We’re finally getting our first taste of Gears of War 4, and I can’t help but feel they could have done better with the title. Gears of Four? Ge4rs of W4r? They could have gone the Friday the 13th route and called it “The Final Chapter.” But not to worry, concerned publishers, that series spawned eight more sequels and a remake, so you wouldn’t be backing yourself into a corner!
In terms of multiplayer, though, it seems the beta is starting an entirely new chapter for Gears of War, with new ideas and innovations to alter the way it’s played.
Right off the bat, Dodgeball. The concept is brilliant: 5v5, each player has one life. But when you kill an enemy, one of your teammates gets to come back in, a lot like … you guessed it … dodgeball.
Having played a lot of shooting games in my lifetime, I don’t remember anything quite like this, and it may be the best idea for a game mode to hit shooters since Infection. That being said, I wish it had the capacity for more people. Even though Gears 4 takes a “best-of-five” approach, games still feel too short and they lack the marathon back-and-forth appeal the mode seems to promise.
As for innovation, I’m still waiting for the new maneuvers to really kick in. For all the talk about what they’re doing to change the way players use cover, I’ve seen zero Yank and Shanks, one Vault Kick, and one successful use of the Drop Shot. I’m certain this can and will be altered as time goes on to make them more viable, but they’re currently not as game-changing as advertised.
And that reflects an overall disappointment in the multiplayer thus far: it’s still just Gears of War. People are still running around with Gnasher Shotguns for short range, Ranger for long range, while ducking for cover at every opportunity. Four games in, I was hoping for a bit more variety.
I also can’t get my head around why the individual game modes are separately ranked. Are the skill sets for Team Deathmatch and Dodgeball really that different that I have to play five placement matches in each before the game has an idea of how good a player I am? Admittedly, that’s a nitpick, but a head-scratching one.
Now I wouldn’t be doing the readers justice if I didn’t talk about the elephant in the room: technical issues. While developers can usually get a free pass for beta problems, since so much is constantly changing and still being worked on.
But, holy crap!, was this hard to play. I experienced a bug where the entire visual world would, with the exception of on-screen indicators and the ground, would pop in and out every two seconds. Try shooting someone who disappears and reappears as he approaching you. Better yet, try chasing someone down when you don’t know exactly where the cover is.
I was able to temporarily fix this issue with a simple re-install, but it was back with a vengeance the following day, along with the inability to matchmake without the game freezing. Hopefully, your experience with the open beta will be much better.
Despite delaying this piece because of these bugs, I’m still not convinced I got the full experience, but the only people to blame for that are the developers. Overall, Gears of War 4 has a lot of intriguing additions that I hope can make a bigger impact as time goes on.
