. O que ressalta a falta de variedade e tornando mais repetitivo do que deveria.
If you like Gears of War and XCOM then you'll get plenty of enjoyment out of this! Boss battles packed a challenge and the more larger story missions really had me planning three steps ahead of my enemies actions. Highly recommend!
This review contains spoilers
Gears Tactics...ugh, i tried to love this game, i really did, and to be fair! it does a good amount of things right, there is some fun moments to be had within this game. However there are both large major issues and many small issues that add up to make a very flawed and genuinely frustrating slog to go through but with moments of fun and greatness within, well let's get into it.
GAMEPLAY:
Well if you ever played the modern XCOMs or similar tactics games then the core foundation of Gears Tactics will be very familiar, the cover base, hit chance, small squad combat, all very familiar and done well, there's nothing wrong here and to be fair most of the gameplay is done well. The main thing Gears Tactics sells itself on is being a fast paced Tactics game, now i was wondering what this means and i'm sure many would be wondering what that means as well, well let me explain what that means. The classic Gears of War mechanic, executions are present here and here they are more than just flair and being flashy here they speed up combat, lemme explain.
Well before getting into what makes this game a "fast paced Tactics game", i have to explain some basics things, so turn based combat as expected, here each squad member has 3 action points or AP that can used for anything, you can have a unit shoot 3 times in a single turn or move halfway across the map with all 3ap or 3 abilities or a move than 2 shots, you have these 3ap to decide what you want to do with, this to also helps with the fact pace nature of the game. Now executions, much like normal Gears games, sometimes instead of dying, you and enemies can go down, and here, when you're in range, one character can spend a single AP to execute, it'll play an animation straight from the Gears games, and once finished, everyone on the squad but the executor will gain one AP instantly and there is no limit to executing and AP, meaning you can line up whole groups of enemies and chain execute them meaning you can a whole squad of mostly with 8AP meaning you just a long as fuck turn to just mop up the remaining enemies, meaning you can just finish certain missions types in under 10 to 15 minutes, in fact most missions can be finished rather quickly, most. Now the core gameplay and executions are all well and good, the classes as well are pretty fun, and play into their roles and sub roles well. The classes being Support, Vanguard, Heavy, Scout, Sniper, each with four subclasses that can be leveled into, for the most part these classes are fine each are fun to play around with and can have some pretty good variety in tactics you can do with them. Well that's about all the good, let's get into bad parts of the gameplay.
starting off, these classes i mentioned, how it's fun to experiment and mess around with, well for most part you can't, the game really really pushes into using you're main squad, made up of your Hero units, aka the main characters, and you're characters level up so slowly and by level 5 it's so hard to level up anymore to the point you kinda just get locked into the same abilities and play styles because of the game really pushing you into main characters. Well what about other squad members, you can recruit random generated characters, well you can't use them often, normally you can use 1 maybe 2 in a main story missions and up to 4 in side missions, yeah fine enough, well once you do a side missions the characters you sent onto that mission are now locked out of use again until later in the Act, meaning if you really wanna level a character because you finally got the class you wanted after waiting a few missions, (oh and we'll get to that) whelp you can't, cause the side mission you sent them on wasn't enough to level them up and now their locked until later missions, it's a weird choice personally. Now how about the process of getting new recruits, well it's fun gameplay feature called waiting...yeah, you start with a unit cap of 3 that is upgraded to 10 by the end of the game, pretty small but fine, well can you recruit new units by selecting what you want? no, instead after each mission you get a 2 or 3 units to select to recruit, a level below your lowest level main character, and has a pretty good chance of not being the class you want or even duplicate classes, making it rather hard to mess around with the classes and sub classes, especially when you're locked into 4 man squads per mission with 2 or 3 of those slots being main characters. Alright well how about upgrading you're characters, you have your level ups and skills, nothing bad here it's quite fun honestly the skills. Well what about equipment, armor and weapons, well there is no research trees or anything, makes sense as you are playing an already developed military, instead you have salvage, yeah makes sense as you are cut off from the rest of the COG, so you have to collect equipment to upgrade your weapons and armor, well how to do get this salvage, well crates and mission rewards, you have 3 random crates in each mission and one for main reward and a optional reward each mission, maxing out at 5 each mission, alright fine enough, well do you get spend these crates for resources or directly to what equipment you want?, nope RNG after the mission you can open the crates and it's random loot drops, random armor and weapon attachments, with each weapon having 4 attachments slots but each weapons has 4 UNIQUE ATTACHMENTS meaning it's very hard to get upgrades for something you WANT, and the color rare system is present here as, meaning you could get the weapon or armor you want buttt it could be rare while you need a very rare version to actually upgrade, meaning you are at the whim of RNG. This is one of the many things that started to bring the game down for me, having a tactics game in this style relying on RNG to upgrade the equipment of your soldiers is a choice all right, by the end i had dozens and dozens of just random armor and equipment i didn't or couldn't use because of the RNG loot system. Now the major major thing that brought this game down for me is Act 3, Act 3 is awful, it brought down the game so hard. So Act 1 is 7 missions long, Act 2 is 10 missions, Act 3 is 19 missions long. Act 3 is a slog, it's not only the length makes this eh, Act 1 and 2 take place in different areas so you have different environments to look at and different maps to play on, well Act 3 takes place in one area and so, by like mission 5 of Act 3 you start seeing the same map over and over again it get hyper grading and just makes it a slog, doesn't help that by that point who have seen all the mission types, all 5 missions types, doesn't help that the enemy types are kinda small in amounts and fill a lot of the same roles, farther adding to the slog that is Act 3. Overall It's a great gameplay brought down by Act 3 and smaller issues.
