Is Gears written well? No.
Does it need to be? No.
Did some of the jokes in Gears age well? No.
Is Marcus a good character? Yes!
Is the game still fun? Yes.

Gears is at its heart just an action flick as a third-person shooter, and it sets out what it tries to do perfectly. It's a good time, and respects your time as well. It's a damn good third-person shooter, and the third entry in the series has refined the gameplay enough that it firmly sets itself as the best one I've played in the series thus far. Marcus has his characterization hit a level that is really enjoyable, although the overall plot isn't that complex or intuitive. Some of the jokes involving Sam and Anya, along with some of Baird's one-liners, don't really age well though and just come across as weird at best or borderline cringy at worst.

But Gears isn't supposed to be a pinnacle of writing. It's a pinnacle of gameplay and fun times, and it does that well, so it deserves to be praised for doing that well.

I do want to expand on the Action flick point because it feels very deliberate and that's what I love about Gears. The way the mission structure is and the way it flows feels very intentionally like an action film. Like the way things flow into the next, the way boss fights happen, the places where boss fights happen, the spots where spectacle shots and cinematic shots are added, etc. In that way, I have to give them a lot of credit for that in the way it was designed.

I'll review RAAM's Shadow as well here since I don't like that it'd take up a separate entry on my Backlogged. RAAM's Shadow was also a fun DLC, but it was marred for me by bugs, namely in Chapter 4. There's a section where Zeta exits a parking garage into the next segment, and the game automatically failed as soon as this happened for me, saying that "Drone has died". Who the hell is Drone?! And then upon taking the rooftops, both Kim and Valera straight-up disappeared from the game. Barrick was speaking to them both but they both were silent and were nowhere to be seen. So when me and Tai inevitably died during an ambush encounter in front of City Hall, I got another bug where I couldn't reload from a checkpoint. And I had to redo the entirety of Chapter 4. Not fun. But the rest of the DLC was fun, though. It had a lot of Gears 1 vibes (which likely was intentional because of when its set) and reminded me of how much I dislike E-holes as a mechanic, but if you want more Gears, it's hard to argue with what it offers.

Score: 89

The follow-up to Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War is something I thoroughly enjoyed as much as the first one, thankfully. While Shadow of War is much more polished than the first game and improves on it some ways, it also is much too flawed to be a significant improvement.

Shadow of War's story is good at best, fine at worst. Shadow of Mordor's short mission style is still a thing in this game, but now it is fragmented across several different characters in a GTA-like mission structure. Each character has their own set of main story quests that can be completed. Shadow of War seems more open-ended and you can go about much of the meat of the game in any order you'd like. The writing of this story has a bittersweet and awesome payoff but as a complete package, the mission structure does make it a slight downgrade from Shadow of Mordor overall, but only very slightly.

If you enjoyed Shadow of Mordor's gameplay you'll like Shadow of War's as well. The Skill system is a bit more interesting and allows you to pick and choose, shaping your build for Talion to however you wish. I wasn't a fan of the hardcore shift to the tired loot system that so many AAA action games love to do for no explicit reason (looking at you God of War), but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. What I do miss is inserting Runes into your weapons and armor, as opposed to just having a single Gem with a stat boost in this game. It removes depth from a system that was a little more interesting, in my opinion.

I think the major flaw holding this game back is enemy design. With the way Orcs roll their passive effects and immunities, it makes every boss encounter feel really unique and interesting! Most of the time. There are times, mostly towards the end of the game, where you're just kinda at a loss of how to beat a really spongy enemy if you don't have intel. I mean, what am I supposed to do against an enemy that's immune to executions and ranged attacks who is holding a shield and also immune to vaulting? A lot of later game enemy encounters are just exhausting to deal with, especially when Talion is surrounded. It makes the Shadow Wars epilogue in particular pretty difficult.

It is most noticeable when fighting Overlords. In the boss room, Talion is vastly outnumbered while fighting a pretty strong boss. Since the minions constantly respawn in this enclosed space, the boss is really difficult to deal with on the fly. And it's where another issue with the combat shows itself - there's no reliable way to heal. I mean, jeez, even Dark Souls isn't afraid to give you a way to heal yourself mid-combat. Draining enemies is fine, but since you can get interrupted while draining or have to expend a finisher to do so, Talion doesn't have a reliable healing method. This makes many of the more difficult encounters very grueling to handle, especially when there isn't anyone to drain. I summoned allies in some of these just to drain them because I didn't have anyone to drain! I know you can put lifesteal on Talion's weapon - but this goes to my problem with the change away from runes for gems instead. Having only 1 gem per weapon means I'd have to sacrifice damage on my sword for lifesteal. Which isn't reliable in itself either.

