Spring has arrived in my village. Birds are chirping, flowers are everywhere, and cafés are packed with customers sipping beers in complete absorption of the Rugby World Cup. Meanwhile, I am locked away in my apartment from the both the frivolities of sports fans and the beauty of nature while the sounds of gunfire and chainsaws constantly blare from my darkened room.
While an unenlightened passer-by might think the time has finally come to call the orderlies with the padded van, gamers would know right away that I am playing the latest masterpiece from The Coalition – Gears 5. I guess the whole ‘War’ thing has been dragging on for so long that the planet Sera considers conflict to be the norm, so now it’s just Gears.
Pointless title alterations aside, Gears 5 proves that even the mass public opinion can be right about some things. After once-again donning that ol’ chunky amour, and fighting the Locust… I mean the ‘Swarm’ through open deserts, ruined cities and harsh snowscapes, I can assure you that the latest in Microsoft’s lovechild franchise is every bit as good you have been hearing, and perhaps better.
Into high gear
In Gears 5 former protagonist JD has been rotated for his corporal, Kait Diaz, to take the narrative lead, and her inexplicable connection to the Swarm thus becomes the meat of the game’s story. Who are they really? How are they different from the Locust? What is the key to defeating them, and what is Kate’s role in this quest? These questions form the focus of the Gears 5 plot, and the Coalition have amalgamated the balls-to-the-wall action beautifully with their most serious story telling yet. You can really tell the series has matured it’s narrative chops this time around.
Gears 5 easily features the most expansive environments in this series, so I guess this is where the majority of that colossal, 60GB install file went. The world building is really stellar here, and as the gameplay shifts meticulously from one explosive set piece to the next, you get this feeling that the backdrops are telling a story just as much as the characters’ dialogue.
The environmental design accentuates the genuinely dark moments, such as the scene through an abandoned laboratory where Kait learns about atrocities committed in experiments on children, as well as the big secret behind her migraines and visions. These are contrasted with more whimsical portions where, believe it or not, you actually face off against the Swarm on a theatre’s stage while using acting props as cover.
I also liked how The Coalition seemed willing to experiment with a more controlled pacing in a series not exactly know for taking things easy. Cutscenes are far more dramatic and lengthy, while the use of zoomed-in shots combined with meticulous facial animation really make the characters an even more central part of the game.
Gears of bore(dom)
Gears 5 is not quite the Unreal Engine 4’s finest hour, but this game is still a sensory blowout. The Coalition has crafted their latest entry in exquisite texture detail and environmental effects, all of which adds up to a classic, ‘just-had-to-stop-and-stare’ entry in this already visually impressive franchise.
This particular engine has had some time to become friends with our PC’s, so I don’t fully understand why the graphics settings have as many options as a Boeing 747’s control panel. At least players willing to tinker a little are guaranteed to push really high resolutions and frame rates.
Most unfortunately, Gears 5 felt like an utter technical mess at times in terms of stability. Now I am well aware that my PC is entering its twilight years, and that my internet subscription leaves much to be desired. However, those finding themselves in my position had better be warned: You might have a hard time playing your game.
My review copy came through the Microsoft store – a platform that has given me endless grief since the moment I first used it. As predicted, the usual bag of issues ensued: Sluggish download time, always online that refused to let me play when my shoddy internet decided it no longer loved me, and the entire install process freezing permanently halfway through. A Steam copy therefore receives my highest recommendation.
However, the worst was that the game had this strange habit of crashing my entire PC, and blaming it on my GPU. This is an utter mystery to me considering I was running the latest drivers without any complaints from other games, and the crashes seemed totally random. I could always tell it was coming since the game would start stuttering worse than someone with an old prostate trying to pee.
Gears 5 is therefore a weird case of when it works, it works well, but otherwise this game literally ground my entire PC to a halt. Naturally I first suspected this to be the cause of the overclocks I had just set on my CPU and GPU, but some searching on the official Gears of War Forums revealed that I was not alone. Definitely something The Coalition and Nvidia will want to address since Steam is filling up fast with red thumbs pointing down.
Top gear
You have to wonder if Epic Games had realised how future proof the formula underneath the original Gears of War would be. Here we are, about thirteen years later, and playing Gears 5 feels completely identical and just as enjoyable. Overall, what separates Gears 5 and the first entry in this series in terms of gameplay actually amounts to very little.
You can really tell The Coalition have tried to preserve the classic, cover-based shooter mechanics in the way that characters move and engage during firefights, but also in how nearly all of the classic weapons have made a return. Gears 5 is therefore highly conscious of what made its predecessors so memorable, and wants to add more things to the formula rather than rebooting or attempting to make fundamental changes.
