I had a trial for a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and last month was the time for me to use it, because I had the craving of playing the Gears of War games all in one go. I have not played a Gears of War game since Gears of War 3 came out in 2011. I thought it would be as good of a time as ever to relive the original Gears trilogy, as well as play the newer Gears games (4 and 5) and give my brief thoughts on those games as well.
When I think of Xbox exclusive series, my mind immediately goes to the Halo series, and for good reason. Halo: Combat Evolved is such a pivotal game for the original Xbox as a console, and Halo 2 and 3 were landmark games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 as well. Nowadays, Xbox exclusives do not have the same appeal as Sony's PlayStation exclusives, such as God of War and Spiderman. Microsoft had exclusives such as Forza, and bought big developer studios such as Bethesda to make games exclusively for their Xbox consoles. I will still maintain that one of Microsoft's best exclusive games were the Gears of War games.
I vividly remember the first time I saw the iconic commercial for the first Gears of War with the Gary Jules cover of "Mad World" as the musical backdrop. That commercial piqued my curiosity about the game, and I was able to obtain my own copy of the game when it came out in 2006. That commercial is still one of the best video game commercials of all time and helped the first Gears game become one of the landmark titles of the Xbox 360.
The reason I wanted to replay the original Gears trilogy was because I wanted to experience the story again, and I am glad to report that the story is still just as amazing as I remember it. The characters of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, Augustus Cole, and Damon Baird are some of the most well-developed characters of any shooter, and I wanted to re-experience those emotional highs and lows that the first three titles brought to the Xbox 360. The gameplay felt secondary to me during the replay, even though I still enjoyed curb stomping Locust heads and sticking my chainsaw bayonet inside the chest of my enemies. I still appreciate the gory and gritty nature of the overall atmosphere of the Gears games, to the point where the goriness felt natural to the game's setting.
This led me to playing the newer Gears games for the first time. I did play Gears of War: Judgment (which was a prequel to the original trilogy) which was an arcade twist to the series, but this game is not my focus for this post. I played Gears of War 4 and 5, and although there were obvious improvements to the graphics and cinematography (giving the cut-scenes more of a movie feel), I think these two games do not do enough to capture the feel of the original trilogy. Gears 4 and 5 are still good games to play, but these games had the God of War 2018 problem where it was painfully obvious that sequels would follow these games, and so the story suffers because of it. The campaigns of both games start off slow, and once the games start picking up steam, I have already reached the end of the games. Although there are new weapons, new enemies, and new gameplay elements, the core gameplay mechanics are still the exact same as the original games, and I appreciated the familiarity.
Nowadays, I think of the Gears of War series as a relatively underrated series, but I remember a time when the Gears of War series was just as big and just as important the Halo series for Microsoft. Now there are plans for Netflix to develop a Gears of war live-action movie and an animated series, so maybe the series is in for a renaissance? Or Netflix could screw it up like they did with countless other adaptations.
Regardless, this is just a post to talk about how awesome the first three Gears of War games are, and I just want to give those games their much-deserved flowers.
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