STORY:
Gears Tactics follows Gabe Diaz, a COG sgt. and tactically genius, taking place right before and after the Hammer of Dawn counterattack, a major event during Gears lore that we're seeing for the first time, Sid Redburn former New Hope research facility guard and COG veteran, comes to deliver orders directly from Chairman Prescott to hunt down and kill Locust High geneticist Ukkon, and our story picks off. Gabe being cut off from the rest of the COG starts picking up civies and COG alike to form a little army to fight this little fight, Civilians don't like the COG but work together to fight Ukkon, Mikayla Dorn, a Civilian leader, works with Gabe to track down Ukkon and they do find him, Mikayla puts a bullet into his head and boom he drops dead...then he stands right back up. They find that he can repair damage to his body far faster than a normal being, he retreats, and Gabe and the rest of the gang fight off Locust forces and regroup and Gabe and the civilians fully come to agreement and head off to Vasgar to hunt down Ukkon.
Act 2 is honestly a whole bunch of nothing, just more mainly a lot of small characters moments to flesh out these honestly, not hyper interesting characters, but they do find out that Ukkon is suffering from Rustlung a disease in Gears related to imulsion, and find a way to set a trap for Ukkon, by tricking him with old UIR meds to help treat Rustlung, traps works but as Gabe is about to lock up Ukkon, Sid bashes Gabe on the head and tries to drive off with Ukkon but is stop by Mikayla holding Sid at gunpoint, during this Ukkon notices Sid and taunts him for the time at New Hope, both of whom where there at New Hope. Ukkon escapes once again by tearing off his own arm, he escapes once again and soon Gabe and gang once again have to fight off Locust forces and regroup, they lock Sid up in a makeshift jail and head further into Vasgar to finally kill Ukkon.
Act 3 begins with them trying to question Sid but he's not answering, but Ukkon still needs to be found so they send troops out to go find him. After a few days when Gabe is questioning Sid again, Sid lashes out by saying he's protecting them and don't know what they're dealing with, Gabe calms Sid down and Sid explains what New Hope was and what the Locust really are and how the humanity made the very thing that is killing them all. After some hard proof about New Hope, Gabe calls and confronts Prescott about New Hope and about the Locust, call ends with Gabe giving false coordinates about where they are and Prescott promises "Reinforcements" few minutes later a Hammer of Dawn strikes on a nearby cliff and is now Gabe and the gang are now thought to be dead, but they still have to kill Ukkon so they fight on. After that they work on a way of countering Ukkon's self regen rate, and find that New Hope had some fallbacks incase Ukkon acted up back then, so they go track down the parts and supplies to make gas grenades' filled with this failsafe to stop Ukkon, now the problem is finding him, after many many side missions they so close in on a location of Ukkon's base lab thing, they free some prisoners first for not only a exact location but also for some extra firepower, soon after they arm and armor up for one last assault. They send quite literally everything they have at Ukkon's base and storm in, main forces hold off the main Locust forces while Gabe and gang chase Ukkon, ending in one final fight, that is the only good part of Act 3 btw, that ends with Ukkon hit by a gas grenades and left on the ground, in his final moments taunts them by saying his creations will outlive all of them that the Locust will rule Sera, ending shortly by a single shot to the head. They day is won, Ukkon is dead and most of forces routed, but the war goes on and Gabe Diaz and gang spends the rest of the war fighting on their own, away from the COG, roll credits.
Honestly Gears Tactics story is alright, like it's bad, but it isn't great either, it does stay faithful to Ukkon and his lore from the comics and stays faithful to Gears lore in general honestly, but the characters are rather flat but have fun moments and lines, the story of hunting Ukkon is fine enough and does have cool reveals and drops throughout but the length of act 3 genuinely made me forget that cause how much of a slog it was, Ukkon also isn't around much either so it doesn't really show how much of a monster he is either, the cutscenes are cool tho. Overall not bad not great, pretty alright!
