Games Booth

Monday, 18 March 2013

Gears of War Judgement

by guest reviewer CJB.

So the time has come for another instalment of the Gears of War, which second to Halo is the best game series for me for the Xbox platform. I’ve spent many hours playing the roles of Baird, Cole and the team and kicking some locust asses, so was really looking forward to taking a look at the latest in the franchise.

To begin with it’s a prequel, it’s like the Star Wars trilogy – make three epic films then go back and do a prequel, or the Indiana Jones movies. Maybe after the next 3 years of living I’ll go back and do a prequel to see where I went wrong! LOL

Anyway, through my time playing Gears of War Judgement I’m pleased to say that ‘People Can Fly’ has done a good job. There are many improvements of the game, more guns and action and to be honest that’s what made the legend of Gears of War thrilling!

As I started the intense campaign of Gears of War Judgement you quickly fall back into the ‘all brawn no brains’ (well not a lot anyway) characters within your team however there are some additional characters too which you meet along the way.

Damon Baird was and still is my personal favourite, with his cocky attitude he’s all brawn with enough of a brain cell to figure out the weaponry and technology given to him while having the energy and power to kick the asses of those nasty grubs. Alongside him and also playable characters include, Augustus Cole, Sophie Hendricks, Garron Pudak and Ezra Loomis.

The game starts as you (Baird) are in court with the team giving your testimony about the aftermath of emergency day. In simple terms, the game is played as each person’s testimony is told: basically you play the court discussions.

Throughout the campaign you will come across many new feature to the Gears of War world, for example there are new declassified missions to do while playing which is an additional challenge element to each level, which may range from using a particular gun only to no health regeneration – as a Gears of War veteran this added to the game play and made each level a purpose.

Each level within Judgement has a rating, up to three stars, these are gained by completing the declassified challenge, mass killing, gaining gibs, medals and ribbons etc. The more stars you earn the more you can level up and get more intense shoot em up time. One point to note, is that you can only play the ‘Aftermath’ (nothing more will be said about this) part of this game after gaining 40 out of the 125 stars, but that shouldn’t be hard even for a first timer.

Alongside the basic (weak) storyline you also will come across a familiar horde mode, but this has been added inmode, but this has been added into the campaign mode and therefore you must survive a number of waves to progress through the story line. New guns are provided, of course, what new game is not complete with a new range of weaponry huh? There is the new Markza sniper rifle, the grub improved version of the Markza, the Breechshot and the Booshka which is a grenade launcher that gives one hell of a punch and much to my delight there’s a crossbow! Not an ordinary one either, it’s a tripwire crossbow which when fired attaches to any surface and if crossed unleashes an explosive result - great for gib gathering.

Don’t panic, the classic weapons are also available e.g. the Lancer, Retro-Lancer and the hammerburst, although the hammerburst is now only single fire but its damage has been increased from the original weapon. One useful tool that’s wortha mention is Sophie’s stim grenade which has the ability to heal a characters health.

As you play through the campaign you piece together the events of emergency day and how the beginning lead to the end of the war of the locust versus the cog. The audio commentary of Gears of War Judgement is not great at all, but hey we don’t love the game because of the chatter do we? However there are some ‘sneak peek’ audio references in there - Marcus Phoenix asking for backup from anyone is one!

I don’t want to unveil too much about the game, so my final closing lines are: For Gears of War fans this is a must buy, for those that like a good old shoot the crap out of the enemy, then go buy it. However, if you want a long drawn out, intense story mode, with loads of cut scenes that’ll have you sucked into another dimension then go buy the award winning BAFTA game dishonoured as these two couldn’t be far enough apart.

Overall, great game and I’m glad that People Can Fly proved that change can be positive.

GamesBooth Rating - 10/10