Pure14

Just countering the needless review bombing for an otherwise great trilogy.

As usual meta critic shines with its allowance of review bombing. The game is not a 0, not even close. Reddit babies can't even begin to form constructive criticism it's honestly quite sad. Anyways, the actual game has some highs and some lows. The fundamental gameplay is very fun and screams Battlefield with big moments and chaotic warfare. The maps are big but as long as you actually use the tools at your disposal action is not hard to find. I love the verticality of some of the maps and they are all athestically pleasing. While I thought specialists would ruin the game they might actually be some of the best additions. In terms of abilities they are a mixed bag with some feeling out of place (wall hacks) and others feeling pretty useless but at the same time I've never had the freedom of flying or grappling around the map to get a positional advantage or planting makeshift cover for my squad. It really is fun and only those who refuse to accept change disagree here. But hey, if you don't like a certain aspect of the main MP you don't have to care, Portal solves all your issues. While I think it would benefit from paid hosted servers like older games and I hope that is added, it really does have everything you could ask for. Tons of maps, tons of guns, tons of options. The battle royale ish game mode is OK too. Now on to the negatives, as you can see this is a 6/10 which is just slightly above average so clearly there are issues. Performance is not great, this just needs to be better there is nothing else to say. There is a laundry list of small b7t noticeable features hat have been removed too. Full scoreboard? All chat? Squad changing? There is a whole lot more where that came from and it really does impact the overall experience when you expect a feature that isn't there. Next up is the fact that the base game only has 22 guns, not a whole lot when compared to past entries. With that said, the guns are at least varied and perform in their own niche with lots of attachment options. I guess it beats having 5 guns that do the same thing. Its clear portal is where the other guns went. People also seem to have a problem with the general gunplay. Personally I agree to an extent but not NEARLY as much as some are making it out to be. There is an accuracy penalty for moving and in some situations is extremely frustrating but for the most part is avoidable with smart play and good aim. I won't carry on this list forever but another issue stems from the lack of a class system. Well sort of. There are classes in the game and each specialist is a part of one of those classes but you are allowed to take whichever equipment you want. It means everyone can run around with a rocket launcher (and they do) and you never know who has what. It makes some equipment almost unseen such as ammo or health packs and generally contributes to less overall teamwork on a team wide level. No longer are there dedicated healers and revivers, but instead everyone can revive, which sort makes it so that less people take that job seriously. On the other hand it let's you run whichever gun you want which isn't a bad thing considering the lack of them. Overall, this game has amazing potential and I really think it can get there with support. We know more guns, more specialist and more maps will come for free. There is an nvidia driver releasing on the 19th which should help performance. I imagine a lot of bugs will be fixed by then too. We all know what AAA games are like now. Release first and fix later. And yet, I keep playing because well, it's just fun. Should you accept this is the way it is and buy it anyway? That's your call, I wouldn't blame you for not supporting this practice, especially not the early access overpriced gold edition. Give the trial on EAplay/gamepass a try with some friends and have an open mind. You might be surprised how enjoyable it is despite the issues.

Single Player: As usual, short but good production value and interesting locations. Characters aren't memorable at all and neither is the overall story. Big set pieces and events which dazzle the eyes but lack realism and genuine historic portrayal. Multiplayer: Same old same old. Maps are awful for the most part, everyone uses the same couple of guns. Killstreaks are abysmally boring and rarely useful. Pretty much zero innovation other than a few semi destructible walls. Cheaters already flooding the game. Zombies: This one is just sad. 1 map. No real content. No goals. No easter egg. Simple staples like perks and packapunch have lost their flair. Really gone down hill since BO4. Funny how many bot reviews there are submitting 10's. Someone at Activision must've known this was a stinker.