WORLD:
Well the lore and world surrounding Gears tactics is neat, taking place right before and during and after the Hammer of Dawn counterattack is a cool place for a Gears game, it's our first time seeing this major event in Gears lore in a game!, the world itself past the Hammer of Dawn counterattacks is honestly kinda bland, they don't build on Vasgar or the UIR or even the COG, is it leaves it kinda lacking, everything with New Hope is already known, and Gears Tactics doesn't talk about Vasgar or the UIR at all, so it leaves just a whole lot of nothing there. Overall very good setting and backdrops but not expanded on at all.
MUSIC:
Honestly Gears Tactics, does have some banger tracks, like there are standout tracks, Such as "Asshole Factory" and "COG" there are tracks that standout. However you'll be hearing the same combat tracks over and over again, ACT 3 has the same 2 combat tracks over and over again, and it's really fucking just ugh, part of the reason ACT 3 is so grading. Still i cannot fault it that much for the good tracks.
OVERALL:
Gears Tactics is a great game at it's core brought down by some major and minor gameplay flaws, with only a passable main story to back it up, and fails to add to the world of Sera in any meaningful way aside from showing us the end of the comic character Ukkon. Best thing i can describe this game with is, "It's a fun game at it's core however i would not blame you for dropping the game by ACT 3."
Whelp that's it! My future game reviews and thoughts will now be here instead of Twitter!
GAMEPLAY:
Well if you ever played the modern XCOMs or similar tactics games then the core foundation of Gears Tactics will be very familiar, the cover base, hit chance, small squad combat, all very familiar and done well, there's nothing wrong here and to be fair most of the gameplay is done well. The main thing Gears Tactics sells itself on is being a fast paced Tactics game, now i was wondering what this means and i'm sure many would be wondering what that means as well, well let me explain what that means. The classic Gears of War mechanic, executions are present here and here they are more than just flair and being flashy here they speed up combat, lemme explain.
Well before getting into what makes this game a "fast paced Tactics game", i have to explain some basics things, so turn based combat as expected, here each squad member has 3 action points or AP that can used for anything, you can have a unit shoot 3 times in a single turn or move halfway across the map with all 3ap or 3 abilities or a move than 2 shots, you have these 3ap to decide what you want to do with, this to also helps with the fact pace nature of the game. Now executions, much like normal Gears games, sometimes instead of dying, you and enemies can go down, and here, when you're in range, one character can spend a single AP to execute, it'll play an animation straight from the Gears games, and once finished, everyone on the squad but the executor will gain one AP instantly and there is no limit to executing and AP, meaning you can line up whole groups of enemies and chain execute them meaning you can a whole squad of mostly with 8AP meaning you just a long as fuck turn to just mop up the remaining enemies, meaning you can just finish certain missions types in under 10 to 15 minutes, in fact most missions can be finished rather quickly, most. Now the core gameplay and executions are all well and good, the classes as well are pretty fun, and play into their roles and sub roles well. The classes being Support, Vanguard, Heavy, Scout, Sniper, each with four subclasses that can be leveled into, for the most part these classes are fine each are fun to play around with and can have some pretty good variety in tactics you can do with them. Well that's about all the good, let's get into bad parts of the gameplay.
