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Gears Tactics Review: XCOM Meets Gears of War
It'll surprise some Gears of War fans to learn that the world of the traditionally third-person cover shooter transfers really well into the squad tactics space, and anyone familiar with the Microsoft first-party series will feel right at home in Gears Tactics from the start. The bleak, us-against-them tone, visual distinctness of war-torn planet Sera, and gratuitous gore are all here (though the lattermost is optional, if squeamish players so choose). It walks a well-struck balance of not insulting franchise veterans while still providing first-timers enough context to not get lost at its outset, introducing enough of the pre-Gears of War 1 phase of the brutal Locust War without resorting to an exhaustive level of exposition.
A fine addition to the Xbox Play Anywhere lineup, Gears Tactics is the best-looking squad tactics games on PC and Xbox One X. That goes doubly for high-end PCs, where max textures, lighting, and shadows settings produce gorgeous results that easily make it one of the most alluring games in the franchise. Splash Damage's expertise and preference for the more powerful platform are felt throughout the experience, and the PC port is definitely the better choice for players with options. That superiority is felt to a fault when playing on console or PC with a gamepad, however, as it feels clunkier to play than even the first XCOM without a keyboard and mouse handy. Moreover, while it runs exceptionally well on mid-to-high-end PCs and, presumably, the One X, original Xbox One and One S players' time won't be as jaw-dropping.
As for actual Gears Tactics gameplay, it's fun and punchy Gears of War fare from an all-new top-down perspective, but players well-versed in squad tactics will find it doesn't offer much in the way of anything groundbreaking beneath its well-executed franchise veneer. Combat is the name of the game, bundled into the expected disparate mission and level format, and it's all mostly genre standard stuff. Story and side missions will variously task players' squad of up to four Gears with moving from point A to B (and often back to A) in hostile Locust territory, clearing areas of enemies, rescuing imprisoned COG soldiers, defending control points, and more.
A lot is borrowed in Gears Tactics, but that's not a bad thing by any stretch of the mind. Five classes, Support, Vanguard, Heavy, Scout, Sniper, provide a wealth of tactical options and synergy opportunities against a sometimes insurmountable foe, and it feels like XCOM with a few gritty Gears of War twists. Cover is the basis of the mainline series, and that's equally true in this ambitious spinoff, with some added destructibility of certain weaker objects like boxes and sandbags. It may offer few innovations, but those that it does are thanks to is unique source material. Locust Drones can be downed and revived just like friendlies, emergence holes not cleared out with grenades spawn more grubs, and the game's one of the most mindful of its 3D environments in the genre, especially regarding obstructions and verticality.
Its greatest offering is its brilliant take on the well-worn overwatch mechanic, which expends all of a soldier's remaining AP (with at least 3 being given each unit every turn) in exchange for the ability to cover squadmates, reserving one shot for spotted enemies per AP allotted. What sets Gears Tactics' overwatch apart from the crowd, though, is its spatial nature, forcing players to highlight a lane of a length and in a direction of their choosing. This not only encourages players to anticipate from where they want to defend against assault, but also allows them to prevent their units from taking unintended potshots at the wrong enemy unit and leaving their allies exposed. Along with Sniper Locust that pin down friendly units, enemies are similarly eager to box vulnerable Gears using overwatch until killed or interrupted.
It's a fun adaption of mostly old and a little new into something any tactics player will enjoy as much as the uninitiated fan who just want more Gears of War after the most recent entry's controversies. That former group of masochists will surely be looking for punishment, and Gears Tactics has them covered. There are four difficulties, with the Insane option being just as delightfully painful as in the main series. However, XCOM popularized the Ironman mode for the squad tactics genre, (wherein squad perma-death is enabled, missions can't be restarted, and saves auto-wipe after a Gear bites the dust), and fans of meaningful fail states will be glad to know that Ironman is present here and can be used to modify playthroughs of any difficulty, rather than cruelly reserving it exclusively for Insane.
Unfortunately, series staple bosses, like the hulking Brumak and Corpser, tip things a little too far in the direction of repetitiveness. Those fights thankfully have the phases and adds that players would expect, but the main, set-piece foes feel like overly absorbent bullet sponges for the sake of it. Conversely, the normal enemy AI is far from the brightest in the genre, and they're often oddly okay with waging a war of attrition in overwatch rather than aggressively pushing and flanking like one would expect of the vicious Locust Horde. This may be conjecture, but it also seems like hit chance percentages are similarly fuzzed in the player's favor when at thresholds around 50 percent and up, but it's hard to tell when the game still relies on RNG mechanics that titles Into the Breach made feel obsolete years ago.
There are some small annoyances that start to become more apparent as Gears Tactics long campaign unfolds, such as some common camera quirks and stiffness, protagonist Gabe Diaz's mind-numbing tendency to audibly re-read mission briefs after a squad wipe, and character quips repeating every other time a unit's selected. However, those and other little nuisances pale in comparison to the game's droning sense of pace. Encounters feel like they drag on for ages thanks to an an inability to speed up or skip to the end of enemy turns and friendly buff animations that take too long to complete, and the overarching story is an even worse offender. Its first act is really an extended 5-10 hour tutorial, characters are uninteresting and hard to get invested in, and the plot doesn't exactly amaze six mainline entries in.
Although the somewhat contrived story is a convenient excuse to bring Gears of War to the well-fitting tactics genre, squad progression and incredibly generous customization will keep most players engaged for the long haul. The Convoy is the mission hub and unit barracks, where players recruit, upgrade, and personalize their Gears. As in similar titles, Gears Tactics allows players to rename units (just not the special hero characters that drive the story), outfit them with stat-adjusting armor pieces and weapon parts collected from battlefield Supply Cases, and specialize each of them into numerous subclasses using skill points. Unlike other modern games, however, it offers robust color, texture, and pattern customization options for almost everything a Gear carries or wears, and it doesn't charge a dime for even the coolest options.
It's probably not the best turn-based squad tactics game ever nor the best Gears of War title out there, but Gears Tactics is an impressively solid adaptation of the beloved Xbox franchise, proving that The Coalition is capable of bringing out the best in the couch co-op classic while continuing to take risks. Although its pacing leaves something to be desired and it borrows as many genre ills as it does strengths, Gears Tactics is mechanically and thematically engaging from the start of its long campaign to its end, and it does its inspirations justice. It isn't far from inaccessible to newcomers while also taking care to pay respect to veterans of the franchise and other squad tactics games, and fans of both will be absolutely enamored with Gears Tactics.
