I'll be the first to admit that it's been a long time since I've played a Gears of War game, the last one being GOW 3 and that was back in 2012 so my familiarity has most likely been affected but even then there's a lot to be said about Reloaded.
Gears of War was a franchise that rocked the boat of the 6th Generation of consoles, being a flagship entry for the 360, Gears of War thrusts you into a grim future war that I could best described as unrelenting and unforgiving. My first entry was the second game which led me to wanting to get a 360, going as far as to get the Gears dual pack featuring the first and second, and I still have a lot of hard coded memories about both to say that Reloaded is definitely missing something.
Ignoring all the negative reviews which mentioned a lot of issues I wanted to experience this with a neutral perspective and by god I don't know what The Coalition was doing while remastering this, but it just feels like Gears of War in only appearance, and not fully in spirit. For the most part the game still has that signature cover shooter system that it was remembered for, which is vastly accelerated thanks to the mouse and keyboard support, with me going as far as to almost neglect staying in cover unless really needed, it felt great zipping my crosshairs from target to target with expert precision, with the Longshot Sniper feeling the most rewarding - and pair that with GoW's notorious reloading system it really adds a great sense of tension when you gotta reload for you only to fumble it, leaving you exposed. This in itself is pure Gears of War but my praise pretty much ends there.
The biggest complaints I have with this game is hit registration, the lazy upscale of the visuals, inconsistent controls, the HORRENDOUS partner AI, and an almost prevalent sensitization of the tone. To make one thing clear, this IS the original Gears of War story, nothing appeared to be removed but there were times where I would go to YouTube and compare segments of this re-release to the original, and it just felt almost night and day.
The original Gears of War's presentation was that of a washed out, oppressive world on the bring of total collapse from generational wars to the most recent conflict with the opposing side, The Locusts, it was bloody, in your face, and it really made you feel like a hopeless soldier fighting a conflict with no foreseeable end, hell the advertisements using Gary Jule's cover of "Mad World" emphasized this feeling. Reloaded? It ditches the washed out oppressiveness for a warmer color pallet and not to be an art snob but when you use warm tones, it creates a more welcoming atmosphere, this one singular change guts the feeling of the original, at points it felt like I was playing Bulletstorm, a game with a similar art direction but with a setting that's more coastal to match a tourist like apocalypse not a gritty war scenario.
The moments that really suffered from it the most were some of the most shocking moments such as the death of Carmine, the first Berserker fight, the Death of Kim, they just lacked any real sense of horror, feeling more like an edited highlight reel for an early Machinima, that this can easily be ignored I suppose, but why do all of the character models look so waxy? And Anya's completely new model which for the most part I can ignore except for her obnoxiously bright hair which immediately broke my focus, it just feels like this was crudely up-scaled for the sake of appearing egregiously "cinematic", and at one point I started to assume AI was used for the cutscenes, because of Dom's "Maria" tattoo appearing to say "Halta", speaking of Dom...
I know he died in the third game but Jesus man did y'all miss a step in "resurrecting" him? Because he fights like a Lobotimite, he never uses cover, often running headfirst into fights without a shred of self-preservation, and I honestly thought that maybe since it's been so long since I played the original that maybe he always fought like this, but no, that's not the case, I compared his functions to old footage of the original and not only did he seem capable but infinitely more reliable, this isn't the first game developed by The Coalition, so Ai cannot be foreign to them - it laughable how incompetent he acts.
But the BIGGEST problem I noticed half-way through was the hit registration. To clarify I played the game on Normal due to it being my first time playing this in a minute, but I recall the weapons being significantly more impactful and accurate. The Gnasher Shotgun use to be a certified insta-gib at point blank range, and now it just knocks them over, with two follow-up shots being required to gib them on NORMAL.
Enemies on turrets have their heads exposed so that you can easily pop them, which originally was rewarding for people that got the hang of trailing targets and landing headshots, but with the SNIPER RIFLE I couldn't hit them unless my cross-hair was slightly off to the side not even ON the target, so you'd wonder, oh the grenades will solve this, but NO, it doesn't the grenade could be 4 feet next to them and it does NOTHING, it literally needs to be right at their feet to do something and this rule applies to the BOOMSHOT, the freaking rocket launcher has a weird AoE where splash damage is ALWAYS inconsistent, so much so that I fired at least three in the vicinity of four targets only for it to gib ONE with splash damage and it's laughable how a heavy weapon can't even perform splash damage.
When I was manning the Troika turret ZOOMED in on the upper body and head barely any reaction was given, how do you cuck simple hit registration so badly that I don't even want to attempt the game on harder difficulties, the read flag that really sealed the deal on this inconsistency was the Boltok revolver, a literal mini sniper rifle known for it's headshot power take 3-4 shots to the head on NORMAL just to drop a grunt, not to mention the Lancer's chainsaw can be delayed and inconsistent as well, I could chainsaw 2-3 three guys back to back just for it to start refusing to rev up, again confirming with the original this inconsistency never happened either, so again what reason do I have to play this game on harder difficulties when the weapons aren't programmed reliably?
And lastly to coincide with the complete change in the visuals, where the hell is all the blood? It feels like the blood was also downsized, like yeah there's still grizzly dismemberment, with the new added touch of blood clinging to your weapons and character model, but it just feels downsized, missing a lot of the graphic punch that made Gears of War so popular, I know it may come off as nitpicky but for a game titled as "Reloaded" they certainly didn't time it correctly because this just feels like a jammed misfire, it was an ok romp for the most part that I feel would have been significantly improved with a friend but it just feels like the a lot of the soul that made the series so memorable is just missing.
I could forgive the hit detection if it was patched but it doesn't seem like this will receive any further updates to improve it which is a shame.
