Gears Tactics Initial Impressions

Hello Everyone!

I just started playing the recently released Gears Tactics, my first foray into the Gears of War franchise So I want to share my first impressions and, when possible, to make a comparison with Firaxis' vanilla XCOM2.

• Gears Tactics has 5 classes (Heavy, Scout, Snioper, Support and Vanguard) and each one has, for lack of a better term, 4 "skill paths". E.g. the protagonist Gabe Diaz (seen below) is a Support character and you can choose to develop him towards either Combat Medic, Paragon, Strategist or Surgeon, and yes, you can buy skills from any of these paths, given you have the pre-requisite(s) and the required number of skill points to do so.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Instead of the traditional "Auto Detect Graphics" button, the game has a benchmark tool you can launch in order to see how your PC will perform (you can see below my results screen). If you're into this kind of thing, the whole "video settings" menu is quite extensive. As an added nice touch, the game sports its own built-in FPS counter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The Act 1 Chapter 1 works as game tutorial and it is lengthier and more freeform than the XCOM2's on-rails one.
  
  
• You can find cases (like the one below) which will reward you with items that will improve your equipment.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The first big change you'll notice when compared to XCOM2 is that Gears Tactics uses a 3 Action Points system which you can split between Move, Shoot and/or Skill using, in any order you want (XCOM2 has only 2 APs). Also, in Gears Tactics shooting or thowing a grenade usually doesn't end your Soldier's turn. If one of our soldiers performs a finisher move called Execution on a downed enemy all of our other teammates (i.e. everyone else except for the soldier who performed the Execution) are granted +1 bonus AP for that turn only, which is very nice because our soldiers' number of AP may end up increasing by a few points in a given round.
  
  
• Your soldiers have an unlimited number of resources (e.g. frag grenades) and skill uses (e.g. healing a partner) but be warned: the game has a lenghty cooldown between uses. So, use them with caution
  
  
• Overwatch is another big change between Gears Tactics and XCOM2. Here, overwatch is a cone-shaped area (see below) and the enemy has to step into this cone or perform an action within it for overwatch to trigger, and it will trigger once per remaining number of APs that the soldier has left when entered overwatch state. So always pay attention to the number of shots left in the overwatching soldier's magazine as well as the Action Points he/she still has left.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Be aware that overwatch is also used a lot by Locust enemies. Just by simply damaging an enemy doesn't automatically interrupt its overwatching state. There are specific shots aimed to take an enemy out of her overwatch state and some classes have specific skills that doesn't trigger it (e.g. Scout's Cloak ability).
  
  
• A pity Gears Tactics doesn't have the slow-mo cam when overwatch is triggered like XCOM2 does. I never got tired to see my XCOM2 soldiers shooting in overwatch mode while the whole scene goes slow-motion.
  
  
• Unfortunately (for me, at least) Gears Tactics lacks any base management. Yes, you read it correctly: no base building, no researchs etc. But in return, I found its combat much more tactical than XCOM2's.
  
  
• For you lovers of timed objectives, Act 1 Chapter 3 brings the first one (which is perfectly doable, I still had 3 turns left - I'm playing the game in Experienced difficulty level).

All in all, I liked the major improvements that Gears Tactics brought over XCOM2. No, don't get me wrong, I'm still a huge fan of XCOM2 but there's no denying that the 3 Action Points system (where just by simply shooting won't end your soldier's turn) and the cone-shaped overwatch (no more firings all across the entire map with near-zero chances to hit an enemy) are a welcome breath of fresh air in the tactical aspect of combat.

So, if you're a fan of this kind of game I can't help but recommend it. Yeah, I know its price is too steep and I wouldn't buy it if not for a huge discount, but if you're subscribed to Xbox PC Game Pass (as I am) make your subscription worth your money and go play it right now.

Best served hearing Rolling Stones' Paint It Black

[Edit: included bullet point about timed mission]

Thank you for your first impressions, henriquejr!

