My ego was shattered when I failed in the second mission of Gears Tactics. That was when I sat up and really took it seriously.
This turn-based tactical combat game has many similarities in gameplay to the XCOM series, the other heavy-hitter of this genre. The similarities include getting close to the enemy and flanking to improve your chance to hit, and staying behind cover to reduce the enemy’s chances of hitting you.
But there are a few key differences. For one thing, each soldier is limited to three action points a turn in this game, whereas XCOM gives players two action points a turn. But this means the winning play for both games is the same – find ways to get more action points.
Gears Tactics is heavily focused on a military tactic called overwatch, in which one unit supports another while the latter is executing combat movement. Your squad of four will be heavily outnumbered and you will need this tactic – by switching to the Overwatch mode – to win.
In this mode, your counter-fire will interrupt your enemies’ action and stop them in their tracks. If you must attack, make sure to go in with chainsaws and bayonets blazing. These weapons will usually kill the enemy with a single strike – unlike shooting with guns, which can take two to four hits to kill one tough monster.
Enemies do not always die immediately. Sometimes, they go into a “downed” position. Do not kill them immediately – “save” these downed enemies and wait for their reinforcements to show up. Then, when you execute them, your soldiers get an extra action point and hence more moves to wipe out the enemy.
These melee attacks reward you with some gory graphics.
Also, when you have upgraded your Vanguard and Support heroes – the ones with the bayonets and chainsaws – you can reduce the cooldown time of these melee skills and even get a free attack.
There is a decent storyline. The baddie Ukkon is creating minions and you need to find and kill him. You start with two soldiers and have to hire new recruits and heroes to fill up your roster.
There are five classes – sniper, support, scout, heavy and vanguard – with each having a different weapon class and skills. You get skill points to build your skills tree as you level up your soldiers, whom you can customise to make them more focused on specific disciplines.
You can also make soldiers more powerful to find better equipment such as armour and gun upgrades to enable more skills and buffs.
The graphics are amazing and worthy of the Gears Of War franchise. Kudos to Microsoft for making its first squad-based tactics game a decent one.
FOR
• Worthy first Gears Of War tactical game
• Triple AAA graphics with movie-like cutscenes
• Some innovative combat mechanics
AGAINST
• Differentiation between different classes is not strong
• Too many repetitive missions
• Too many inconsequential gear upgrades to manage
SPECS
PRICE: $74.90 (PC, via Steam) or free with Xbox Game Pass subscription; Xbox One version to be released later
GENRE: Turn-based tactical combat
RATING: 7.5/10
But after playing for 30 hours, I found the action repetitive.
There were just too many side quests. Looting for gear upgrades was awesome at first, but it became meaningless after a while as there were just too many inconsequential gear upgrades to manage. The only game-changing items to collect were the very limited legendary ones.
Unlike XCOM: Chimera Squad, which focuses on precise battle moves, Gears Tactics spends more time on storytelling and it feels like you are exploring vast areas instead of trying to take out enemies in a confined space.
It depends on what makes you tick.
For me, I struggled to keep playing Gears Tactics and found myself going back again and again to Chimera.
• Oo Gin Lee is a former tech editor of The Straits Times and a die-hard fan of the turn-based tactical combat game genre.
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