Ignore the review bombing, it's a shame a game so great will have such a divisive score unless metacritic get their s**t together. This is the PC review ,so half of the current reviews by default should be removed as they falsely review the product. For the record - I would give the base ps4/xbox review a low score, it is quite frankly uplayable, but this isn't the a console review, its a PC review, and that wont change my opinion on how good it is to play. Story is great. Fully voice acted everywhere with some of the highest quality voice acting ive seen, including excellently cast main characters, side quests. average joes on the street. Big bombastic moments with great tension but not afraid to get slow and emotional as well. Gameplay is fairly good but not standout, you wont be buying this game purely for the driving or combat, they are serviceable and fit in nicely, never felt draining to have to drive around or get into a gunfight. Plenty of things to see, conversations to overhear, quests to find and so on. Sidequests and quests and romance options and general role playing elements were definitely highlights, I genuinely couldnt wait for some phone calls or text messages from some of my favourite characters. Some sidemissions in CB2077 could easily pass for a top notch main storyline in some other games so nothing but praise here. Customization is actually very nice. You can spec very hard into a specific role and they are are all definitely viable. Out of all the rpgs ive played this customisation feels fresh and fun, and the combat sequences as well as various skillchecks (be it in combat or out) allow you to roleplay and add depth. I specced as a cold-blooded stealth handgun user, my stealth critical headshots with an iconic upgraded suppressed revolver do thousands of damage per hit, but as soon as s**t hits the fan I turn into a wet noodle and have to rely on other things ive picked up, it actually feels genuine with a good risk reward factor, allowing me to play how I want, and as I said most scenarios allow whatever method you choose to work. Sound is another great aspect, with banging tunes that fit the style, plenty of varied radio stations, lived-in atmospheric sounds like driving in the city at night in the rain, it feels good, and as I said before the voice actor is fantastic. Visuals are ground-breaking - if you have the PC hardwdare to back it up. Thanks to a myriad of options you can fine tune the framerate to visual standard. I played on a 2070 Super + i5 10600k to a stable overclock and managed around 60-80 FPS in heated moments on 1440p Ultra, no raytracing and DLSS on quality. Its absolutely stunning with great views with actual variation in locales, you can definitely tell where youre going based on each districts distinct visual style. Make sure to turn raytracing off unless you can really afford it, and DLSS is a huuuuuge game changer if you have an NVidia card that supports it. There are bugs, no beating around the bush but, whether Im just lucky or they havent really been that annoying, I personally didnt see many issues. Nothing game breaking or progress stopping for sure. The game autosaves frequently if you forget to manual save so if youre in a weird position (like if you fall of a motorcycle and get stuck in a wall on occasion) or seem to have encountered a bug, a quick reload usually does the trick. Some slight animation glitches or t-posing models asserting their dominance.. yeah its a bit of an immersion breaker but thankfully not too frequent either. Some of these bugs im sure would lower the score for others, but theres already been 4 patches since day 1 as of the time of writing (which amount to like 8 GB lol) and im sure they will continue doing their best to make it the best version of the product they can. Again, these issues didnt bother me enough to ruin my enjoyment or lower the score, a great game all in all, though not a mind-blowing revolution of gaming like people hyped it up to be, as im sure most reasonable people expected.

Fair warning. I don't think the game is a 10/10. It's good, real good, but not great. Clearly made by talented professionals with amazing graphics, animations, audio and gunplay. That said, this isn't a review on those aspects of the game. My rating is to counter the review bombing which is quite honestly out of control. This scum tactic to try and bend developers to their knees has to stop. The game is good. And it is a WORK OF FICTION. The Russians portrayed in the game are fictional, they are not real. No one at Infinity Ward hates Russians. In fact there ae likely hundreds of Russians who worked on the game in the first place. You go to beautiful places in Russian in the game, you have a fan favourite character Nikoli. Heck they EVEN completely rewrote a lot of the modern warfare history and made Alasad a Good guy who was a bad guy in the previous games. Please stop bashing the game on what you think it's trying to do because of your selfish agenda. Focus on reviewing the game for what it actually does. Why are there plenty of Russian people who have no issues with the game? None of them feels like their country is under attack. Did everyone forget how the last few COD games had USA villains? Does no one remember how Shepard was one of the best villains in Modern Warfare 2 and he is a high ranking USA official?

