Gears of War: Judgment (Xbox 360)
After Gears of War 3 rather definitively wrapped up the war against the mutated humanoid monsters known as the Locust, moving the series forward would necessitate some sort of new threat to avoid undermining the narrative weight of the trilogy’s finale. However, Epic Games was able to still get some mileage out of the Locust threat with the age-old practice of making a prequel, this spin-off title taking place before the original Gears of War and exploring events closer to the original emergence of the subterranean Locust forces.
Surprisingly, despite Gears of War: Judgment seemingly going for a fairly generic subtitle for this spinoff, it actually justifies the use of the name in its story structure. Colonel Loomis of the Coalition of Ordered Governments is holding a trial right in the middle of the fighting with the Locust forces, accusing four of the COG’s soldiers of treason and misuse of a weapon of mass destruction. The four soldiers on trial all take turns giving their testimony on the course of events, the game’s action taking place in the form of flashbacks that depict the fighting and what drove them to act the way they did to determine how Loomis will ultimately judge their actions.
With a prequel being a chance to examine some of the side characters of Gears of War more closely, it’s a bit surprising that the one they went with is Damon Baird. The engineer never got fleshed out much in the main trilogy, but he was mostly depicted as someone quick to complain and almost designed to rub you the wrong way so other people like the humorous Augustus Cole could play off his grumpiness. It seems any concern of Baird being a potentially unlikable protagonist is moot though as he has been drained of much of his personality, only having a few sarcastic moments but otherwise playing as a somewhat brash hero type but nothing more. Augustus Cole was completely robbed of his delightfully over the top persona though, barely mustering any enthusiasm in the main campaign to the point that I wasn’t sure it was him at first. Two more characters make up Kilo Squad so that the campaign can be played in four play co-op though, and these new members are a bit better than the two leads. Sofia is the weaker of the two, having her history training to join the elite special ops group known as the Onyx Guard lightly explored but her personality never really shines through. Paduk is perhaps the most interesting of the group, being that he ties into some of the pre-Locust history of the planet of Sera. This belligerent soldier was scarred from serving under the UIR, an alliance of nations who served as the COG’s main adversary before the Locust threat emerged. Paduk has a chip on his shoulder in taking orders from the COG and is essentially a more serious and bitter version of Baird’s old grumpy persona, and while it leads to a bit of a dynamic with the flatter characters, it is unfortunate that he’s the only member of the squad who manages to leave an impression on the player.
Interestingly enough though, there’s an extra campaign following the war tribunal focused main one. Gears of War: Judgment includes a decently sized extra Act known as Aftermath that takes place during the events of Gears of War 3 meant to explain what Baird and Cole were up to while Marcus Fenix handled the main plot. The oddest thing about this extra campaign though is, despite sharing mechanics with the rest of the main game, this seems to have a different writing team doing the work, as suddenly The Cole Train is back to his usual jovial self and Baird gets his edge back. This side story doesn’t have a lot going on in terms of plot, but it is certainly refreshing to hear these characters act like themselves again, and because the Gears of War gameplay is so solid, Aftermath is a good excuse to get more of it out of this third person shooter spin-off.
While most of the main trilogy stuck to tinkering with the basics to find their best form, Gears of War: Judgment both carries over much of what you’d expect to return while making some unusual changes to the design. The previous titles let you carry two regular weapons, a pistol, and grenades, the player able to swap between these four attack options rather smoothly. Gears of War: Judgment decides to limit your weapons to only two at a time, giving the grenades a dedicated button but removing that pistol slot so using the rather simple handgun options now requires sacrificing the space something more competent could fill. The way the buttons were shifted around to accommodate this small change takes a little to getting used to, but these changes don’t really hurt the action much, and changes to items like the Boomshield actually benefit from this as the defensive tool used to force you to use your pistol as you carried it but now it can be paired with any of your weapons for some more interesting defensive play.
Gears of War: Judgment is still about encouraging aggressive firefights though. The layouts of the battlefield are littered with cover opportunities, the player able to crouch behind waist-high walls or peek around the side of pillars to fire on foes while covering most of their rather large form. Any damage taken can be healed by avoiding injury for a few seconds, and even if you get knocked down, your partners can pull you back up and get you back into the action. Despite the need to recover at times, this recovering health system means you can take more risks since your injuries can be easily reversed, and with options like the roadie run that lets you easily charge towards cover, you can get quite aggressive with your forward pushes or flanking maneuvers. The reload system also helps avoid some of the downtime you’d expect in a gunfight, a meter appearing when you reload with a small marked area you try to hit with a second press of the button. If you time it right, the next ammo clip is pushed in quickly and you can get back to shooting with little delay, but if you hit it wrong your reload takes longer. Hitting the sweet spot, on the other hand, powers up the bullets you loaded up so you can further justify pushing against entrenched foes.
