Review for Gears Tactics. Game for PC and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 28/04/2020
The announcement of Gears Tactics during E3 a few years ago took a back seat as the main star of that press conference was the fifth installment of the Gears franchise released last year. Almost no one realized at that moment that the giant Microsoft, through the Xbox Game Studios had made the decision to conquer a slice of the market in the world of turn-based strategy games thanks to the Splash Damage and The Coalition team of developers. Now finally, after two years of waiting, we finally got it the possibility to test the real potential of the PC version of Gears Tactics thanks to a code kindly offered by the publisher. The developers are also working on an Xbox One version that should be out on the market by the end of 2020 but, as of today, there is no official date yet.
Gears Tactics is a turn-based strategy game set in the world of the popular Gears shooter franchise from which it takes some typical aspects of the series adapting them to a very different genre of videogame and not focused solely on third-person combat. The only game mode in Gears Tactics is the single player campaign, which is placed temporally about ten years before Gears of War, and will initially see as the main protagonists Gabe Diaz - member of the COG and father of Kait the protagonist of Gears 5 - e Sid Redburn, a war veteran with a questionable past who specializes in exterminating Locusts, alien beings whose purpose is the extermination of the human race.
It is therefore easy to guess that the game will follow the course of the story line and your not easy goal will be to eliminate Ukkon, the alien scientist who brings to life the hordes of locusts committed to making your life tough over the course of the game. sandbox side offered by other similar titles but the plot of Gears Tactics will still have a charisma of its own and it will be very engaging, full of surprises and above all of breathtaking cut scene masterfully realized that they will involve you right away thanks to a really quality dubbing. To be more precise, the plot of the game will be divided into Acts which in turn will be composed of various Chapters.
In the early stages of the game, which will serve more than anything else to become familiar with the commands, it will simply be necessary to complete the assigned mission to move on to the next chapter while in the more advanced stages it will be necessary to first participate in various secondary missions to then access the mission main story.
Gears Tactics, on the whole, has a fairly classic game setting, with a very clean and clear interface and offers an isometric game view from above that can be rotated at will. The game environments are quite varied and very accurate down to the smallest detail. Overall indeed it is possible to appreciate a decidedly above average attention to detail compared to other games of the same genre.The game also offers interesting and surprising novelties not only from a scenographic point of view but also from a purely tactical point of view among which it certainly stands out the lack of a reference grid - typical in most turn-based strategy games - on which you can move your men.
This innovative system it will allow you to explore the game map with some freedom in search of the right cover or the optimal shooting position. Added to this is the introduction of 3 action points for each character unlike the classic 2 which will allow a variety of very interesting tactical situations and different from the classic move & shoot. The 3 action points available for each character under your control can be used to move, shoot or use a skill in the times and in the ways you deem appropriate, thus creating a very wide variety of decision-making tactics.
The tactical component of the game is also amplified by the presence of others characters that will gradually be recruited in your team after completing the various missions. In Gears Tactics they will be present 5 different classes of soldiers who will earn gods skill points at the end of each mission they will take part in. The skill points earned will be usable for unlock additional skills which will be divided into a branched scheme called precisely Skill Tree. The possibilities offered by this skill system will be many and will allow you to create in detail the type of fighter that will suit you.
Not only, soldiers belonging to the same class will be equipped with the same type of weapon whose 4 main parts, however, can be modified or changed at will thanks to a looting system present within the missions themselves. In Gears Tactics there is no management component that will allow you to develop your arsenal. The latter will be built over time, mission after mission, collecting prize chests of various qualities within which it will be possible to find various types of upgrades both for the weapons and for the armor of your soldiers and thanks to which you can personalize your equipment in many ways.
Even from an aesthetic point of view, the game offers an infinite number of options. The 4 main parts that make up each weapon and the various pieces of armor can be changed at will in colors and skins offering, at times, aesthetic results of effect. If the level of personalization of your men does not seem enough to you, know that you can also change their aesthetic appearance such as beard, hair, tattoos and much more. Even the fearsome Locusts that you will face during your adventure will offer various types of units, from simple ones Abietti able to unleash attacks from close range thanks to their claws up to the fearsome Theron capable of inflicting enormous damage thanks to the powerful grenade launcher.
We leave to you the surprise and the possible amazement in discovering the various classes of enemies that will present themselves before you as the story progresses. We would just like to specify that some types of enemies will have, in addition to the weapon supplied, also tactical skills capable of inhibiting those of your men.