Well, some of that is in XCOM. Snipers can overwatch in a cone, skirmishers can shoot-then-move, and so on. You can get some cross training, too. I get what you mean, though.

XCOM could definitely use some overwatch help, though. I was having some fun last night dropping Lost lures on Advent but my soldiers kept picking Lost off of them!

henriquejr said:

I never got tired to see my XCOM2 soldiers shooting in overwatch mode while the whole scene goes slow-motion.

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I hear that!

(using Long War mod)

Zloth said:

Well, some of that is in XCOM. Snipers can overwatch in a cone, skirmishers can shoot-then-move, and so on. You can get some cross training, too. I get what you mean, though.

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Zloth, I purposefully wanted to compare Gears Tactics to vanilla XCOM2 because I have yet to play XCOM2 with War of the Chosen enabled. I don't know XCOM2 WotC new classes, new classes skills etc, I have this expansion in my library but I haven't touched it (and yeah, I know I should )

What I wrote in the OP was like: in Gears Tactics every class by defaut does cone-shaped overwatch and can shoot-run-shoot or shoot-shoot-shoot etc, whereas in vanilla XCOM2 (again, in vanilla XCOM2), a soldier must meet a pre-req if he/she wants to do so (e.g. Ranger's Run and Gun ability).

Specifically speaking of Action Points, I never understood why XCOM2 took this "if you soldier shoots then her turn is over" road. After all, if I have 2 APs why can't I normally shoot + run, or shoot + shoot? At first, I was kinda confused by this design but then I got used to it and I came to enjoy the IMHO great game XCOM2 is. But I do acknowledge that Gears Tactics' 3 AP system, the way it is implemented, it's an evolution over XCOM2.

<shrug> Why can a bishop only move diagonally in chess and a rook only move along the grain? Because that choice limitation makes you have to think about what piece you should be putting where and it makes it possible to think about what your opponent will do, too. Imagine if you played a game of chess where each side had one king and 15 queens!

And yes, of course you need to play War of the Chosen! It adds a bunch to the game. (Even if the chosen do prattle on way too much.)

Remains to be seen the appreciation of boss battles.

ChienAboyeur said:

Remains to be seen the appreciation of boss battles.

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I'm in the beginning of Act 1 Chapter 4 and I didn't battle any boss yet. Should I fight the first one, I can post my impressions here.

[Edited the OP to include another bullet point ]

ChienAboyeur said:

Remains to be seen the appreciation of boss battles.

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I've won my first boss battle, ChienAboyeur. Avoiding spoilers here, right off the bat I kinda guessed what kind of boss I'd fight

Right at the start I figured out the strategy I should use in order to take the boss down, although I had to reload the battle to a checkpoint just once because in Gears Tactics your Hero units can't die.

You ask If I did appreciate the boss battle, and I answer you: since I wasn't really expecting anything so much different from what I fought, then I just didn't get frustrated. So yes, I did appreciate it for what it was.

I finally finished the Gears: Tactics campaign. And now I fully understand what ChienAboyeur was saying above regarding "(…) the appreciation of boss battles". The campaign's last mission, as expected, brings another boss encounter. Thing is, if taken alone, all game bosses are easy to be killed (even all of them being bulletsponges). They all have a similar attack pattern which is easy to be outmaneuvered.

What makes those battles really hard, especially the last one, is the ever-incoming influx of Locust reinforcements that keep pouring in. Round after round. Endlessly. I had to restart the last mission like 5 times perhaps. To make things worse, in the last mission our squad is required to be composed of the 4 Heroes that we collect throughout the game. If one of them dies it's game over, baby, and you have to restart from a checkpoint save. This way we can't afford to finish the game if there are casualties.

Even so, I still abide by my words: the conbat is great!! It's fun, tactical, visceral and gory as hell (search Youtube for Gears Tactics Execution Kills to know what I'm talking about). If you're fan of Tactical Squad game, this one is a must!

What now?Well… while Wasteland 3 doesn't come, I'll be doing the Veteran side missions, which open after we finish the game