starting off, these classes i mentioned, how it's fun to experiment and mess around with, well for most part you can't, the game really really pushes into using you're main squad, made up of your Hero units, aka the main characters, and you're characters level up so slowly and by level 5 it's so hard to level up anymore to the point you kinda just get locked into the same abilities and play styles because of the game really pushing you into main characters. Well what about other squad members, you can recruit random generated characters, well you can't use them often, normally you can use 1 maybe 2 in a main story missions and up to 4 in side missions, yeah fine enough, well once you do a side missions the characters you sent onto that mission are now locked out of use again until later in the Act, meaning if you really wanna level a character because you finally got the class you wanted after waiting a few missions, (oh and we'll get to that) whelp you can't, cause the side mission you sent them on wasn't enough to level them up and now their locked until later missions, it's a weird choice personally. Now how about the process of getting new recruits, well it's fun gameplay feature called waiting...yeah, you start with a unit cap of 3 that is upgraded to 10 by the end of the game, pretty small but fine, well can you recruit new units by selecting what you want? no, instead after each mission you get a 2 or 3 units to select to recruit, a level below your lowest level main character, and has a pretty good chance of not being the class you want or even duplicate classes, making it rather hard to mess around with the classes and sub classes, especially when you're locked into 4 man squads per mission with 2 or 3 of those slots being main characters. Alright well how about upgrading you're characters, you have your level ups and skills, nothing bad here it's quite fun honestly the skills. Well what about equipment, armor and weapons, well there is no research trees or anything, makes sense as you are playing an already developed military, instead you have salvage, yeah makes sense as you are cut off from the rest of the COG, so you have to collect equipment to upgrade your weapons and armor, well how to do get this salvage, well crates and mission rewards, you have 3 random crates in each mission and one for main reward and a optional reward each mission, maxing out at 5 each mission, alright fine enough, well do you get spend these crates for resources or directly to what equipment you want?, nope RNG after the mission you can open the crates and it's random loot drops, random armor and weapon attachments, with each weapon having 4 attachments slots but each weapons has 4 UNIQUE ATTACHMENTS meaning it's very hard to get upgrades for something you WANT, and the color rare system is present here as, meaning you could get the weapon or armor you want buttt it could be rare while you need a very rare version to actually upgrade, meaning you are at the whim of RNG. This is one of the many things that started to bring the game down for me, having a tactics game in this style relying on RNG to upgrade the equipment of your soldiers is a choice all right, by the end i had dozens and dozens of just random armor and equipment i didn't or couldn't use because of the RNG loot system. Now the major major thing that brought this game down for me is Act 3, Act 3 is awful, it brought down the game so hard. So Act 1 is 7 missions long, Act 2 is 10 missions, Act 3 is 19 missions long. Act 3 is a slog, it's not only the length makes this eh, Act 1 and 2 take place in different areas so you have different environments to look at and different maps to play on, well Act 3 takes place in one area and so, by like mission 5 of Act 3 you start seeing the same map over and over again it get hyper grading and just makes it a slog, doesn't help that by that point who have seen all the mission types, all 5 missions types, doesn't help that the enemy types are kinda small in amounts and fill a lot of the same roles, farther adding to the slog that is Act 3. Overall It's a great gameplay brought down by Act 3 and smaller issues.
STORY:
Gears Tactics follows Gabe Diaz, a COG sgt. and tactically genius, taking place right before and after the Hammer of Dawn counterattack, a major event during Gears lore that we're seeing for the first time, Sid Redburn former New Hope research facility guard and COG veteran, comes to deliver orders directly from Chairman Prescott to hunt down and kill Locust High geneticist Ukkon, and our story picks off. Gabe being cut off from the rest of the COG starts picking up civies and COG alike to form a little army to fight this little fight, Civilians don't like the COG but work together to fight Ukkon, Mikayla Dorn, a Civilian leader, works with Gabe to track down Ukkon and they do find him, Mikayla puts a bullet into his head and boom he drops dead...then he stands right back up. They find that he can repair damage to his body far faster than a normal being, he retreats, and Gabe and the rest of the gang fight off Locust forces and regroup and Gabe and the civilians fully come to agreement and head off to Vasgar to hunt down Ukkon.
Act 2 is honestly a whole bunch of nothing, just more mainly a lot of small characters moments to flesh out these honestly, not hyper interesting characters, but they do find out that Ukkon is suffering from Rustlung a disease in Gears related to imulsion, and find a way to set a trap for Ukkon, by tricking him with old UIR meds to help treat Rustlung, traps works but as Gabe is about to lock up Ukkon, Sid bashes Gabe on the head and tries to drive off with Ukkon but is stop by Mikayla holding Sid at gunpoint, during this Ukkon notices Sid and taunts him for the time at New Hope, both of whom where there at New Hope. Ukkon escapes once again by tearing off his own arm, he escapes once again and soon Gabe and gang once again have to fight off Locust forces and regroup, they lock Sid up in a makeshift jail and head further into Vasgar to finally kill Ukkon.
Act 3 begins with them trying to question Sid but he's not answering, but Ukkon still needs to be found so they send troops out to go find him. After a few days when Gabe is questioning Sid again, Sid lashes out by saying he's protecting them and don't know what they're dealing with, Gabe calms Sid down and Sid explains what New Hope was and what the Locust really are and how the humanity made the very thing that is killing them all. After some hard proof about New Hope, Gabe calls and confronts Prescott about New Hope and about the Locust, call ends with Gabe giving false coordinates about where they are and Prescott promises "Reinforcements" few minutes later a Hammer of Dawn strikes on a nearby cliff and is now Gabe and the gang are now thought to be dead, but they still have to kill Ukkon so they fight on. After that they work on a way of countering Ukkon's self regen rate, and find that New Hope had some fallbacks incase Ukkon acted up back then, so they go track down the parts and supplies to make gas grenades' filled with this failsafe to stop Ukkon, now the problem is finding him, after many many side missions they so close in on a location of Ukkon's base lab thing, they free some prisoners first for not only a exact location but also for some extra firepower, soon after they arm and armor up for one last assault. They send quite literally everything they have at Ukkon's base and storm in, main forces hold off the main Locust forces while Gabe and gang chase Ukkon, ending in one final fight, that is the only good part of Act 3 btw, that ends with Ukkon hit by a gas grenades and left on the ground, in his final moments taunts them by saying his creations will outlive all of them that the Locust will rule Sera, ending shortly by a single shot to the head. They day is won, Ukkon is dead and most of forces routed, but the war goes on and Gabe Diaz and gang spends the rest of the war fighting on their own, away from the COG, roll credits.
