In the lead-up to Gears of War: Judgment's release, we were concerned that the action was too frantic and overwhelming. Fighting the Corpser or Berserker in past Gears titles was an event in itself, but in the prequel they just pop up anywhere, robbing some of the previous sense of tension. Judgment also throws every Gears enemy into the mix. Enemy Ai is equally aggressive, but also not very intelligent, and sometimes the Locust just run aimlessly at you with no real strategy at all. If you found the previous cover-based approach tiresome, this shift may appeal. This means the action shifts from hunkering down in cover and taking out enemies, to moving quickly and being very aggressive in your tactics. From the outset, the squad of up to four players are assaulted from pretty much all sides by Locust ranging from Tickers and Wretches, to Boomers, Serapids, Maulers and Mulchers. There is none of the gruelling build-up to the battle against General RAAM on a speeding train, or the arduous and heart-wrenching mission to sink Jacinto, or the crescendo of assaulting the Azura island fortress in Gears 3.īut still, Judgment's campaign plays well and offers a different flavour to past Gears games. Sure, this is a prequel and so has to fit into the Gears universe as it has already been told, but the game lacks the epic punch of the past trilogy. We don't want to give away too many spoilers, but the narrative revolving around taking down main baddie Karn just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However, the campaign in Judgment lacks the coherency of other Gears games.

The return of characters such as Baird and Cole is welcome, and the new additions, ex-soldier Paduk and rookie Sofia, work out fine. Such an approach is often emulated these days, but the ability to play as different characters across the four-person squad, depending on the evidence being given, is an interesting idea. The Declassified system adds replayability, an important aspect considering that the campaign is only around six hours long, considerably shorter than previous games in the series.ĭeclassified sees the story take the format of the trial of Kilo Squad for an alleged war crime, with past events being told in flashback. Seeing COG settlements, such as the lush mansions of Halvo Bay's Seahorse Hills, in a state of unfurling apocalypse offers a new take on the familiar Gears universe.

The chance to see what happened on Emergence Day, when the Locust Horde first waged war on humanity, is interesting.

The Pendulum Wars are over, and the ticker tape of the Coalition of Ordered Governments' (COG) victory over the Union of Independent Republics (UIR) has barely settled, before conflict rears its ugly head once more. Gears of War: Judgment's campaign plays out 14 years before events in the first Gears of War.

Gears of war ticker