The Gears Tactics Review
by UnkemptStatue
08/01/20
Despite my fraying relationship with Microsoft, I cannot deny that Gears Tactics is one of the best games I have ever played. I came into this genre and this game without knowing anything about either. I knew nothing of the Gears franchise, except that I had a vague recollection of some badass-looking guns with chainsaw bayonets. And I wasn’t even aware of this type of game, well…existing.
I suppose I have Steam, Humble Bundle and 2K games to thank for exposing me to this game. First of all, Steam and 2K were running a play for free promotion on XCOM 2. I never play demos or temporarily free-to-play games, but something compelled me to do so for XCOM 2. And what do you know, it turned out that I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I decided I owed the franchise the respect of going back and playing the first game before I finished the second. Luckily, Humble was running a 2K sale, which included XCOM and a whole host of other awesome games.
After ten hours or so, I loved XCOM as much as I had hoped, probably more. But then I saw a notification in the Steam store: if you like XCOM, you might also enjoy Gears Tactics.
Boy, were they ever right. It’s like someone at Valve, or Microsoft, or the Coalition, knew my exact thoughts. And basically, my thoughts were: I wish this game had way better graphics and bad guys that didn’t seem so lame. Also, how the hell do you make stuff?
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I played my first campaign on beginner difficulty. In my defense, I was (am?) a beginner at tactics games. I’d played five hours or so in XCOM, that hardly makes me anything other than a beginner when it comes to turn-based tactics games.
But beginner mode or not, everything about this game was just so engrossing. Like I said before, I had little knowledge of the Gears universe prior to this game (and let’s be honest, all I really know now is that there are aliens, and they came from underground or something?), and yet this game had me wrapped around its finger. It’s definitely the game I’ve been most unable to put down in the last year. It even drew me away from my true love, Street Fighter V. (I’m not blaming anyone but myself, but I started losing some major League Points in SFV right around the time this game was released.)
Look at me, here I am almost halfway into this review and all I’ve done is talk about other games.
Gears Tactics is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played. If you have the hardware to run it at high resolution and high settings, this game is absolutely stunning. Even more impressive is that the it looks so stunning from such a zoomed-out, top-down viewpoint. You never get any actual gameplay with the camera focused on your characters.
Even more impressive is how good this games looks on mid-range hardware. I ran this on a variety of configurations, and it looked pretty on a Ryzen 3750H and 1660ti-maxq laptop.
The sound effects and voice acting are perfect compliments to the outstanding graphics. The storyline more than held my interest over the campaign, and I was sorry when I learned these characters were not part of any other Gears game. I would have jumped on Gears 5 in a heartbeat if Gabe Diaz or Makayla were featured in the newest game.
So what’s the gameplay like?
You mostly point and click on stuff, so a rousing action game it is not. But a big part of this game is thinking about the best ways to get out of certain scenarios, strategizing how to complete various missions.
Throughout the campaign you acquire new skills and weapon upgrades, in addition to some new recruits. You play across five different mission types: Control Mission, in which you protect a cache of supplies from filthy aliens; scavenger run missions, in which you have to pick up supplies while escaping enemy bombing runs; Rescue missions, in which you rescue captured Gears; Sabotage missions, in which you have to destroy key pieces of enemy equipment or technology; and Incursion missions, in which you have to destroy all enemies. Each mission has a main objective, which you must achieve in order to complete the mission, and side objectives, which reward you with equipment upgrades if you complete them.
In addition to the different mission types, there are also different classes of soldiers for you to control. Experimenting with different loadouts and squad compositions is a big part of this game, and it’s where it derives a lot of its fun. Should you take a scout for this mission? All scouts? Will you need a heavy weapon or a sniper? And there are some really fun Achievements to chase after, if that’s your thing (it’s mine).
Like any game, it’s not without its drawbacks. One flaw, that you may or may not wish was different, is that your own explosive weapons are far too powerful to keep most fights fair. If grenades and similar weapon types did perhaps two-thirds of their existing damage they could still be effective tools, but not so powerful as to encourage thoughtless or careless gameplay.
A multiplayer mode is curiously missing. This game would be a blast against another human controlling a squad of grubs, but I can see the challenges to implementing it. A match has potential to take quite a while, even if both players were controlling squads of opposing gears.
One other thing I don’t particularly care for is that each time you start a new campaign, you’ll have to go through the tutorial mission. It’s an unnecessary barrier to replaying the game on a higher difficulty, or going back to tryout ironman mode.
I could also see where this game might be too easy for experienced players of similar tactics games. In my rookie hands, the challenge of even beginner mode was sufficient. At the time of this review, I’m now stuck at 46% on Insane mode, and I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to play through the whole game on the hardest difficulty.
But these are small gripes. It takes a great game to make you realize that you like a whole genre of game that you’d never even tried before. Though I dipped my toes into the turn-based tactics genre with XCOM, Gears Tactics did exactly that for me.
The only gripe I have with the game is that I wish there was more. More enemies, more weapons, more maps, more bosses…more everything. Once you beat the campaign there are some fun Veteran mode missions to play, but eventually everything can get a bit repetitive. The superb AV production go a long way toward remedying that, but there’s not a whole lot to Gears Tactics outside the campaign. On the other hand, I was compelled to run through the campaign several times: Once on Beginner Mode, once on Intermediate, again on Insane, and then a final run with Ironman Mode enabled. This lasted me well over a hundred hours. And if you’re chasing achievements you’ll need to grind through Veteran mode for a long time before you hit 20 missions.
Fighting games have drawn me away again, but Gear Tactics is still one of only four games to earn a spot on my revered Shelf of Favorites in my Steam Library. It could use some more variety, but even as it is, it’s one my favorite, most-enjoyed gaming experiences, well…ever.