The game starts off with Baird and his members of Kilo Squad being brought in for a COG military tribunal, where Colonel Ezra Loomis is the judge, jury, and possible executioner. The story proceeds by having each member of Kilo Squad recall the events that led them to use a Lightmass Missile without authorization. Through this narrative, the player is put in control of Baird, Gears veteran Augustus Cole AKA the Cole Train, Onyx Guard cadet Sofia Hendrick, and UIR ex Major Garron Paduk. Each character tells a bit of their back story as you progress through the level, and offers some side narrative on the war.
Unlike the larger, open levels of the previous Gears entries, Judgement has a tight and fairly linear map design for its campaign. Also new to the campaign, Judgement includes a scoring system based on stars, you get more stars by clearing the level faster, getting more kills and executions, as well as not going into a downed state. As an extra incentive to getting stars, you can get more unlockable content like weapon and character skins for multiplayer. As a way to get more stars, the player is given the choice to go on a declassified mission, which adds more of a challenge to the campaign by adding extra objectives. These objectives range from clearing a section within a time limit, only using specific weapons, and conditional modifiers like low visibility. This adds a bit of replay value to the campaign, although the declassified missions can be skipped and add little to the story.
Also new to Judgement is the new game mechanics, such as a new control scheme which is reminiscent of first-person shooters like the Call of Duty franchise. Although an awkward fit at first, the new controls allow for an increase in speed, leading into a much more fast paced action that remains fluid throughout. Another change to the old system, you can now roll down from any open space in the map. Although this does not seem like a big change, it completely changes engages by not hindering player movement as much. In previous Gears games, you had to stop your fast roadie run/roll, and walk to hop down from any small ledge. This tended to disrupt the flow of battle and often resulted in a death or two, as well as some players using the ledge hop to camp out their opponents. These changes do not really affect the campaign, but instead brings some wanted changes to the aging multiplayer portion.
Multiplayer in Gears of War Judgement is a new beast to for those veteran Gears players, with some new modes and variations of classics, as well as making the multiplayer COG vs COG teams instead of Locust enemies. Starting out, some players may want to visit the single player of this game to get used to the new controls, as hopping straight into the battlefield may result in some humiliating deaths. The new modes, like Free For All, add a bit of strategy as some modes only let you use one main weapon, a pistol, and 2 grenades. With this change, the player is made to choose if they want the safety of the Gnasher and Sawed-Off shotguns for those close encounters, or if they want to be more of a ranged attacker with the Lancer, Hammerburst, Retro Lancer, and the new semi-automatic rifle, the UIR Markza. Other modes like Team Deathmatch or Domination still have the standard rifle+shotgun loadout. This run of the Gears multiplayer also got rid of Horde and Beast mode, and instead combined them into Over Run. Over Run is the new Horde/Beast mode in which teams of 4 COG players defend 3 objectives and 4 Locust players try to take them. COG players can still set up defenses like in Horde mode, while Locust members can set up their attack with different combinations of Locust creatures like the Mauler, Ticker, Grenadier, and Kantus.
Overall I enjoyed the multiplayer much more than the campaign, which is saying a lot since I equally enjoyed the Single/Multiplayer of Gears of War 1, 2, & 3. The campaign really made the entire game seem like it could have been a single disk expansion or upgrade, although the graphics were improved over Gears 3. For full price, this game is definitely not worth the money, as I actually borrowed this game after careful consideration of buying. The multiplayer is pretty fun, but at the same time it feels like it needed more maps, since the standard rotation gets boring quickly. I would say borrow the game, rent, or get it a cheap price if you must play the newest Gears entry, otherwise, this game can be easily overlooked.
Final Score: 2.5/5
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