Review
Played on: Xbox 360
Released: 2013
Released: 2013
One of Xbox 360s most famous, exclusive, series is back. Gears of War Judgement is the first title in the series that Epic has chosen to be made by another team, the can People Can Fly division, the guys behind the amazing Bulletstorm. The game is a prequel in the story to the main Gears trilogy, which ended with the incredible Gears of War 3 finale.
It tells the story of the court martial case to Kilo Squad, where Gears of War favourites Baird is commander and Cole is one of his soldiers. It's a nice break from a Marcus driven story, and much like Gears 3's DLC story RAAMs Shadow, you get to see how other squads operate. It gives a bigger picture of the struggle against the Locust, that will last throughout the series.
Judgement breaks new territory in how a Gears game is structured. The story depicts the court case, as I mentioned, in which Kilo Squad are trailed. Each member of the squad tells his or her story, and so the main chapters of the game are told from their testimony in the court. Each testimony, is divided into missions.
Judgement breaks new territory in how a Gears game is structured. The story depicts the court case, as I mentioned, in which Kilo Squad are trailed. Each member of the squad tells his or her story, and so the main chapters of the game are told from their testimony in the court. Each testimony, is divided into missions.
Within each mission, you can earn up to three stars for how well you complete the level. In each level, there's an extra side objective that helps you gather these stars quicker if you activate it. Beware though, these extra missions usually add an extra difficulty level.
The extra missions add an entertaining variety and they're integrated into the story, one may be that the level is covered in fog, making it really hard to see enemies before they're up close. Which again, the main character telling their testimony, will add into their description, like "the fog was lying thick that day...". Others restrict the player to only a certain type of weapon or a time schedule for instance.
Apart from the timed ones, I really enjoyed these objectives and actually liked the star rating system. It did break some of the continuity to the story, but it also helps distance the game from the previous Gears trilogy, making fresh new ideas of it's own. Innovation and adding something new is important for a sequel that's the fourth in the series on one console.
People Can Fly have dared to mix things up a with the Gears gameplay too. Don't worry though, the feeling and character movement, that we all love from the series, is alive and kicking, reminding me of just how perfect and smooth they all feel. What's changed though, is the button layout. They only allow you to carry two weapons, so you no longer have the ability to carry a side arm in addition.
A side arm then, will act like a full second weapon and these two main weapons can be switched with the Y button quickly. It's like the way Call of Duty 4 introduced us to the switch for your side arm of your choice. It makes Judgement's controller layout more like other shooters.
People Can Fly have dared to mix things up a with the Gears gameplay too. Don't worry though, the feeling and character movement, that we all love from the series, is alive and kicking, reminding me of just how perfect and smooth they all feel. What's changed though, is the button layout. They only allow you to carry two weapons, so you no longer have the ability to carry a side arm in addition.
A side arm then, will act like a full second weapon and these two main weapons can be switched with the Y button quickly. It's like the way Call of Duty 4 introduced us to the switch for your side arm of your choice. It makes Judgement's controller layout more like other shooters.
I didn't mind the old layout, and I understand the attempt at change, allowing my hands to stay on the joysticks while swapping weapons. In a similar fashion, the grenade has been given it's own dedicated button. However, the old control scheme is so integrated in my muscle memory with Gears games and I'm sure multiplayer veterans will be annoyed as hell by this change.
I found it odd, I must admit, as you swap weapons a lot in multiplayer and I'd spent hours and hours with the old system online in Gears 3.
Judgement looks a lot like Gears of War 3, it keeps the varied colour palette, while revisiting some of the darker looking style from the original Gears. The resulting combination looks fantastic. The game adds some beautiful, almost medieval, European looking, locations with crammed, cobble stone streets and brick houses.
It looks beautiful and has some amazing visual effects, especially fire looks incredible, while running impressively smooth at a steady 30fps. This smoothness helps the gameplay feel satisfying and is essential when lots of enemies appear. Sometimes the game really pushes multiple enemies at you and chaos occurs, thanks to the tight controls and precise gameplay, these dramatic scenes feel incredibly fun.
Update: Judgement has been added to backwards compatible program and updated with a framerate boost, running at 60fps on Xbox Series S/X. Sadly, there's no resolution boost, keeping it at the original 720p resolution.
Summarised, Judgement feels like what ODST did for Halo 3, an addition to the main story and familiar gameplay. However, just like ODST, it adds a lot of new and entertaining additions to the mix.
Summarised, Judgement feels like what ODST did for Halo 3, an addition to the main story and familiar gameplay. However, just like ODST, it adds a lot of new and entertaining additions to the mix.
A great Gears titles for the fans of the lore, in wait for the next instalment, which will probably arrive on the next generation Xbox. The multiplayer, however, I fear will die quickly in favour for the veterans returning to the control scheme of Gears 3.