Honestly Gears Tactics story is alright, like it's bad, but it isn't great either, it does stay faithful to Ukkon and his lore from the comics and stays faithful to Gears lore in general honestly, but the characters are rather flat but have fun moments and lines, the story of hunting Ukkon is fine enough and does have cool reveals and drops throughout but the length of act 3 genuinely made me forget that cause how much of a slog it was, Ukkon also isn't around much either so it doesn't really show how much of a monster he is either, the cutscenes are cool tho. Overall not bad not great, pretty alright!
WORLD:
Well the lore and world surrounding Gears tactics is neat, taking place right before and during and after the Hammer of Dawn counterattack is a cool place for a Gears game, it's our first time seeing this major event in Gears lore in a game!, the world itself past the Hammer of Dawn counterattacks is honestly kinda bland, they don't build on Vasgar or the UIR or even the COG, is it leaves it kinda lacking, everything with New Hope is already known, and Gears Tactics doesn't talk about Vasgar or the UIR at all, so it leaves just a whole lot of nothing there. Overall very good setting and backdrops but not expanded on at all.
MUSIC:
Honestly Gears Tactics, does have some banger tracks, like there are standout tracks, Such as "Asshole Factory" and "COG" there are tracks that standout. However you'll be hearing the same combat tracks over and over again, ACT 3 has the same 2 combat tracks over and over again, and it's really fucking just ugh, part of the reason ACT 3 is so grading. Still i cannot fault it that much for the good tracks.
OVERALL:
Gears Tactics is a great game at it's core brought down by some major and minor gameplay flaws, with only a passable main story to back it up, and fails to add to the world of Sera in any meaningful way aside from showing us the end of the comic character Ukkon. Best thing i can describe this game with is, "It's a fun game at it's core however i would not blame you for dropping the game by ACT 3."
Whelp that's it! My future game reviews and thoughts will now be here instead of Twitter!
The developer that took a look at gears cover based shooting and thought about mixing a game with XCOM was a genius. It actually works really well, its replayability is another issue. While the game is super fun it gets boring by the second act out of 3 as all of the objectives are the same 4 just swapped around with nothing interesting happening in main missions outside of cutscenes or an end of act boss battle.
The game is very short... but it will take you 20+ hours..... why? every time you do 1-2 main missions the game FORCES you to do anywhere from 1-3 side missions (side an dmain missions average me about 15 minutes) which have the same objectives as main missions but the plot doesnt move.
i counted it, to beat the main game which is 21 levels not counting tutorial.... you need to do 19 side missions........ IT GETS SO DULL WHEN THE SIDE MISSIONS ARE THE EXACT SAME THING. Oh now we are going to go fight Ukkon finally? yay! We have to hurry...... oh, or we can do 3 side missions first.... its so bad at hiding the fact its buying for time. There is no plot reason for this as well beyond its introduction. Sometimes it even puts restrictions like "no grenades" for no reason.
And Reyna.... whats with modern games making female leads be sooooooo FN unlikeable? does it make them seem cool to devlopers? they suck. Spoilers below here
You save Reyna in Act 3 chapter 5 so she is an 11th hour character, she argues and disrespect you the whole time then steals your FN kill. im not joking. The entire game is a hunt and this dumb +++++ steals i and has the nerve to blame me for being a cog and, get this, she even says "you COG dont get it, it feels like ive been fighting locust all my life, even before" SHT UP SHT UP SHT UP HOLY SHT. The last 5% of the game was so bad with her i sped ran the objectves and quit the game when done. She ruins the landing bad. Her and her daughter are the worst characters in the franchise and they both deserve the worst fate imaginable.
Game is fun tho....... now if u excuse me im gonna go laugh at Reyna dying in 4
The game is very short... but it will take you 20+ hours..... why? every time you do 1-2 main missions the game FORCES you to do anywhere from 1-3 side missions (side an dmain missions average me about 15 minutes) which have the same objectives as main missions but the plot doesnt move.
i counted it, to beat the main game which is 21 levels not counting tutorial.... you need to do 19 side missions........ IT GETS SO DULL WHEN THE SIDE MISSIONS ARE THE EXACT SAME THING. Oh now we are going to go fight Ukkon finally? yay! We have to hurry...... oh, or we can do 3 side missions first.... its so bad at hiding the fact its buying for time. There is no plot reason for this as well beyond its introduction. Sometimes it even puts restrictions like "no grenades" for no reason.
