Gears of War 4 - Xbox One

As someone who has played all the previous Gears of War games and has played a vast majority of well-known and lesser-known 3rd person and 1st person shooters, I have to say that this is one of my favorites.Pros:- The campaign is one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had in a long time. The game progressively gets better and more exciting as it goes and without spoiling anything, the game ends in a unique and fun manor as opposed to the traditional "throw everything at them and make it frustratingly hard" type ending.- The new main characters are funny and relatable in a way that previous Gears games were not. They really nailed the combination of old and new characters and leaving you wanting more.- The multiplayer is flawless. The dedicated servers help this a lot as there's no noticeable lag since I've started playing. The new game modes are fun and the weapon balancing is on point. In old Gears games, there were times where I wondered how I died and how I didn't get the kill. I can honestly say that when I die in this game, it's because my aim was off and I just straight up lost the battle. The maps are excellent as well and they've also started to implement some of their best maps from previous games.- Horde mode is now a class based system (although you're not locked into a specific character for each class) and I have to say I'm loving it. It brings an entirely new strategy to the game and forces you to work together as a team. Every 10 levels there is a boss wave that will throw a random boss at you and I have to say, the variety of these is extremely fun. Each enemy has their own "oh s***" abilities and you have to have a completely different strategy depending on which one appears.Cons:- Shotguns are more powerful than ever in multiplayer and it may be hard for some players to realize that since the Lancer has always been the staple for the series. Once you learn this, however, the experience gets exponentially better.- The power in Horde mode is shared between you and your teammates. Therefore if you get one bad apple that just keeps buying useless items in times you don't need them, when the time comes where you need something you may not have it. For the most part I haven't run into this problem too much but it does happen occasionally.If you've taken some time off from Gears, or are interested in dipping into the franchise a bit, this is the perfect starting point. The game looks incredible, the gameplay is perfect, and it's just tons of gory fun. Highly recommended!

I'm pretty late to playing this one. Gears of War has been one of my favorite video game series since I got the first one on the old Xbox 360 back when. It has become tradition for me to coop this with someone on the hardest available difficulty so I can hit the ground running on the single player which this review will primarily be about.While I know that Coalition paid a lot of attention to the multiplayer as a lot of game developers do these days I was very satisfied with the main campaign. Gameplay is largely the same as it was for the early titles. Gears has always been a shooting gallery with cover tactic mechanics but its among the best shooting galleries you'd find out there on the market. New additions to the single player like a tower defense mode against AI wave attacks. Some new interesting weapons are added to the roster but the classics are also brought back in (torque bow FTW).Two decades after the eradication of the Locust in the third game, the fourth begins with humanity still trying to rebuild after the devastating war. While the COG and other surviving human groups are trying to get their bearings they find themselves under attack again by a new unknown enemy. You take on the role of James Fenix, son of the series long protagonist Marcus who with his entourage tries to figure out who the new enemy is and how to beat them. I liked the campaign story, I felt there was some fanservice but that's not too big a deal. My biggest qualm with it is the game seemingly trying to state that these new enemies are definitely, totally, not the Locust at all. Even though they basically are but that's just a nitpick. It didn't take away from the fun for me.The visuals are good, the story had me invested toward the end, the gameplay was fine tuned for it's type and overall I really enjoyed this title. Where they go from here I'm pretty eager to see.

As a long time Gears of War fan I found this a phenomenal continuation of the series. I liked the direction they took the main Campaign's story, every addition felt very appropriate and didn't deviate from the the feel of the series.I love the new class system in Horde. I've recently hit level 10 Engineer and being able to min/max damage output or build cost with out classes/cards on Insane is fantastic and is some great depth.Versus is probably getting the most flak right now. Honestly, as someone who played Infinite Warfare with it's horrific spawns where you will literally respawn in the middle of someone's sights or have propel constantly spawning behind you, this was a pretty big relief. You spawn on your relative side of the map with increased damage resistance for a set period of time. The Hammerburst pre nerf got a lot of flak because it was too powerful now it's thing is that everyone says that it's way under powered. People also will say that the Gnasher is inconsistent, but that's just not been my experience.This review is coming from someone who owned a PS4 for the past few years and bought an Xbox One a month ago for this game. I'd recommend this game literally over Uncharted 4 by a landslide. This is a game you can actually play. A phenomenal one at that.