However, your enemies can draw on the same resources when fighting you, whether it be in the multiplayer against other human players or against the Locust in the two campaigns. Locusts can use all the same weapons you do and will use cover and group tactics to try and eliminate you before your can heal up your damage. The brutish Boomers soak up damage and bring heavy artillery to the fights, and special Locusts like the Reaver are able to fly about while Serapedes use their defensive armor to scuttle across the ground and force players to work together in baiting it to get a bead on its weak spot. The Shriekers, surprisingly, get an increased role compared to their debut game, these small flying creatures asking you to look to the skies during many battles, and the new Rager enemy type start as normal Locust soldiers can transform into a powerful rampaging berserker if you don’t reduce them to bloody chunks with your killing shot. With Wretches adding small but quick enemies who swarm you and Bloodmounts who rush across the battlefield and hop over cover with ease, the Locusts are a formidable and varied foe, although the only true boss fight that crops up is a somewhat straightforward final battle.
The weapons of Gears of War: Judgment carry over many of the series staples, the Lancer assault rifle with its chainsaw for tearing Locusts to shreds still front and center as your default weapon. The pistols are present if unexciting, but considering how much punch they still pack and how satisfying killing with one of them can still be, it’s mostly because they’re the lowest tool on a ladder packed with even better options. The Longshot sniper rifle can burst enemy heads, the Torque Bow’s explosive arrow can cascade the immediate area with blood and chunks, and the Gnasher Shotgun is a powerhouse in close range, although the Sawed-Off Shotgun can make quick work of some of the strongest foes if you’re willing to get in their face with the otherwise rather weak weapon. Certain heavier weapons can be used for a time that don’t replace your current weapons, the player instead getting to use things like the Mulcher minigun to tear apart Locusts like they were made of paper for as long as the ammo lasts. The Cleaver sword doesn’t have the best hit detection it seems, but launching Mortar shots or using the One-Shot sniper to instantly blast apart someone still give that feeling of incredible strength these extra weapons provide. Regular and Incendiary grenades are a good crowd control option while the Ink Grenade’s damaging cloud still seems a bit hard to gauge the effectiveness of, but the Stim-Gas variant added now gives you a way to fill an area with a healing aura for a time that has a few strategic uses in team play and attack strategies.
UIR weapons are an interesting addition to the weapon list, these being variations of the regular weapons that serve different roles. Your Longshot sniper may be able to kill foes instantly with a headshot, but the Markza sniper is much faster, doesn’t need to reload after each bullet fired, and still packs a punch even if takes extra shots to eliminate tougher foes. The Breechshot is a version of the Markza altered by the Locusts, the rifle now meant for unscoped firing and doing a bit more damage than it despite a smaller clip. The Booshka is the UIR’s answer to the Boomshot grenade launcher, trading the Boomshot’s rocket launcher-like firing method for proper grenade bouncing. It feels a lot more like you have multiple weapons covering the same niches in different ways in Gears of War: Judgment, and these new additions feel like they’re contributing even though they aren’t really shaking up how you approach combat in general with their familiar designs.
What does feel like a major change though and what helps redeem Gears of War: Judgment’s lackluster story is an interesting new approach to campaign design. While you still have plenty of firefights in interesting locations like a rich neighborhood under attack and a military museum, most areas are split up into smaller subsections where each section has a special Declassified mission you can undertake. Find the glowing red skull mark near the start of a chapter and you can add interesting modifiers to the mission ahead, with things like reduced visibility, limited weapon types, a time limit, and special alterations to the enemies making these segments into more robust challenges. Being forced out of your comfort zone weapon-wise makes for more fights that require more strategy, having your visibility limited can lead to chaotic battles where you never know what might be hiding in the fog, and unusual gimmicks like strong winds can really interfere with how you would approach an otherwise straightforward gunfight. You can refuse these if you like, but they help increase your score for a three star rating system that earns you unlockables for multiplayer, and more importantly, these Declassified missions can lead to some of the most intense and exhilarating battles in the Gears series. Secondary objectives and complications can turn what would otherwise just be a regular fight into something more complex and dangerous, and since these are opt-in experiences, the game is less afraid to really concoct some difficult challenges.
