If the Gears timeline breaks down roughly as Boo! Waah! Bang! Small walls! Bzzz! Splurty! Dom’s dead! Mad World… cry – then Gears Of War: Judgment occurs just after the ‘Boo!’ and slightly before the ‘Waah!’
Halvo Bay the setting. A smallish harbour town referenced frequently in Gears Of War 3 and home of the COG’s Onyx Guard. It's currently being burnt flat by a Locust army led by new bad guy Karn, an uncharacteristically characterless (for the series) Locust boss, notable primarily for his chosen mode of transportation: a giant Corpser replete with gun-encrusted battle-knees.
Gears Of War: Judgment is essentially one long flashback. Current events take place at a military tribunal at which Damon Baird and new compatriots Sophia Hendrick and Garron Parduk (along with returning favourite Augustus Cole), are accused of deliberately disobeying orders, which, as it turns out, they had to in order to get the job done. As a storytelling device it works well in most important respects. In affording Paduk and Hendrick their own testimonies – their own slices of the game as player-character – we receive a crash course in their personalities. Further, Gears Of War: Judgment ’s focus on a more personal storyline lets us concentrate on winning one battle at a time without having to worry about saving the world, which has allowed writers Rob Auten and Tom Bissell to avoid the type of overwrought melodrama we saw in Gears Of War 3.
From a gameplay perspective, things have changed enough to be different, but not enough to negatively affect its Gearsness. The ebb and flow of enemies, placement of cover and the generally accepted stop-and-pop gameplay is changed almost beyond recognition; enemies are randomly generated, flanking is more frequent, and the speed at which the game as a whole runs is roughly a quarter faster than any previous title in the series. Which means you’ll spend less time cowering behind yet another mysteriously erected small wall and more time evading, chainsawing and defending yourself, frequently in panicked, twitch-reflex fashion.
Everything about Gears Of War: Judgment encourages you to play in a more brazen style. Each section, or ‘Testimony’, is split into pieces, each comprising one or two major battles. A three-star system awards points for beating your adversaries in stylish ways. So while sitting in cover and pumping an entire Lancer mag into some distant Grub will win you so few points it’s hardly worth it, by contrast, roadie-running full-pelt at them with intention to upset them point-blank will bump your score swiftly skyward.
Genre/ Third-person shooter Players/ 1-10 Price/ £49.99