The best example of this is all the new functions that have been endowed unto the ever present but rarely seen little robot, Jack. This little mechanical marvel is now a much more central tool in how you can turn any given combat scenario to your advantage.
Struggling to nail that headshot? Just ask Jack to zap the enemy, making them stand up and expose their head from cover. Want that Boomshot lying at the other end of the battlefield? No problem, Jack can warp right over. Oh, your comrade is down you say? After collecting enough of Jack’s upgrades scattered all over the world, the robot will happily scoot right into the midst of the firefight to revive your squad member.
Admittedly, I actually forgot about Jack most of the time since the gunplay in Gears 5 does the job just fine. I also questioned why the little robot should be able to give your character stealth abilities to sneak up on enemies. (Give it some thought: Stealth abilities… in a Gears game… it just has no reason for being there.) Nevertheless, it is good to see Jack finally moving beyond just opening doors and add an engaging level of creativity to your onslaught against the swarm.
Another feature worth mentioning is that Gears 5 is the first in this series to feature semi open-world segments, which is another sign of the developers experimenting with new additions to the classic formula. These play out when Kate and Del are roaming around on the landscape with their kite sleigh, and the player can explore certain locations or ruins to collect additional upgrade parts for Jack, or just find rare editions of certain weapons.
Honestly, these moments play like 99% of all third-person, action-adventure games, so there isn’t really much to say. At least the open world segments represent a nice diversion from the linear sequence of gun fights that can make a Gears games feel rather repetitive. Just another small experiment in good narrative pacing that I think will contribute towards more installments down the line.
Gears 5 also really goes out of its way to make the environments feel like part of a strategic advantage against enemies. One of my all-time favourite moments came during a snow level scene, where the horde storms at the player across a frozen lake. This of course gives you the opportunity to shatter the ice right underneath their feet.
This was an awesome sequence where you get to watch some of the most intimidating enemies plunge helplessly into the frigid water and flail about as they freeze solid. Combine this with weapons like the ‘Buzzkill’ (which basically flings around ricocheting circular saw blades) and I couldn’t remember when last I had this much fun in a shooting game.
A worthy sequel
Gears of War may have completed its journey on the Xbox 360, but I am truly impressed that the series has come back home to the PC. I recall spending my entire summer job’s earnings on a Radeon HD 2600 XT to play the first game on my Windows Vista PC. Once I saw those gorgeous DirectX 10 textures come alive at smooth frame rates, all that soul-crushing work seemed worth it.
Gears of War 4, and now Gears 5, take me back to those days where I could play one of the industry’s most beautiful and action-packed 3rd person shooters on my favourite platform. That being said, I feel obliged to warn those thinking of picking up Gears 5 that they might run into some substantial technical difficulties. Let’s hope The Coalition and Nvidia get cracking with those patches, yes?
- Excellent visuals
- Stays true to formula
- Pacing is handled well
- New and old weapons
- Character development
- Technical issues
- Only certain characters playable
- Loading times
Play time: About 13 hours total. For the single player campaign
Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using mouse and keyboard
Pieter hails all the way from the tip of southern Africa and suffers from serious PC technophilia. Therapists say it is incurable. Now he has to remind himself constantly that gaming doesn’t count as a religion even if DRM is the devil. Thankfully, writing reviews sometimes helps with the worst symptoms.
Awesome review buddy!
I particularly enjoyed “the game would start stuttering worse than someone with an old prostate trying to pee”. You don’t get that kind of quality at IGN!
Also, Sp4ctr0 Spencer should be placed on suicide watch after he’s read the glorious paragraph about Windows 10 Store!
According to US gamers, this game is rated 3.2/5 (Ultimate Edition:3.4). Doesn’t seems the hit that some may have been waiting.
That’s quite common with Microsoft UWP games.
Nevertheless Quantum Break Steam version was more stable and optimized than the UWP, it doesn’t seems to be the case here.
I played through the entire game without a single issue…?
Indeed, you are lucky because I seriously struggled to get it to work sometimes (including disabling certain hardware components). That is what is so weird about this issue because numerous players are doing just fine on their rigs with this game. SHARE YOUR SECRET!! :):)
It is likely something to do with my all AMD build, as it’s highly optimized for AMD hardware (Xbox one/X).
I encountered a lot of issues whilst playing Horde and multiplayer but that’s MS games for you.
So you are lucky, not the case for some others
https://forums.gearsofwar.com/t/gears-5-pc-crashing/23711/43
UWP version works just as well as the Steam version. It’s just that Nvidia’s driver never gave a crap about the DX12 path of QB, while in DX11, they had all the driver work in place.