And Reyna.... whats with modern games making female leads be sooooooo FN unlikeable? does it make them seem cool to devlopers? they suck. Spoilers below here
You save Reyna in Act 3 chapter 5 so she is an 11th hour character, she argues and disrespect you the whole time then steals your FN kill. im not joking. The entire game is a hunt and this dumb +++++ steals i and has the nerve to blame me for being a cog and, get this, she even says "you COG dont get it, it feels like ive been fighting locust all my life, even before" SHT UP SHT UP SHT UP HOLY SHT. The last 5% of the game was so bad with her i sped ran the objectves and quit the game when done. She ruins the landing bad. Her and her daughter are the worst characters in the franchise and they both deserve the worst fate imaginable.
Game is fun tho....... now if u excuse me im gonna go laugh at Reyna dying in 4
Really surprised by this one. Its really great. Just Gears and Xcom. While it's not as good as Xcom for me, it gets pretty close. Very familiar control scheme, and the engine appears to be the exact one they use for the latest gears games. It works really well, and has unique customisable units, along with hero units. Looking forward to playing more of this one.
Rating: 8.2/10 - Great
A nice xcom clone that manages to do a great job at translating the gameplay of gears into a tactical turn based game. It runs out of money pretty hard by the end and repeats a lot of maps and objectives, but the gameplay is solid enough for me to forgive them.
A nice xcom clone that manages to do a great job at translating the gameplay of gears into a tactical turn based game. It runs out of money pretty hard by the end and repeats a lot of maps and objectives, but the gameplay is solid enough for me to forgive them.
Very nice addition to the tactics genre, and an interesting exploration of the "Gears" universe. Gets kind of samey on the mission department, but overall a good game.
It's genuinely refreshing to play a modern tactics game that works hard to distance itself from XCOM in several ways; analogue movement rather than a grid, proper control of overwatch, not running like total dogshit etc. It has its own character, the battles have a great flow, and everything sounds satisfyingly weighty.
There's no real strategy layer, which is sad for me but great for anyone who thought XCOM 2 WOTC was mostly abstract busywork, but there is a bit of management between missions. Unfortunately it's a bit shit.
Comparing a weapon part that offers +5% accuracy and +1 ammo with one that offers +7% accuracy is all a bit ketchup/catsup, and there's so much of it to do. Experience points take so long to earn that the game regularly throws you new recruits more powerful than soldiers you've spent a few hours with, so you end up dumping them for a younger model. And they don't let you put daft bumper stickers on the APC and drive it around a world map like in Overcooked.
On top of all that, it's Gears. Grey, grimy, oorah, 6-foot humans with assault rifles fighting 6-foot humanoids with assault rifles. I don't care about anything anyone is saying
BUT
I am enjoying moving little guys around and engaging in a bit of the old ultra-violence
so
yeah
also
it's pretty repetitive
so
there's that
BUT
it's fun
so
yeah
There's no real strategy layer, which is sad for me but great for anyone who thought XCOM 2 WOTC was mostly abstract busywork, but there is a bit of management between missions. Unfortunately it's a bit shit.
Comparing a weapon part that offers +5% accuracy and +1 ammo with one that offers +7% accuracy is all a bit ketchup/catsup, and there's so much of it to do. Experience points take so long to earn that the game regularly throws you new recruits more powerful than soldiers you've spent a few hours with, so you end up dumping them for a younger model. And they don't let you put daft bumper stickers on the APC and drive it around a world map like in Overcooked.
On top of all that, it's Gears. Grey, grimy, oorah, 6-foot humans with assault rifles fighting 6-foot humanoids with assault rifles. I don't care about anything anyone is saying
BUT
I am enjoying moving little guys around and engaging in a bit of the old ultra-violence
so
yeah
also
it's pretty repetitive
so
there's that
BUT
it's fun
so
yeah
It was fun but got a little repetitive at times with very similar maps/mission types. I would have appreciated more variety, a map to choose missions from and replay missions if you missed the optional objective or item crates.
A decent tactics game, took awhile to complete as it didn't grab me too much but still glad I finished the campaign.
A pretty competent XCOM clone hampered by the stupidest side missions I have seen in a long time. "Side" missions isn't even the correct term, you literally have to play them.
Turns out Gears isn't, in fact, the franchise that will get me back into tactical XCOM-style games.
Almost every single problem this game has actually is a result of the length and trying to get as much playtime out of the player as possible. The game is good, and Gears translates really well to an XCOM style game. But this purposely extended playtime means that you are playing very similar missions constantly, and your characters will never be maxed out by the end of the game.