These though, are very nitipicky. Shadow of War excels at doing the Ubisoft formula better than Ubisoft by making its open-world not feel exhausting to delve into. I managed to grab all the collectables and didn't feel like I wasted too much time doing it. I was actually surprised I had finished them when the game said I did. And no, I don't care that it messes with the canon of Middle-Earth. Who cares? We still enjoy Star Wars games that are no longer canon, don't we, like KOTOR or The Force Unleashed? So why can't Shadow of Mordor/War do the same?

I came away from Shadow of War feeling satisfied as much as I did with Shadow of Mordor. A "wow that was awesome" but nothing really blew me away. It was more polished Shadow of Mordor, and that's cool, but it makes only marginally better as a sequel, and the new war mechanics aren't in-depth or interesting enough to really make it a significant upgrade. Nonetheless, Shadow of War is a hugely underrated game.

Score: 90

I wanted to like Plague Tale about as much as I did Hellblade. By all means, it's not a game I should enjoy. It packs some of my least favorite things about gaming into one - Stealth segments, Cinematic Playstation-y over the shoulder design, and puzzles.

But I ended up enjoying Plague Tale... to a certain point. Around Chapter 13 or so, Plague Tale's flaws began to show. The writing of the game fell off a cliff, and ran into the realm of nonsensical with an ending that doesn't really do much for me, personally. And that includes the after-credits scene as well. I suppose one could argue that the ending didn't need to be too complex. Sure. I'm not talking about the writing when it comes to that.

Yes, Plague Tale's writing falls off a cliff. But the gameplay mechanics Plague Tale begins to rely on in the latter chapters expose the game's flawed design. It is an unpolished mess at worst, and frustratingly difficult to wrestle against at times. Hugo gets a mechanic late in the game that feels janky to use until he gets immunity to it later. Later chapters double down on the weak combat as well. I don't like Stealth or Puzzles much, but that's the strong suit of the game, and I was disappointed that they ditched those in the later chapters. Stealth is also hit or miss at times. There were times where enemies just wouldn't hear the rocks I threw to distract them, even when hitting a box of armor, and several rocks were needed to draw their attention. Amicia's sling isn't the best thing to control either, and you have to wonder how she'd fare against Goliath if these were the mechanics she had to work with.

But all of the game's unpolished jank gameplay-wise is topped off by quite possibly the most poorly designed boss fight I've ever experienced. I can't spoil much, but boiling down a boss fight to multiple fail states and one-shotting you in what essentially becomes a floor is lava situation is quite annoying. Yes, I did it anyway. It doesn't mean it needed to be designed that way.

I've dogged on this game a lot, but it just really exemplifies my problem with "Cinematic PlayStation-y" type of games. You bank on your cinematography and storytelling to the point where you forget to make a VIDEO GAME, which should be a priority first before your storytelling. Plague Tale just isn't fun to play and many times during the story I wondered how much more I'd enjoy it if it were a show or movie instead.

I have some gripes with some characters too. They're all kids so I can't critique it much. Hugo is really frustrating and annoying when it comes to how he's written - he acts like a kid should, but it doesn't change the fact that he can be really grating in many of the important story beats. And Melie is just so... ugh. Bland, and unlikable. I didn't trust Melie at all, even when we got to the end of the game.

Amicia on the other hand is fantastic. Her character growth is wonderful, she's well-spoken, she's courageous, she's everything you really want from a female protagonist. Getting good female protagonists nowadays is rather rare, and Amicia should be one of the standouts.

TL;DR: To wrap up, Plague Tale is a nice experience despite how much I've ragged on it. Please don't let that turn you away. I'm just expressing my personal gripes with this style of game because I really want to love Plague Tale, and I do like it, but I don't love it. And I wanted to love it as a big fan of historical fiction, as well as Amicia's characterization.

Score: 80