

Cutscenes were indistinguishable to my eye from those in Gears 5, as were some of the animations. Gears Tactics holds up the franchises standards for visual quality, as well.
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Learning how to keep things rolling so the enemy barely has a chance to respond feels good, and brings the game the weighty feeling of power and capacity for violence that made the originals so satisfying. Toss in some deft work with a hand grenade or two and it’s mission accomplished. You can run roughshod over the enemy by chaining your successful attacks together, even against impossible odds. Execute a downed enemy? Everyone on your side gets another action. Nail a sniper shot at long range? Reload your weapon and take a few more shots.

Pinion a Locust on your old-school bayonet? Take another shot. I started to understand what the game needs from me to come to life. Both of them get three actions and a gun. There’s just not much to differentiate a Vanguard from a Support soldier in the first third of the game. Gears Tactics features few of the game-changing abilities common in modern XCOM titles, and instead offers far more incremental upgrades for each of its five character classes. Units snap into cover, use attacks of opportunity on passing enemies, and generally flit around the board in a very Gearsian way.īut Gears Tactics is bogged down by the same sort of rules-heavy minutiae that can drive casual players away from systems like Warhammer 40,000. That subtle difference gives Gears Tactics the fluidity of movement - referred to as “horizontal platforming” by its developers - that drives the Gears franchise.

There’s no grid that provides strict rules for how units can move, so the game actually has more in common with miniatures-based wargames and skirmish systems like Bolt Action, Infinity, and Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team. Gears Tactics might look like a clever clone of Firaxis’ XCOM games, but it’s something else entirely. Things bounce back and forth until one side is eliminated, or until that particular mission’s objectives are met. Gears Tactics is played from an overhead perspective, with Coalition of Ordered Government, or COG, soldiers and the evil Locust forces each taking their turns before moving to the next round of play. A very different gameplay loop Image: Splash Damage, The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios Gears Tactics lacks the pacing that makes the iconic third-person shooters so much fun to play, and it’s weighed down by a reliance on stunt missions that detract from its otherwise solid fundamentals. The same is true for Gears Tactics, the franchise’s first ever turn-based strategy game.īut the moment that developer Splash Damage asks players to stand still - whether it’s for a drawn-out boss battle, a defensive mission, or simply to peruse the menu system - the illusion falls apart. Gears of War games are at their best when players are pushing forward, chewing through the Locust horde with chainsaw bayonets.