Basically, this game takes between 25-30 hours to beat, which isn't crazy, but the issue is that between every couple of chapters you have to do 2-4 side missions before you can progress (this side mission stuff really kicks in during Act 2). These side missions can have 1 of 4 different objectives, but the objectives aren't interesting enough to be excited about doing them. The level design does help make these side missions less annoying to do, but yeah, it is still repetitive. There is one side mission type where you are collecting crates while being chased by missiles. I recommend doing that one every time just because it is the quickest side mission to do.
Also, the boss fights are fun. At the end of Act 1, you need to fight a brumak while all these other locusts keep swarming you, which was really fun. In fact, the last chapter of Act 1 was my favorite part where you are progressing across a really cool bridge for 20 minutes, before having to kill the brumak mentioned a moment ago.
I got to Act 2 chapter 7 (out of 3 acts) before deleting the game and moving on. However, after about a week, I wanted to play the game some more, so I redownloaded it and finished it.
Also, the story is fine, but given in such small chunks that it is hard to stay engaged with it. basically, every hour or 2, I would get a cutscene for the story. Out of the 30 hours to beat this game, right at 1 hour of it was cutscenes
I'm glad I played this game, but I would say that you should only play it until you have your fill, then watch the rest of the story on YouTube.
Basically, this game takes between 25-30 hours to beat, which isn't crazy, but the issue is that between every couple of chapters you have to do 2-4 side missions before you can progress (this side mission stuff really kicks in during Act 2). These side missions can have 1 of 4 different objectives, but the objectives aren't interesting enough to be excited about doing them. The level design does help make these side missions less annoying to do, but yeah, it is still repetitive. There is one side mission type where you are collecting crates while being chased by missiles. I recommend doing that one every time just because it is the quickest side mission to do.
Also, the boss fights are fun. At the end of Act 1, you need to fight a brumak while all these other locusts keep swarming you, which was really fun. In fact, the last chapter of Act 1 was my favorite part where you are progressing across a really cool bridge for 20 minutes, before having to kill the brumak mentioned a moment ago.
I got to Act 2 chapter 7 (out of 3 acts) before deleting the game and moving on. However, after about a week, I wanted to play the game some more, so I redownloaded it and finished it.
Also, the story is fine, but given in such small chunks that it is hard to stay engaged with it. basically, every hour or 2, I would get a cutscene for the story. Out of the 30 hours to beat this game, right at 1 hour of it was cutscenes
I'm glad I played this game, but I would say that you should only play it until you have your fill, then watch the rest of the story on YouTube.
Gameplay: Great
Story: Good
Controls: Great
Graphics: Great
Length: A bit short. I wish there are more chapters.
Story: Good
Controls: Great
Graphics: Great
Length: A bit short. I wish there are more chapters.
The world of Gears and its cover based shooter mechanics are surprisingly well suited for a tactical strategy game. The adaptation of weapons and enemy types is remarkably done and is a seamless transition. Unfortunately a piss poor story and a redundancy of forced sidequests halters the title's excellence.
3.75 Stars
This is a pleasant and faithful adaptation of the Gears of War series. It is amusing to see staples of the main series in a new light. The Tactics/RPG elements are grounded enough to fit in context with the Gears universe. It is fun to unlock loot after every mission and test each class/skill. Jack was introduced to the squad during the Xbox release and similar to Gears 5, his abilities are game-changing. I can't imagine playing without him.
While I was fond of this game, there are design choices that keep it from being great. Most notable is the repetitive mission structure. The missions (minus boss fights) and settings mostly feel the same. Even worse, you are required to do extra missions to advance the story, which drags the game out. This issue is compounded by the low amount of experience you gain. You are given an extensive skill tree, but will only acquire a few skills by the time you beat the game. Once beaten, you can unlock Supreme loot and experiment by resetting skill trees at will, but the repetition essentially kills this game's replay value.
This game was in my backlog for years, and I’m happy to have finally played it. It's concept was mostly executed well. I often thought about it when I wasn't playing, but I was burned-out after completion. One day, I could see myself returning to try a higher difficulty.
This is a pleasant and faithful adaptation of the Gears of War series. It is amusing to see staples of the main series in a new light. The Tactics/RPG elements are grounded enough to fit in context with the Gears universe. It is fun to unlock loot after every mission and test each class/skill. Jack was introduced to the squad during the Xbox release and similar to Gears 5, his abilities are game-changing. I can't imagine playing without him.
