Gears Tactics Review: New genre, same bloody Gears chaos
"… Gears Tactics doesn't have to keep up with the latest major series game to convey the franchise's big ambitions in terms of global conflict."
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Deep yet accessible gameplay
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Feels like a natural extension of the franchise's best features
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Another interesting kick for the constantly evolving tradition
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A new way to take in an old world
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Some control and camera problems
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The texture popup remains
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The presentation looks and feels a bit boring
Gears Tactics is another attempt to lure viewers into the longstanding franchise that has Microsoft's Xbox 360 firmly on the map. After more than 14 years of harsh voices and plump biceps, turn-based death and destruction wrapped around the series' signature sauce are the most exciting addition to the saga since Gears of War 2.
What we have here is a turn-based strategy title that deals with the favorite band of all block-headed brothers and their struggles against the infamous Locust horde.
Commanding a tiny but high-spirited team to splash freaky lizards feels familiar, yet different enough to free Gears veterans from their third-person roots, and to offer strategy fans the kind of odds with small odds of which you live.
Gears Tactics doesn't hold your hand, but it will inspire you to follow the maggot control strategies that your online friends would normally mess up. It is evidence of a franchise that has perfected the bloody struggle from the start, and this tactical approach to its format should have been done years ago.
Gears Tactics is a prequel set 12 years before the first game when Gabe Diaz takes over the reins. His team's job is to murder Ukkon, the enigmatic engineer behind the legendary monstrosities of Brumak and Corpser, and he's not afraid to use his grotesque creations to stop you.
Scratch 12 maggots
To defeat Ukkon, recruit and replenish heroes and foot soldiers, with roles determined by one of the five legendary weapons they prefer.
It may not sound like a lot to play around with. Still, the tight design helps keep the core elements of the fight simple, with more sophisticated strategies emerging from the direction you choose to take your unique talent trees as they advance in battle.
Since a cutscene only occasionally drives the narrative forward, you almost always compete against the enemy. There is very little menu fluff to get stuck in. This is good because the menus on a cell phone are not out of place.
As soon as you are outdoors, all hands are on deck. No matter which of the four types of missions you are in, your squad of four or fewer units will land in the same position, and the fog of war will cover almost everything until you advance through the mud.
There is a decent amount of variety when it comes to mission goals, but they all boil down to the same thing: kill some crazy lizards.
Every turn looks, feels and sounds like a Gears of War battle.
Each unit consumes a limited amount of AP per round between offensive and defensive actions, and you can cycle through your team to optimize your budget.
Performances return and are encouraged to make the most of your team's strict action limit. Without them, it really wouldn't feel like a Gears game.
The way Gear's legendary action sequences translate seamlessly into this turn-based formula creates combat dynamics that are shockingly accurate to the starting material, while offering a welcome new perspective. The idea of taking over an existing Gears game and simply moving the camera up makes sense here.
Each round looks, feels and sounds like a Gears of War battle that takes place from a different angle. Units slip into cover and shoot (and miss) from behind, and the cinematic kill cam occasionally goes over the shoulder of a unit to bring you closer to the action.
Loot caches scattered across each battlefield award random weapon accessories and gear at the end of the mission, filling up the time between tasks with numerous character customizations. Once you recruit more allies, spend a good five to ten minutes between each mission to ensure that their equipment and capabilities are aligned.
Banging a boomer's head and bursting wretches with his grenade launcher is just the icing on the cake, and throwing a pineapple into an emergence hole still feels worthy of a high five from anyone nearby.
Tactics on the battlefield, strategy in the menus
The progression of history and mandatory side missions ease the need for reserve troops. You cannot retrieve a unit's equipment if it is used even once in a multi-mission chapter. Hence, loot management is another thing you should keep an eye on. Once you get to some of the later acts, the Wonky customization menu starts to complicate things.
Gears Tactics effectively communicates the franchise's great ambitions with regard to global conflicts.
If you are not a master tactician, it is not easy to remember the dozen passive and active skills of each unit. A list of the characteristics of each unit can be obtained, but trying to get the most out of each round is serious mental training that can strain newbies.
It's the kind of information overload veterans of the series have to fall in love with, and one that wouldn't be quite as problematic if you could involve the same team in every mission.
Gears Tactics' slower turn-based pace breathes new life into the franchise, which is about an almost endless war of wear. The series has started to feel more open, but instead of exploring before another big fight, Sera's decimated world helps it feel more alive than ever when it has the time to move during an ongoing battle.
As with the previous entries, Gears Tactics is still plagued by texture pop-in issues, and everyone except the lead actors see and sound a bit stiff. Once things are loaded properly, Gears Tactics effectively communicates the franchise's great ambitions in terms of global conflict.
You are more likely to cheer for a good grenade throw or a happy critical hit than to complain about technical quirks or methods of calculating hits.
Just like with Gears 5, my keyboard and controller constantly struggled to take control of the action and caused conflict between the camera and cursor. Coupled with the inability to check the enemy's chances of hitting just to leave the line of sight, I sometimes felt that the game was not entirely fair.
But on a lower difficulty level there was far more jubilation about victory than tears of fear. There were gameplay sessions that, along with a menu that feels touch-like, can easily be transferred to mobile devices at some point in the future. XCOM did it and I wouldn't mind getting Tactics on the train.
Our opinion
Gears Tactics has been my favorite Gears game for years. It's not nearly as feature-rich as the main series titles. Still, the slower pace is an exciting new way to enjoy Sera's crumbling civilization, whether you're a longtime fan or a newbie looking for a new strategy title on a budget.
Aside from a couple of technical issues, this has revived my love for a franchise that I really thought would not survive the leap of the next generation. It turned out that it wasn't the increasingly complicated story that distracted me from the franchise, but the same tired gameplay loop that it has used in the past decade and a half.
Gears Tactics is a brilliant next step for a series that hasn't seen much innovation since its launch. It's not very ambitious, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.
Is there a better alternative out there?
It is XCOM in the Gears universe. Both games have many years of history behind them that are not necessary for their fun at all, so they are the same at the moment. You get the same core experience. It's more a question of which world you prefer to dive into first.
How long it will take?
A couple dozen hours, sure. It all depends on how much preparation you put into each round. There are several difficulty levels with important modifiers for strategy games to increase the warmth. If you want to face a challenge, you will continue to play it for a long time.
Should you buy it
Depends on. As a Microsoft IP, every game in the franchise is somehow available on GamePass. For hardcore gears fans, it's worth the $ 60 price and absolutely worth a few dollars to get through quickly if you're new to the franchise.
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