AMD GPUs work as perfectly well on the UWP as on Steam
Or is it because devs had to rush the PC port ?
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-what-went-wrong-with-quantum-break-pc
This is my favorite Gears game since the original. Really enjoyed the campaign and it ran amazingly well (Ryzen 3600 / 5700).
To each his own but if you enjoyed 4, you’ll probably like this one.
It’s my favorite also, and I haven’t even finished it yet, I’m still on the Matriarch fight.
better than 2? no way.
2 really wasn’t that great…
Too much time underground, the visuals were muddy, and the gameplay was pretty meh aside from some big scenes.
But yeah absolutely better than 2 in every way honestly.
Not to mention the worst (easiest) final boss fight of them all.
The final boss of the first game was a fine piece of BS
It was still harder than the boss from the second game. I could smash the second final boss on insane, whereas General Raam was a challenge, especially in the remaster.
Too bad i can’t see for myself since i don’t have a frickin xbox.
i agree with too much time undergound but the surface areas were much better than 1 and 3, those were pretty standardized and repetitive, 2 was a action fest.
“sipping beers in complete absorption of the Rugby World Cup”
Japan 19-12 Ireland ?
Yeah a shocked silence has descended upon all the pubs here lol
Sipping sake instead of beer?
Kampai!
“Gears 5 is not quite the Unreal Engine 4’s finest hour”
It’s not?! But what is?
That, my friend, belongs to Dragon Quest XI… or is it perhaps the vanishing of Ethan Carter..? To be sure Gears 5 is pretty, but I noticed a few visual glitches not mentioned in the review, as well as the odd blurry texture here and there.
Ethan Carter is an Unreal 3 game and Dragon Quest? Lmao, what ???
http://www.theastronauts.com/2015/09/the-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-redux-out-now/
this game isnt that great its just that it has been a while since we had a linear story focused shooter without a ton of rpg mechanics.
nonsense gears was the begging of the end of non console shooters.
This series went downhill after Gears 3 which was the last Gears game made by Epic Games.
pfft hahah wo you didnt play the best ones which were 2 and 3?
LOL and you say this is your goty?
actually id argue control and ion fury are better than this.
Funny how you chose another game with a female lead, let’s see what he has to say about that. 🙂
2 games control and ion fury
So Ion Fury is good then, I haven’t tried it yet.
the game is on a price drop, its not selling well, got it on ps4 from second hand. The pc version has horrible perfomance so i didnt even bother.
“There was nothing off about the camera either.”
You joking, the camera while sprinting looks awful in gears, in control its exactly the same as max payne or sunset ovedrive.
thats the problem with it, they pushed the camera close, over the shoulder diagonally, so you cant see around you and while sprinting the camera changes again it looks downwards, its a mess really. Daddy of war is awful, there was nothing wrong with the camera in the previous games and they ruined it.
i dont like the camera placement, fov wont fix that
true, but id rather play than from gears of war with its horrible camera and repetitive gameplay
ion fury doesnt have a story true but its all gameplay, gears is story, take cover, shoot,repeat. I expect more from a third person action adventure game than repetitive cover based shooting.
ahahhahahaah no it doesnt. its a slow paced cover based shooter with recoil and lame weapons.
didnt say its slow, i said its slow compared to a oldschool shooter, also coming to think of it dusk and amid evil were also giving you most of their weapons early on, so i guess you are biased.
well i suppose the launcher on the lancer is effective or that blue micro missile launcher but most weapons are some sort of assault rifle or shotgun.
“But that is exactly what Gears 5 broke wiht the female hero, some emotional depth, and movement based combat.”
you say this like its a good thing.
but she is literally a dudebro
are you blind? short hair ugly face bulky body.
you are blind….and stupid.
” The Talon autopistol?”
come on you are not even trying. Whats your hateboner with ion fury?
so the double smgs with incendiary fire are not cool? so the homing explosive balls are not cool? So the energy bow is not cool?
a red laser bow is less cool than a bow with explosive arrows? Are you serious? Also the smgs in ion fury are by far the best weapon in the game…apart form the minigun, but they shoot faster sp they are much more efficient, how on earth is a pistol better?
I don’t have the time to type essays. But tldr, Gears 5 > a wannabe 90s shooter in 2019 that is worse than Shadow Warrior, Duke, Doom, Blood in every way possible. Bye.
so you marked my post as spam because you are butthurt and you admit defeat?
“I DONT HAVE TIME TO WRITE ESSAYS”
After days of talking bs.
“Because I don’t have the entire day to type as long an essay as you”
types long essay anyway.
