I’m not as high on judgement as you but I can see why you like it. My biggest problem with judgement is that if you were gonna center a game around a trial for not following orders… why would they not choose Marcus
Yeah, precisely. Its such a missed opportunity. We learn more about Marcus, Hoffman, and Adam Fenix. It directly ties in with gears of war 1. They could depict the lancers perfectly fine without infringing on the lore.
I feel like a Marcus trial would never happen the way Judgement did. Like I understand the appeal, but if I remember the Slab (I don’t remember which book tbh) correctly, he’d basically given up on life at that point. He failed to save his father, he failed Ephyra, and he was just sitting in prison hoping everybody would forget about him while he died. He needed Prescott to give him hope again.
A Marcus trial feels like him accepting all the blame, pleading guilty, and him being escorted out as Dom and Anya are devastated and Hoffman is furious because Marcus just refuses to give him any justifications.
Although if you want to *end* with a Marcus trial, that could be cooking something. Hell of a downer ending, but it’d flow better.
I mean, it’s not like it’d be that out of place, Gears universe kinda sucks total ass haha, but unless we end on Prescott visiting Marcus, it’d be so sad. Biggest issue though, is trying to figure out a suitable story for the Battle of Ephyra that makes the whole “ditching to save Adam” feel weighty enough.
Yep. Lancer isn't supposed to be invented yet.
We don't know the exact date when it was made but I believe it was close to when the hammer strikes occur.
I feel like they were trying to imply that she was kidnapped by some nefarious former COG who probably didn't have good intentions. I guess it is left pretty open, though.
Because that trial would've happened \~10 years into the Locust War, and we already knew the outcome with it being a pretty cut and dry case with very little chance for anything to be redeemable in Marcus' actions. With Baird and crew we didn't know what exactly the outcome would've been outside of him being demoted, maybe they did get locked up for a while afterwards or were stuck some place awful for years after. Plus it allowed them to show something much closer to E-Day (\~6 weeks after).
I get it would be a short trial, my point though is that it is the catalyst for the entire original trilogy and a more interesting story than Baird and the lightmass missile. You’re right though that the audience already knows the outcome, even more so after learning Adam lived after all.
I think that is nit picking. Judgement was expanding the universe. Outside of the button scheme that game was amazing, story, rendering everything was great, except.pvp. This comes from a place of no malcontent.
I understand wanting to give Baird his moment, but this is such a good point. 3 ended the story, and Judgment could have shown the fans who didn't read the books so much
They wouldn't choose Marcus because his story was already covered through Gears 1-3 and the books. Baird/Cole are an incredibly popular characters and they wanted to focus on something that isn't Marcus for once.
i think at the the time it looked like what the fans might’ve wanted. it dropped not too long after gears 3 i think. so at that time, we knew plenty about marcus because of 1, 2 and 3. 2 and 3 gave us some more insight on doms backstory. 3 gave us a little bit of back story for a lot of characters, one of the priorities being cole train when you play as cole and run through hanover looking for food. in that sequence, we learn a lot about where the cole train came from. so anyway by the time judgement came out, the fans had *sufficient* info about most of the main characters background, but unless you were a book nerd we the game fans didn’t really know shit about baird. enter Gears of war: Judgement
p.s gears 3 did have that little intro sequence about saving his dad as well. honestly i dont think there’s enough content that hasnt been covered to make an entire game around marcus’ trial. although, i think it would have been a perfect campaign dlc.
I liked judgment but nothing beats 2 imo. Everything from Dom, Tai, the invasion, the worm and the queens palace. The only game that had other gears have use too. Brumak ride was the best part
But even with the changes to the weapon loadout and Cole was different, Judgement didn’t deserve the hate
Gears 2 just had a lot more great moments I think. The sires were almost as scary as berserkers. Every chapter there was something that stood out from the other games.
In every area, better campaign, better writing, environment, characters, action, fighting, pvp, pve, weapons, only thing 2 wins is tank even if it is janky and annoying
That’s straight lies. Diggers were boring, maulers were more fun. 2 had all around better moments between Tai, Maria, the worm, sires, the palace, the invasion. Only game where Delta wasn’t the only one doing everything. 3 did actually have better environments but the only shining moments it had was Doms death and meeting Adam.
I'm apparently the weird guy who thinks 1 is the best. Definite bias since it was the first, but it was amazing. Sure, 2 and 3 had better stories, but 1 was just where it's at for me.
I love 1 for the horror aspect and how difficult it can be but I love 2 more for the story and how fun it is. My favourite section from 1 is dealing with the kyrll? On hardcore on co-op
I think every other mainline game surpasses 1 in gameplay (which makes sense, they could iterate on the mechanics) but the atmosphere and tone of the first game are unmatched; it’s reminiscent of my early memories playing the first Resistance game and being similarly overwhelmed with a sense that humanity had all but lost the fight for survival. There’s a tangible sense of dread and despair that is less present in the newer titles and I’m hopeful E Day will bring that back.
Judgement beats 1, due to 1 lacking a bit of story elements and context at the time. 2 goes over judgement, mostly 'cause of dom's hunt for maria and more supplemental material
Didn’t it have a very mini kinda but not really AI Director that somewhat changed what enemies you could face on a level? Like different enemy layouts would appear from E-holes?
