Review key provided by Xbox Games Studios
I was never one to be a Gears of War enjoyer back in its heyday. I had friends who played it religiously and would try to get me into it, but the toxicity of the player base and the fact that its male characters portrayed an unattractive, overt masculinity in the early games just wasn’t something that felt welcoming for women. Though I always appreciated its contribution to the gaming industry with its great gunplay, smart cover systems, and lovely brown palette that would dominate the industry for the rest of the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles’ lifecycles, I still couldn’t get myself to actually play.
But with Gears of War: E-Day on the horizon, The Coalition and Xbox Games Studios found it important to re-release the original Gears game for a third time, this time across the aisle to its once adversary, PlayStation. So, even with the modern visuals, complete suite of DLC content, and even the return of multiplayer, how does this title stack up?
Story and Gameplay
Not much can be said about the first Gears of War title that hasn’t been said already; it’s a unique story with some characters that haven’t aged well. Marcus Fenix is still that cartoonish, masculine, playground insult-hurling dude-bro that gets made fun of nowadays in games like Helldivers 2. He’s a joke, honestly, and it only reminds players that the upcoming E-Day title, while being a prequel, will have to dodge this version of Marcus, yet still mark how he got to this point of cringe.
As far as gameplay goes, I am still a fan of how the game handles its combat. Gunfights are tight, enemies are scary and will rush you, and the guns/grenades feel very lethal. At one point, I did say to myself that there aren’t enough games these days that bring the punch of gunplay the same as those Xbox 360 years. Maybe it’s nostalgia goggles, but I rarely feel the same power in games these days as I do from those older titles that were blockbusters.
What I was most interested in seeing was the multiplayer, as that’s what most fans, at least in my head, are probably going to pick this game up for. We haven’t seen a Gears title in six years, so it’s high time for those players to get something new. And it would seem that multiplayer is doing just fine. I connected to a game extremely easily and was able to jump in. Still with a learning curve, it felt like I was a teen again, trying to keep up with my friends.
Something that I encountered while playing was a bug in which, after my initial launch of the game, it would crash at startup. It’s something that’s persisted even to now, and the only fix is to “go offline” on Steam. It’s a fix that is mostly consistent, but I did have a run-in with it working at first, getting into the solo campaign, and then entering an infinite loading screen when selecting to continue. It’s a shame because even with Gears being a game by Microsoft, the PC version is still playing second fiddle to Xbox and now PlayStation’s version in regards to the readiness of it for players at launch.
Visuals and Sound
While this isn’t a full remake like I would’ve liked to have seen, Reloaded is still a beautiful title. I’m sure that it helps that the game has already had a bit of work done, thanks to Gears of War Ultimate Edition, which debuted on the Xbox One in 2015 and brought it up to the then-modern visual experience.
So every decade or so, this game gets a facelift for the modern era, it would seem. There’s not much to write about, though, as it still looks like the original but with modern visuals. All characters and environments maintain their identity, but with the flair of what we’d like to see in 2025.
Audio is good, I would say. Enemies sound sinister, Marcus makes my eyes roll when his mouth opens, and Chainsaw Lancers sound satisfying while tearing through Locusts’ flesh. Mixing really is done well, though with both background and foreground dialogue being easy to distinguish, so I have to give huge credit there.
Feedback and Verdict
At the end of the day, I personally believe that Gears of War Reloaded is a title that pretty much nobody asked for, except the fans who play multiplayer and definitely some PlayStation die-hards back in 2006. Its characters haven’t aged well, but its combat, even at the earliest of the series, is still unmatched and definitely exciting. But honestly, unless you actually are playing multiplayer, I only think that picking up this title is worth it if Gears was always on your radar, but never something you had the means to play. You get not only the campaign but all of the multiplayer offerings, giving many players a second (well, third) chance at playing this game as if it were actually 2006.