“, but everyone knows that Gears 5 is a legit contender to GOTY and it has higher chances of winning than Control”
i run into a nice review on youtube that gave it 4/10, that being said control is original with original gameplay, i dont doubt that a console exclusive which is part of a big franchise is gonna get awards, the question is does it worth it? Especially since both halo and gears series have become sh*t aftet the original devs left em.
“.Ion Fury doesn’t hold a candle against something like say Dusk or Amid Evil.”
Dusk has the best combat, amid evil has the best vistas and atmosphere, in fury has the best assets, secrets and its more colorful and visually pleasing, what they did to the build engine is remarkable. You can say its not as well paced and polished as the other two, but doenst hold a candle? They are objectively the same in terms of quality.
“In fact it’s the worst Build engine game I’ve played till date.”
never played redneck rampage, nam or ww2 then.
“There is nothing in it that makes me go wow like what Dusk / Amid Evil did. ”
The early access level and maybe the mansion the rest was meh, also how many damn sewers does a game need?
“You say Gears 5 is repetitive when it has better pacing, an interesting story if not a great one ”
gears is repetitive because it doesnt have any other gameplay mechanics other than cover based combat even that stupid sailing section is repeated twice, as for pacing, i think a game that has nonlinear levels and secrets has better pacing than a linear scripted shooter because you can pace it the way you want and take your time.
Gears 5 is not a great game, its just has been a while since we had one of those linear scripted story shooters.
“And those cringeworthy lines.”
as opposed to gears 5 main character being a constant cringe?
Keep this going guys, it’s fun to read! 🙂
i am enjoying this alot.
1 you doing it again.
2 didnt says the scripting was the problem, its still trash just like 4 and that spin off made by peopel can fly.
3.no ion maiden had lots of sewer levels PAY ATTENTION. Also dsuk was not uqniue in terms of level design it was pretty samey
4.HAAHHAHAHA lol no redneck rampage is a mess awful weapon and enemy designs completly unbalanced horrible level design that is a giant confusive mess, please get real.
5.yes without question, her lines are infuriatingly cringe
6.you would be suprised how subar most rewards for finding secrets are in doom and other old games, replay them. Ofcourse having extra stuff to do and play a game at your own pace has better pacing.
7.I hate sony you dumb freaking idiot their games are interactive movies, but IMAGINE arguing that gears of war is a better franchise than playstation exclusives, seriously? a bunch of lame dudebros and generic monsters with a cover system is a idea of a good franchise?
1. well this one is logner.
2. ovescripting
3. ion fury has more assets but it also has more sewers.
4. at least the combat is functional
5. decent writing? HAHAHAHA lol. OMG unironical “if you dont like this cringe trash you hate women” aahahahahhahah.
6. completely different experience how do you run out of rocket ammo in doom?
7 . id rather play cod than gears
where did i say sewers level were a good thing? I said that was the worst part, where did i say gears 5 has bad combat? I said ion fury has better combat than redneck rampage and duke 3d. Its decent. Is this a joke? Maintream reviews are written by cringe soyboys and woke transexual feminists. You think bombshell is cringe failing to realize it originally took place in duke nukem universe, but you think gears of war chainsaw assault rifles and big dudes shooting monsters versions of themselves isnt cringe? Why you keep bringing ps4 in this you nutjob? Many trash are nominated for goty, especially console exclusives, its called payed marketing, games journalism is one giant corrupt joke. Let alone now that we havent had a decent game or a non open world looter shooter mmo clone for quite some time. When it was the last time you played the old doom games? You cant run out of 100 rockets ammo you moron. Also are you seriously gonna argue that games should have less guns so running out of ammo is more meaningful? I dont know if this years cod campaign is gonna be good, to me it feels they try to make a more down to earth cod4, sounds boring. It seems you are a moron so i will repeat myself, in a world that wolfenstien has turned into a coop looter shooter with grinding and bulletspongy enemies, in a world that far cry has turned into a grindfest with crafting in order to defeat more powerful enemies, in a world that assasin creed is now a rpg, in a world that ghost recon is a coop always online mmo with grinding and microtransaction and raids, in a world that bungie made a borderlands clone called destiny, in a world that the developers of max payne made alan wake and control, in a world that bioware made a destiny looter shooter clone, in a world that people still buy borderlands, in a world that the division 2 is considered a good looter shooter because its not as bad as the rest, in that world in that year of course the 6th game in a series of generic cover based shooters will be nominated for best action game of the year, personally as a oldschool fps player id rather play dusk, amid evil, ion fury or doom eternal and then you got cod that i dont know what to make of it. But you saying “ITS GETTING NOMINATED ITS GETTING NOMINATED” as if its important or as if who is nominating it with a straight face when the year is not over yet….is ridiculous.
