3/5 ★ – WJH2002's review of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

GEARS OF WAR. This ended up being my first experience with a Gears of War entry. I will say, solid foundations and starting point here. I do get why people find this so appealing, but for me I did have some issues. I don’t want to immediately start this off on a negative footing though, so I’ll start with the positives. Atmosphere and world building is FANTASTIC. It’s gritty, rust riddled and metallic. It’s a world that feels that it was once lived in, yet lost to the Locust horde. The feeling is definitely there for a world lost to overwhelming odds. The gunfights are strong. I like mechanical elements of moving forward and sitting behind a cover point. The story is fairly barebones, a lot of objective oriented tasks and adjustments to a shifting war. Besides that, the negatives stand toe to toe. The combat can get VERY repetitive even if it’s a fun foundation. The idea of constantly repeating the same loops in different spaces starts to get tedious in longer sessions, and the lack of enemy variety gets very apparent toward the end game. Besides that the pacing SCREECHES toward the backend of Act IV heading into Act V, and at times I wanted the game to wrap it up. Ultimately, it’s a good game. I enjoyed it, but there’s room to improve. It can only go up.