Not The Gears Some Are Looking For
It was a lot like Gears of War but it also wasn't.
The follow up to Gears of War 4, Gears 5 picks back up with the same crew. This time they are trying to find answers about Kait's past. Their quest takes them to many places many places but also leads to many more questions. The story takes Kait and the rest of the Gears to a battle that none of them were prepared for.
As a long time fan of the series I was looking forward to this game but tried to keep my expectations tempered. I expected the game to be much more like Gears of War 4 and much less like the original trilogy but not nearly as bad as Judgement. At least it accomplished that.
Things I Liked...
I played this game primarily on PC but my console heathen background meant I was playing with a controller and not keyboard and mouse. Even with that it was a beautiful game with rich looking environments. Even the Gears' suit had an insane amount of detail. The game-play felt as good as ever. I had forgotten how satisfying it was to chainsaw an enemy in half. The guns still felt good and hit like you would expect them. There were many times I grabbed and used the boomshot just because it feels so satisfying when you can take out multiple enemies in one shot.
Things I Disliked...
For a chapter or two I switched to playing on my launch Xbox One there was a stark difference. On the PC version were there were intricate details there were now just muddy blurs. I didn't expect near the same level of graphics but the drop off was far more dramatic than I thought it would be. Also, as lush and intricate as the environment was it was a brilliant back drop to a dull story. Not only did it not feel like it did much, there were times when I felt like I was doing bust work. The skif was a neat idea and fun at first but then it became boring and over-used. As pretty as the scenes were you were just passing through them for the most part. I did some of the side stuff but it just felt like I was spending time spending time going from place to place to shoot bad guys for little or no reward.
When It's All Said and Done...
I want to recommend the game but... I'm not sure I can. Since I have Game Pass Ultimate I had access to it, early even, so it felt like a zero cost. If I had not had Game Pass I was planning on buying it and when I think about that I think I might have been let down just a bit. There were times when I was having fun and truly enjoying it. That is balanced against the times were I felt like it was making me drive the skif all over hell's creation for no good reason. The Horde mode was ok but didn't pull me in like in the past. The Escape mode is a hot mess of three people going in three different directions, don't recommend if you do not have a squad of three.
When the game had you doing Gears of War stuff like plowing through enemies it felt good. When it was trying to give you an open world experience like side missions and driving the skif it felt bad.