Grow up.
“. I expected Duke 3d level of awesomeness”
Not made by levelord but you can play amc tc and the deathwish mod for blood if you want cool levels.
I read the first line of your comment and I was about to thumb it up, then I noticed it was you and then I saw the “by Epic Games”. You shill so hard for Timmy Tencent, it’s sickening man. Because every gears fan knows that the original trilogy was hands down the best. But your reason, it’s “By Epic Games”. That’s why I know for a fact that your are either very sophisticated A.I or a High Functioning R3TARD. Unbelievable, Robo-Fernando.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/076085a377bc74052d0e9f1330a8708fe54434d91e977440be3adeef58520de6.png
Lol i tought i was the only one to notice. Good troll btw
He’s just too much bro. I’ve never seen schitt like this in a;; my 36 years brother.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eae9a545d808a9070ae9dbdbb1e5741f3df7abae2b6311570f09201df54e7563.jpg
Strange, my wife played this on my second PC which has an i5 3550 and 8GB of RAM and a GTX 1080 and the game never had any stutter or crashing issues. I can see the GPU keeping things smooth but even with the older CPU I didn’t see any technical issues. Guess it’s not tested well on all hardware then.
What settings were you using because I have a GTX 1080 with Ryzen 5 1600 and 16GB and I keep getting dips, I believe it was the new Nvidia driver because even with settings turned down it would do it and I ran the game on an older driver before updating and it ran perfectly fine.
Ultra settings at 1080p. However, I don’t think I updated that PC with the latest Nvidia driver since me and my wife started playing through early access and the Nvidia Game Ready driver had not been out till then, plus I don’t usually update stuff all too often on my wife’s PC since that is only turned on when she wants to game, not otherwise.
On my own PC, also a GTX 1080 but with an i5 6600, and after updating to the Game Ready driver, I had stutter right after the game would load – basically took a few seconds to become smooth and playable, but this was also rare. I had my PC set to insane for graphic options that had that the Insane setting. So yeah, Game Ready driver could be to blame.
P.S: My wife and I play separately, not co-op.
If it ran well on that rig then that’s great! I guess it’s good news that not all PC’s are affected, which is probably why they are struggling to nail down the problem.
60 GB isn’t “colossal”. The last game was 133 GB. FF:XV is 152 GB. Just saying, 60 GB or more is pretty standard for a triple-A game these days.
Also, this has the best story of any Gears game yet. I was happy to get an explanation for the origins of the locust and their queen.
This. If you want good animations, textures and audio, 60 GB is pretty much on the low end of things.
A major attribution to Gears 4 having a larger download size than Gears 5 is that all the cutscenes in Gears 4 are prerendered videos.
Nah 60 GB is still frikkin’ huge!
Maybe, if your interwebs connection is bad, or you’re short on space. 60 GB is pretty much par for the course with games that are touted as triple-A, and that number is just going to keep rising.
I remember back in April of 1997, when the guy that sold us our first home PC said that the 2 GB HDD in it would be all we ever needed. Boy was he wrong.
You comparing FF XV to Gears of War!! For Final Fantasy is more than justified for Gears of War 4 or 5 no way in hell, game is huge. Blame the damn Unreal Engine and lazy devs.
I wished flaming DEATH upon Cliffy B when he said that!
“CliffyB went on a path of self-destruction and proclaimed all PC gamers pirates, and they completely cut off the PC platform”
To be fair, i think that was Microsoft’s fault, but CliffyB made no favors bashing PC gamers over a microsoft decision of scrapping PC (speaking of which, still no Gears 2 3 and Judgement for PC)
Im playing the “codex” version based on steam it crashed on me occasionaly with a “fatal error” message blaming my gpu.
What i did:
Emptied the directx cache folder and reinstalled the nvidia driver after cleaning it with ddu in safe mode.
No more crashes for me.
I played it on PC game pass. It started off very promising. I really liked it. Then we got to act 2 which started to feel like it was draggging and going on way too long. Then at the first chapter of act 3 I just had no more interest in the game. Game just strayed too far from what makes the game great… battles/shooting. Same with Far Cry New Dawn. Overall… it was a meh from me. awesome graphics tho!! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2dff3536dba9a14ad3bc1e02f084a87c63bff0437615d66497c444f779c653f7.png
Was gonna buy game pass to play this.. and then read that the MS Store version requires you update to Win 10 1903 to even launch the game. 1809 DESTROYED performance and broke gsync on my system and I lost an entire day of my life to fixing it (by ultimately reverting to 1803). So no dice on Gears 5. Apparently the Steam version (as of release) didn’t force the update, but that could change