While I was fond of this game, there are design choices that keep it from being great. Most notable is the repetitive mission structure. The missions (minus boss fights) and settings mostly feel the same. Even worse, you are required to do extra missions to advance the story, which drags the game out. This issue is compounded by the low amount of experience you gain. You are given an extensive skill tree, but will only acquire a few skills by the time you beat the game. Once beaten, you can unlock Supreme loot and experiment by resetting skill trees at will, but the repetition essentially kills this game's replay value.
This game was in my backlog for years, and I’m happy to have finally played it. It's concept was mostly executed well. I often thought about it when I wasn't playing, but I was burned-out after completion. One day, I could see myself returning to try a higher difficulty.
If you’ve played an XCOM game release in the past decade, you’ll be very familiar with the gameplay of Gears Tactics, but the game is more than a simple skin job applied to an XCOM game. Gameplay features that were present in the mainline games, such as locust emergence hole, executions, etc have been wonderfully converted into mechanics that work with a turned-based strategy game.
Gears Tactics takes steps to be more streamlined compared to its inspiration. There is no base building or resource management. New armours and weapon mods are gained from completing missions or picking up containers that are scattered throughout the levels. Troops do not need to recover from injury between missions and new troops can be recruited at the appropriate that you need them to be.
Despite how well the Gears formula has been converted to suit the genre, the game only has a small pool of mission variety to pull from, with a similar small pool of environments that the missions occur in. Side missions will try to add modifiers to mix things up a bit, like reducing magazine size of main weapons or executions healing your team, but it's not enough to keep things fresh and interesting.
I'm impressed with how well they translate the Gear of War gameplay formula into an XCOM-style game. There’s a solid foundation of a game here for a sequel to build off from. The lack of mission variety and environments makes this good game fall short of being a great game.
Gears Tactics takes steps to be more streamlined compared to its inspiration. There is no base building or resource management. New armours and weapon mods are gained from completing missions or picking up containers that are scattered throughout the levels. Troops do not need to recover from injury between missions and new troops can be recruited at the appropriate that you need them to be.
Despite how well the Gears formula has been converted to suit the genre, the game only has a small pool of mission variety to pull from, with a similar small pool of environments that the missions occur in. Side missions will try to add modifiers to mix things up a bit, like reducing magazine size of main weapons or executions healing your team, but it's not enough to keep things fresh and interesting.
I'm impressed with how well they translate the Gear of War gameplay formula into an XCOM-style game. There’s a solid foundation of a game here for a sequel to build off from. The lack of mission variety and environments makes this good game fall short of being a great game.
This game is solid!
It's like a streamlined XCOM. Less time fiddling with systems and more time actually playing the missions.
CONS:
- The Gears presentation is eh... a matter of taste.
- The mandatory side quests are very boring and unnecessary (I lost interest in act 2, after 17 hours)
It's like a streamlined XCOM. Less time fiddling with systems and more time actually playing the missions.
CONS:
- The Gears presentation is eh... a matter of taste.
- The mandatory side quests are very boring and unnecessary (I lost interest in act 2, after 17 hours)
Surprisingly good after being inspired by XCOM. Major point minus due to forcing side quests in between every main mission to pad the game.
Not sure why this game wasn't brought to my attention earlier, but Gears Tactics is a phenomenal game. It's not quite Xcom, but it's near that level, and hopefully we will see a sequel. Brilliant tactical gameplay with a solid story, I definitely recommend this game.
Muy entretenido la verdad
One of the better constructed games I just cannot get into. XCOM type games hold my attention for roughly 10 hours and this one is no different. I want to love it so bad but it’s terribly boring and unbalanced especially towards the end.
7.5/10
I think the combat is fantastic. Being able to over watch with a specific view cone, using different class abilities & executions to have a massive turn, and having an additional support robot with wildly different abilities all feel great, rivaling XCOM in terms of the combat.
The parts I didn't like was how repetitive the side missions started getting towards the end, editing the gear of all your squad mates takes a lot of time (to the point I didn't bother doing it until the end of each act), and leveling up is way too slow. It was to the point I was constantly dismissing units to get new ones because the new ones are usually a level ahead & that meant I never got attached to them, except for the heroes.
The story was ok, but that wasn't the reason I came to the game.
I think a Gears Tactics 2 could easily be a 5/5 if they add some quality of life improvements & add more of a metagame like XCOM has with its base building & mission map.
The parts I didn't like was how repetitive the side missions started getting towards the end, editing the gear of all your squad mates takes a lot of time (to the point I didn't bother doing it until the end of each act), and leveling up is way too slow. It was to the point I was constantly dismissing units to get new ones because the new ones are usually a level ahead & that meant I never got attached to them, except for the heroes.
The story was ok, but that wasn't the reason I came to the game.
I think a Gears Tactics 2 could easily be a 5/5 if they add some quality of life improvements & add more of a metagame like XCOM has with its base building & mission map.