As I stated in my impressions of Outriders, playing that game made me want to come back and play Gears of War. So here we are.

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Reviewed on Xcloud

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When Gears of War originally came out I never played it. I had only had PlayStation consoles in the house so all I was able to do is look at it from a distance and try to lie to myself that it doesn’t look good and I don’t want to play it. The truth is I wanted to play it so bad. I replayed Namco’s Kill Switch more times than I could count just pretending it was Gears of War. n

Finally, I had a job and saved money, and bought myself an Xbox 360. The first game I purchased was Gears of War. I was immediately in love.

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After I started my journey of playing all the Halo games and discovering how little I enjoyed the early Halo titles I was a little worried that Gears would follow the same fate. I could not have been more wrong.n

The version that I played was the Ultimate Edition so I understand the graphics were better than they originally were but my first thought was I can’t believe how good this game looks. The other thing I couldn’t believe was that I once thought active reload was going to be a thing in every game. It works here but I’m glad it didn’t catch on like I thought it would.

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I remember Gears of War being a fun game to play and having a great story. While the game is fun to play there is not much story. We are at war with the locust but there is zero back story as to who they are or where they came from. There is also not much story as you go through the game besides we have to kill them all. This never stopped my enjoyment of the game, however, it’s just one of those moments when your memory is different from reality. n

For most of the game you are going from combat arena to combat arena. All you are really tasked with is killing them and don’t die. While the game is on the short side and it’s fun to shoot locust I can’t help but think how much better the game would be if it had a story to go with it. n

Playing this game in 2022 the controls and gunplay do hold up but also feel dated at the same time. The guns do not have recoil and sprinting around the map always feels awkward. The game shines when you move from cover to cover and dive out of the way of enemies. This games cover mechanics are still top notch and these are the controls modern games should try to emulate when they implement cover mechanics.

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Verdict

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Playing Outriders made me nostalgic for Gears of War, but my recent Halo playthroughs made me worried to go back to Gears and ruin my fond memories. Luckily Gears of War still hold up and still is a lot of fun to play. Sadly the game is lacking in story but where it really shines is how it forever shaped the industry with its amazing cover mechanics.

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Final Score 7/10

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