Game Review: Gears of War - Ultimate Edition

It’s funny, despite spending a good amount of my seventh generation of gaming playing predominately on the Xbox 360; I never really experienced Gears of War.  I know what you’re probably thinking, that’s impossible right? How can you have spent so much time playing the Xbox 360 and never once picked up Gears of War? Well, as is often the case with me; I got my exposure to the series later into it’s run.  I remember my older brother buying me Gears of War 3 as a present one day and I found myself really enjoying my time with it.  Despite my fondness of it, I never finished the game and my affiliation with the series began and ended there. So, I figured with Xbox Game Pass I had an opportunity to right an 18-year wrong and experience the series properly for the first time. It worked out in my favour then that in the time I waited to experience this game; Microsoft and Coalition released a remastered version of the game. 

Titled Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, this updated version of the original game was released in 2015 for both Xbox One and PC consoles.  The main selling point Microsoft and Coalition pushed for this new release was its updated graphics as well as a collection of quality-of-life touches to bring the original game more in line with recent releases.  Upon release the game received generally favourable reviews from both critics and general audiences, standing at a generous 86% on OpenCritic. It’s worth outlining on Xbox Series X, the game benefits from a modest FPS boost and HDR which is a nice added bonus. 

The narrative of Gears of War takes place on a fictional Earth-like planet known as Sera. Humanity has evolved and prospered after a recent war known as the Pendulum War.  In the wake of the end of this war, a subterranean species known as Locust emerge from beneath the planet’s crust and wage war on humanity.  Set fourteen years after the emergence of the Locust, you play as Marcus Fenix, an ex-soldier serving time in prison for disobeying orders from his commanding officers.  As part of a desperate effort to rid the Locusts once and for all, Fenix is reinstated to rank of Sergeant by the Coalition of Ordered Governments in order to exact an important mission to bomb the Locust tunnel network; wiping them out for good. Joined by his fellow COG soldiers Dominic Santiago, Augustus Cole and Damon Baird, Fenix leads Delta Squad across a 5 act adventure across ruined cities, desolate mining facilities and the Locust tunnels themselves to enact this desperate mission. 

As much as the setup of Gears of War intrigued me, I can’t help but feel it’s world and storytelling somewhat undercooked in this first game.  I would argue the bulk of the worldbuilding happens mainly in the opening cutscene which works to give the player the primary backdrop to the world you’ll be playing in.  When you get to inhabit the character of Marcus Fenix and deploy him on his mission however, I feel the game isn’t at all interested in exploring this interesting world or fleshing out the characters you share it with.  It’s annoying in a way, because as a player I genuinely wanted to learn more about this game’s world, but the game was far more interested on putting me into a myriad of action sequences.  The fact that you play and share the majority of the game with four notable characters, it says something I know nothing about them apart from their character traits. I think the games only attempt to develop the world is in its settings, as there’s a nice variety of them and the environmental design goes a long way to paint a picture of a world long past it’s point of prosperity due to a war with an overwhelming foe. 

With the story being somewhat of a let down, what about the other core component that is the gameplay? Well it’s important to consider at the time of it’s release, the third-person, cover based gameplay Gears of War touted was revolutionary. In fact, I would argue it established a blueprint that every other video game developer would use for throughout the entirety of the seventh generation of video games.  The ability to latch onto any kind cover with the press of a button and use it to tactfully fight your enemy is a great element behind the game’s functionality.  The other key element of the combat lies also with your enemy.  The Locust horde is well equipped to give you a good fight in the games numerous encounters and the AI is remarkably smart with being able to root you out and overwhelm you.  There’s a nice variety of weaponry to utilize in the game too, with an interesting reloading mechanic where you have to time your prompt to reload quickly.  The only thing that really dampens the gameplay somewhat is the friendly AI.  I get that this is a game built to be played with friends with its co-op functionality, but a single player experience, the AI is so unreliable and you will often be handling firefights on your own because they are so far behind you.

The remastered touch has definitely helped the game from a visual perspective too. I find the game’s graphical scope looks remarkably detailed and when looking at old footage of the original game it really emphasises the difference.  As mentioned earlier in the narrative section, the environment is so packed with detail it really helps get an impression across for players to pick up on. The world and its characters are so distinctly visualised that even I knew these images were associated with Gears of War well before ever playing them.  I think even in the original game, the visual style benefits from being so uniquely presented that it remains almost timeless and the remastered edition does a wonderful job in refining that art style for newer consoles.

While I can’t deny I had a decent time playing Gears of War, I will admit I was left wanting for a lot more.  I think it doesn’t really capitalize on it’s potential all that much in the first entry.  I think what saves the game from being a complete dismissal though is the gameplay revolution is presented and how solid it remains to this day.  That along with a really distinct visual style helps give this game the longevity it needed to set a firm impression and become one of Xbox’s flagship franchises to this very day.