Another not insignificant aspect to take into consideration in a turn-based strategy is undoubtedly the AI of the opponents that in Gears Tactics seemed to us to be really excellent. In the game they are present 4 difficulty levels general - plus level Veteran unlockable only after finishing the story - and playing for example at the lowest level of difficulty you will have no major problems sweeping away the Locusts since they will not pay much attention to the various coverings offered by the map. Already at the intermediate level, however, we noticed some interesting behaviors of the opponents such as the search for the best line of fire, the encirclement of your units, the crossfire and the search for cover and cover. By playing at the maximum difficulty level, the AI showed us its best side putting us in serious trouble especially thanks to the use of the skill Lookout.
The latter is another novelty introduced by Microsoft and will allow both your men and enemies to spend 1 or more action points during their turn to get into a guard position and establish, thanks to a visual cone, the portion of the map to keep. under control. Any unit that moves within this space will be hit one or more times based on the remaining action points. On some occasions we have found ourselves in difficult situations with some of our men surrounded and practically put in check by the enemies also because the latter will often call for reinforcements that will arrive both by air and through holes in the ground - which can be closed with the use grenades - which will open suddenly forcing you to recalculate all your moves frequently.
The use of the Lookout both by our men and by the Locusts has left us pleasantly surprised offering us game situations in which we had to carefully evaluate every single move and at the same time increasing the level of involvement offered by the various clashes. Furthermore, when the health bar of an enemy reaches zero, it will be possible to carry out the so-called execution or rather give him the coup de grace. It is a kind of very spectacular finishing move where the game view is zoomed to show in all its glory the cruelty of execution with rivers of blood and dismembered limbs attached. Also, after performing an Execution, your team will get an additional action point. Overall then you will have various tactical solutions that can be implemented on the battlefield each capable of changing the tide of the battle and all this can only further enrich the gaming experience offered by Gears Tactics. The duration of the campaign of game will also vary according to the level of difficulty initially set and on average it is more or less around 30 hours. It will also be possible to activate theIronman Mode which will prevent you from reloading your saves by terminating the game in case one of your main characters is killed.
During our review we could also appreciate the variety of missions proposed: from the classic elimination of all enemy units on the map to the recovery of objects useful for the continuation of the story, from the rescue of prisoners who will then be recruited in their roster up to spectacular battles against huge bosses. The latter will be really demanding and will require real teamwork from your men.
The game interface, even in the most crowded situations, will always remain very clear and clean. You will always have an eye on the success rates of a particular attack or the ideal shooting line. The Splash Damage guys don't really seem to have left anything at the casor by making a product of truly excellent overall quality.
Too bad for the total lack of a sector multiplayer that thanks to all the tactical potential present in the game would have made Gears Tactics truly special from all points of view. This is perhaps the only note we can make to Microsoft beyond the obvious fact that the story, once finished, will take away some of the replayability and longevity to the game even if by unlocking the Veteran difficulty you can still continue to play freely by facing endlessly randomly generated maps to test your skills without having a final goal to reach linked to the main story.
The technical sector of Gears Tactics is absolutely of a high level as well as the general graphic quality. The Unreal Engine 4, the engine of the game, adapts to virtually any hardware configuration as long as you are willing to accept some compromises. It is however possible to make benchmarking directly from the main screen of the game to see what options to change to make the game experience enjoyable on your PC. For our Gears Tactics review we used a hardware configuration with an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor, 16GB of RAM, NVidia RTX 2080 video card, and a 1440p 144Hz monitor.
With the global level of detail set to Ultra we did not notice the slightest uncertainty even in the most crowded situations and with a frame rate that averaged around 70 FPS, a sign of a work of optimization almost perfect by Splash Damage. Same thing can be said of the audio sector which includes sound effects and music of fine workmanship in addition to a dubbing in Spanish of excellent quality in any situation, from cutscenes to the voices of our soldiers on the battlefield.
Gears Tactics is at the same time traditionalist and innovative and deserves to be given a privileged position in the world of turn-based games. Splash Damage has done a great job from all points of view including the not easy one of adapting an action franchise like Gears to the more staid and thoughtful pace of turn-based strategy. The absence of a multiplayer sector, which would certainly have given the game an extra boost in terms of replayability and fun, is however almost completely compensated by a cleverly written story-line full of cut-scenes to be left, at times, literally. open-mouthed. The overall quality of the game stands at levels of excellence also thanks to an almost perfect optimization work. The Microsoft Studios title is challenging at the right point but is still able to offer a level of challenge that can be adapted to any type of player. The artificial intelligence of the opponents and the turn-based tactical component, which is the real focus of the game, really work great by diversifying the approaches to the various missions from time to time. Gears Tactics is not a simple clone of other more known or famous turn-based strategy games currently on the market, it is able to positively surprise thanks to the numerous innovations it offers and more. Gears Tactics also manages to wisely amalgamate two very different videogame genres, revealing one of the most beautiful unexpected surprises on PC this year.
► Gears Tactics is a Strategy-Tactical game developed by Splash Damage and published by Black Tusk Studios for PC and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 28/04/2020
