Gears 5

Its a great game for sure, but I also have 3 things to criticize. The initiation is a bit boring and you can't skip it, like you cant skip the cinematic scenes. Your character can't do a normal jump. If you use the spacebar you will do a dodge jump forward. The sprint mode is weird. As soon as you hold your sprint key a strange camera-angle aplies and you won't be able to control the runningdirection with your mouse. You have to use the movement keys. And even once you learned how to, it still feels wrong. They probably wanted to make something different to other games here, but being unique doesnt mean it's good.

Gear 4 wasn´t the shot in the arm Halo 4 was but is still a perfectly fine soft-reboot. Gears 5 is the same mess that Halo 5 is. It equally features bizarro characters and writing that fails even the low standards of the series. Whoever came up with Fahz needs to be stopped! Meandering levels with tons of empty space (the "open world" and the collect-a-thons can go to hell), a bewildering difficulty curve that isn´t balanced for single player and the game again fails to go anywhere or evolve the 13-year-old formula in any way. And then we have the abysmally executed new skill system via the Jack bot that leads to endless menu management in a shooter. Gears needs to either end very soon or move on to a full-blown GoW 2018 style reboot after a half-decade+ hiatus. The multiplayer is the same as usual. It works fine but you don´t need to buy a new game to play the same old stuff. Gears 1 was a generation-defining game. Gears 5 reduced the series to a hollow zombie that is only saved by production values. 6/10

PS: Whoever came up with the idea that you should either grind like mad or pay actual money to unlock the Pride flags and skins that advertise a failed Terminator reboot, I like the film btw, deserves a special place in hell.

I am a massive fan of Gears 1-3 and judgement. I liked 4 a lot and wasn't sure about the direction of this series, but 5 got me locked in. This game is AMAZING. Honestly this is probably the best Xbox exclusive since Gears 2 or Halo Reach. It's that stinking good!

Here are my positives:

• The story. Really creative and cool way to continue on the threat of the hive. The personal story with Kait and JD is fantastic.

• The cast. All your favorites are there and I really think Kait, JD, and Del are great characters, especially once the credits of this game role.

• The combat. As always this game has the best third person shooting available on any console or from any dev. Gears combat just cannot be matched. The tried and true formula is there and they added some nice new layers with stealth kills and the ability to command Jack to give support. How Jack is used in this game is honestly brilliant and he can provide a major tactical advantage.

• The semi open world. Running around on the sciff is so fun. It looks beautiful and is a blast to drive. The game is not a "open world" in the sense that it's dense or 100+ hours to beat, it's the same linear gears formula (10-12'hour campaign) with the addition of over world travel between missions and to do a few side quests. Really good stuff.

• moral choice and consequence in a gears game for the first time!

• enemy design and boss battles are greatly improved. Gears 4 had some rough boss encounters but gears 5 ironed all of that out. The boss fights are polished and fun.

• the final act of this game reminds me of Gears 1.

• The graphics and art style are great. This is a Xbox one game that looks just as good as some of the triple A titles that are evening out out today (2023). It holds up and looks beautiful.

• the game physics are actually incredible. From the snow, to the sand, to how drop shot bullets work and how the wind can affect tongue bow arrows, it's really impressive.

• a massive multiplayer and horde mode!

• co-op!

Play this game!

I am playing this game in late 2021 so I might be at fault for not enjoying this game - a bit. Neither have I played the previous games and even after watching the recap I had no idea what the hell was going on. I only played it because it was available on steam (clearly this game was not made for pc) and the download size was a whooping 100GB making me wonder if it was a big deal. The gameplay is funny and the gaudy characters are just very unattractive. Maybe it just wasn't my style and let my expectations get the better of me.

I can say its awesome and i liked it!!!!...dont miss!