2.5/5 ★ – Madsines's review of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

I've now beaten every Gears game bar Judgement, and this is easily the worst in the series, and it's not even close. Some positives. The shooting feels great, as expected from a Gears game. Active reloads feel great to execute, and the characters are fairly likeable even if there's not as much dialogue and banter between characters as I'd like outside of cutscenes. Moving on to what I didn't like. Your AI squadmates are dumb as rocks, frequently leaving you to progress the level by yourself, or running into enemy gunfire head on. One boss fight saw my companion instantly die over and over again through no fault of my own, causing me to get an instant restart. Punishing the player for something they have zero control over is horrible design. There's many sections where the game gives you the most vague idea how to progress, such as shooting a tiny switch, and there's frequently enemy turrets which rip you to shreds in an instant and are seemingly immune to gunfire, even if you snipe the enemy in the head which doesn't register as a hitbox for whatever reason. In these situations, if you're out of grenades you're shit out of luck - leaving you to restart over and over as you attempt to flank the enemy. Shoutout to the second level as well, which has you instantaneously dying unless you take cover in super specific spots, often losing many minutes of progress. That wasn't fun at all. I played on normal, and found this game to be massively overtuned in difficulty. I beat most of the other games on hardcore and didn't have anywhere near this much trouble. Anyone who says this is the best in the series, or even in the top few is seriously clouded by nostalgia. I'm reviewing this game by 2015 standards since that's when the ultimate edition released. It's not a horrible game, but they certainly improved greatly in every aspect for the sequels. Oh and for the record, Gears 5 is the best game in the series by far. Facts. Playtime: 5 Hours Platform: Xbox Series X