One of the highlight moments is a Declassified mission near the end of the game where you need to defend a rooftop position while the game throws almost every enemy type at you in increasingly strong groupings, the ashen fog added as an extra element making it an especially chaotic affair. This battle also features the other addition to the campaign, some portions taking inspiration from the Horde game mode in previous titles where you hunker down and defend a point or object as waves of enemies push in and attack. Special tools like turrets and tripwires allow you to set up traps for your foes, and ammo scarcity can necessitate adjusting on the fly to avoid losing the mission. Breaking up the regular missions structure with these defense focused portions is already a good way to keep things fresh, but mix in the Declassified missions and Gears of War: Judgment makes up for a ho hum story with its superb twists to its mission structure and design.
However, competitive multiplayer has a few odd choices made. Some modes are only available to those who purchase the downloadable content, but the base game has a decent batch of modes to play all the same. Survival is a cooperative focused one, a twist to the old Horde mode where now Locust invade in waves and you and your allies defend a specific objective with fortifications and the specific tools of your chosen class. Overrun turns this into a competitive battle where one side plays as the enemy Locust variations and pushes to destroy the objectives guarded by the opposing team’s COG soldiers. Free for All and Deathmatch dispense with the series’s focus on lives and instead is a rather typical race to get the most kills, the enjoyable design of the shooting carrying these modes but survival now far less important and blind aggression perhaps too often rewarded. Domination is the last mode in the base game, focused around area control to earn points. These are still enjoyable modes that make good use of the shooting design, but they feel like they took a step back from where we were with Gears of War 3. At the same time though, it makes it so that there’s essentially good reason to play both games’ multiplayer components because they diverge just enough to hit different marks such as how they choose to emphasize deaths versus kills.
THE VERDICT: Gears of War: Judgment makes up for a flat plot with basic characters by injecting some wonderful variety into the already excellent shooting action. The Declassified missions are filled with interesting complications to the campaign’s fire fights, their twists and gimmicks leading to players exploring new ways to battle or engaging in some incredibly thrilling fights. The defensive missions also add a dash of spice to the chapter structure, and with a strong set of weapons and the Locust threat being as good a foe as ever, Gears of War: Judgment still manages to be an excellent title despite not standing on the same level as the original trilogy. Competitive multiplayer has turned away a little from being a smart fit for the aggressive style of cover shooting action the game design encourages, but Gears of War: Judgment hits hard with its highlight moments to make up for its less successful shifts from the series norm.
And so, I give Gears of War: Judgment for Xbox 360…
A GREAT rating. It doesn’t pack the heartwrenching moments or spectacular set pieces that helped the Gears of War trilogy prove to be so phenomenal, but this spin-off manages to build an identity for itself by choosing to emphasize new approaches to play. We may have to play with less interesting versions of Baird and Cole to experience it, but the Declassified missions, even when they repeat ideas, add such a strong extra layer to the combat that you can still find plenty of enjoyable and memorable fights along the way. Those extra challenges make even ordinary areas turn into challenging battlefields, and when you throw in the area defense chapters as well, you can get some incredibly satisfying moments. You can set up an incredibly effective coordinated ambush that wipes out the enemy forces at one point in the story, and since it requires planning and good timing it actually feels well-earned to see it go off so fluidly. Fighting on that ashen rooftop and trying to survive the constant waves of powerful Locust types can lead to one of the most satisfying chapter completions the series has ever offered. Paduk is the only real attempt at any pathos sadly and the multiplayer shifting focus to kill counts doesn’t seem like it favors the aggressive design of the gunplay as much as survival modes, but things like the weapon variety still ensure there is a lot of top quality action still to be found if you choose to look into this Gears of War side story.
A spin-off is a good chance to explore new twists on established gameplay, and with Epic Games putting its Poland team and People Can Fly in charge of this title, it was also a chance to allow new perspectives to alter the Gears of War formula. The hits featured here are strong despite the misses, and the focus on mechanics and mission design was definitely given more focus than plot or characters, so while it might not leave its mark on the series since it isn’t part of the main line of Gears games, it is certainly an interesting departure from the norm with some enjoyable twists to the franchise’s excellent shooting mechanics.