I wouldn't dare rate Gears 5 below an 8. I see a bunch of zeros which is simply an insult to the time, money and effort clearly devoted to this game. Graphics are stunning with gorgeous locations and effects, Great care has been taken to animation as motion capture looks great with faces and lip sync good. You will almost never teleport into a vehicle or through a door because dedication has been made to create an immersive experience and there are animations for basically everything you do. Audio is another hit with stellar sound effects that hit all the right notes. Explosions feel impactful and weighty which is exactly what you want in a game with many explosions and chainsaws ripping through flesh. I won't be searching up the sound track because the score itself isn't all that memorable but the intense action scenes and emotional beats are all supported by appropriate music which serve the game well. Voice acting is also top notch here, The story isn't the highlight and this definitely won't replace your narrative driven games but it wasn't really trying to. It's an excuse to bring you to some cool locations and fight some bad guys with big guns, and to that extent it does its job. The plot moves along at a good pace though I personally didn't care all that much for the overall objective. What kept me interested were the characters as they do genuinely bring a smile to your face with the cheesy squad dialogue and they were all unique enough to not instantly forget who they were if they were gone for a few scenes. There were a few emotional moments and choices which didn't fully land but weren't far off. Maybe it's because I haven't played Gears 4 and so i'm not hugely invested in the characters? Either way at the very least it kept me entertained and interested all the way through. Gameplay is absolutely at the top of the class. Almost every shooter mechanic or trope is included here and yet it doesn't feel bloated at all. From powerful, fun guns to environmental hazards. Turret sections to manning your vehicle . Quicktime events to executions and melee combat. There is even stealth and playing as the enemy race. This might sound a bit overdone but it all works out beautifully and never feels in your face. You're not forced to utilise everything in your arsenal but you're encouraged to try them out and have fun. The way they best accomplish this is with your AI companion, Jack. Jack functions unlike your other standard AI squaddies, He still revives you when you go down and zaps bad guys; but has abilities which compliment how you choose to play. He has a few support and assault abilities which can be found and upgraded throughout the campaign via the main story as well as sidequests. These often have multiple uses inside and outside combat. For example is the CLOAK ability. Stealth is a pretty barebones system which basically amounts to going behind an enemy to one-shot execute them as long as they have seen you yet, however with the cloak ability you get to reposition or take out key targets like snipers. Further upgrading it will also let you remain in stealth after performing actions which can keep the stealth kill chain active and severely break down enemy defences. Along with the ability to bypass turrets outside combat, this makes upgrading Jacks abilities very beneficial and I used practically all of them while playing. Co-Op was extremely well done... if you're playing with just one friend. This is because the 3rd player is forced into the aforementioned Robot role. As much as I just praised Jack in the paragraph above, this does not translate well into 3 player co-op. Not only do the two other human players no longer get use any abilities themselves, playing as Jack just isn't very fun. You don't get to play with any of the big guns nor do much direct damage yourself, you are relegated to support it just isn't enough. I see what they were going for here but sadly it does not pan out. Two player co-op on the other hand is simply fantastic. Both players have different perspectives, even in some cutscenes which always kept us communicating and talking about what just happened. I won't get into spoilers here but it's well worth playing the game with a good friend over a voice call. You can share ammo, work together when taking out enemies and bosses and at times get to play out slightly different experiences, like when very early in the game one of you gets trapped in a flaming building and the other has to rescue them. Performance was smooth as butter and I had no frame drops or connection issues playing on co-op the entire way through. There is a suite of customisation and accessibility options here and The Coalition and Microsoft should get nothing but praise for this. Its outstanding. Without jumping into multiplayer I can easily recommend this game. What a great value! Especially since its all available on Game Pass for PC for such little cost. 10/10

What a fantastic game. Didn't delve much into the multiplayer (yet) but rating from the campaign experience alone, what a joy it was. Excellent shooting mechanics, fun guns, insane graphics, great animations, voice work, mocap and locations. Even the vechiles functioned great and the enemies and boss fights are a thrill to kill. Co-op worked really well and the fact that each player has different perspectives all the way through left us talking the whole time about what we just saw. The writing and dialogue was decent and the overall story was fine, nothing hugely new or special but it services the game. A couple of emotional moments and choices to be made but this isn't going to replace your story driven games. At least the characters were really likeable. Would NOT recommend playing with a 3rd friend as the robot job is not a fun one. He is essentially your ability user and helper and has some neat upgrades which give a good reason to do side quests, but having someon play as him the whole time is boring. He functions much much better when the two players can use him as the AI whenever. I see what they were going for with this but it just didn't pan out. Taking control of the robot leaves you lacking with fun things to do - especially shooting people. I played on the PC and had absolutely no performance issues. There are a suite of options to choose from and customization is well beyond what's expected. There are tons of accessibility options which is just amazing to see and even as someone with no problem hearing the descriptive captions were helpful. This is definitely somthing to commend both Microsoft and the Coalition for and they really just made a superbly enjoyable game.