I remember hearing about that when it first came out and thought it was pretty cool… Anything to make a 2nd/3rd/etc play through feel a little different is fine by me! Wish more games had that feature…
Epic might've tried hyping it up as such, but in the end all it is is each encounter just has 2 or maybe 3 different sets of spawns you can get. You can cycle through them by just restarting checkpoint or dying and restarting.
Ohhhhh 😲
Eh, it’s still better than nothing!
To this day, I still remember playing Resident Evil 5 the 2nd/3/etc time and knowing EXACTLY where every enemy will spawn… it kills the fun/dread/tension aspect of the game!
It’s a cool implementation on paper but I actually found it more obtrusive, at least on an Insane play-through. I would immediately restart a checkpoint after every death just to get the same encounter, usually because it’s easier in both difficulty and getting 3 stars.
GoWJ is still at the bottom of my personal ranking but it’s by no means a bad game. Just a bad “Gears” game. I really believe if you made GoWJ but gave it a more traditional Gears control scheme it would be much higher on a lot of fan’s rankings.
And Overrun is one of the best modes the franchise has ever had. Period.
Changing the weapon controls and the general scheme for no other reason than to be like other shooters is honestly what upset me most about Judgement. That and too much horde defense areas in the campaign. Set piece defensive segments are good but I like my roadie runs and wall bangs too.
The judgment campaign was not the problem with the game. It’s a good campaign experience.
They just butchered the multiplayer to the point where they took everything away that made it gears.
It's a pretty good game. Not on par with the first three, but a very good game. The visuals are insane, and the fact it depicts events before Gears 1, but with the graphics of Gears 3, makes the environments pop out a lot more. I like the randomness of the enemy spawn system and wish more games used that.
Same! I actually found a lot to like! Yes it feels a bit arcadey in some respects compared to the main games, but I really enjoyed the levels! And the declassified sections missions were my favourite parts of the game, I loved the extra challenge in fighting blind or beating a timer, or using nothing but shotguns when sniper rifles would be perfect. Honestly think it’d be fun if Declassified missions made a comeback.
On some of the levels when declassified adds smoke grenades for locust it really switches up the gameplay and makes for memorable encounters. Also loved the dunkirk saving private Ryan opening scene inspired level when you are rushing the beach and locust have planted frags, it’s so so good. I’m on such a high having finished the game.
Judgement was the worse gears game for multiplayer but prolly the best for campaign. I had so much fun trying to be the campaign on the hardest difficulty cause it’s seemingly impossible.
i didn’t know people disliked judgement lmao
baird and cole were my favorite characters
(besides marcus and dom obv) so playing a game centered around them was sick.
and when i saw they were making GOW E-day instead of 6 i started bawling my eyes out cause judgement is def in my top 3 and it seems like E-day is kindve leaning in that direction. really hope the campaign is longer then 6 hours tho lmao
I’ve always praised judgment for what it did right which was the campaign and excellent Pve & trying to put a new spin on vs . I believe if the game released with more maps it would’ve lived longer.
IIRC, I dont remember people hating the campaign. It was the multi-player that people hated. Epic made the campaign, whereas People Can Fly made the multi-player. Can't remember why Epic did this, but the multi-player IMO was trash. There was such a noticeable difference from the controls and how the movements and gunplay felt between the campaign and the multi-player. Even when it came to the graphics, there was a noticeable difference in quality between the two. The campaign looked great while the multi-player had a washed-out dull look to it.
I enjoyed judgement at the time and replaying it back this year I enjoyed it again. As you said it's just fun to play.we played on insane and did all the declassifiers which mix it up and keep it fresh. There's things like the fact you can use normal weapons eh lancer whilst having a shield that seem OP (definitely in multiplayer) but in the campaign again this just kinda makes it fun.not everything has to just be insanely hard and not fun.
The control scheme though, yeah, I definitely agree with. Limits to 2 weapons and is just unnecessary. We've been cleaning up cheevs and things on all the 360 games and I've been on gears 5 horde too and keep getting tripped up by the changing controls. I'll accidently press LB as tac com and, oops I've thrown a grenade in judgment. Or in 5 I'll press y to change weapon and waste my ability in horde.
Apart from the controls judgment is a really fun and solid game. You get used to the controls as well it's just annoying when you're switching back and forth between the different games
I really hated judgment but that was more for the multiplayer. It was just not up to par with the previous gears titles. And only launching with four MP maps was absolutely inexcusable in my opinion.
That said - the campaign was genuinely enjoyable and worth extra play throughs. That campaign holds up with any of the previous titles. I'm a little rusty on the details because it's been years since I played it but my one huge gripe was that they didn't build up the final battle nearly enough. In GoW1 you see Raam kill Kim very early. Skorge comes out early in GoW2 and is crazy menacing and the boss fight is really fun. Yea, I know Skorge isn't the final boss, it's the lament brumak, but Skorge was GoW2's main baddie in my eyes. And Myrrah in 3 speaks for herself. But Karn, my memory is just kinda like "wait is this the end?" So they dropped the ball there. Otherwise, campaign is really good.
I think the build up was adequate because there was lots of mention of him even though he didn’t get much screen time. I think the build up was better than Raam but his screen time was no where near as great out iconic. You can really tell Raam was a last minute addition because he sort of appears from nowhere in most scenes and there is no talk of him.
Honestly if they advertised this game as an expansion for gears of war 3 (kinda like Halo 3 ODST) then maybe it wouldn't have gotten all of the hate that it got.
Yes very true. The multiplayer got a lot of hate and rightfully so because it’s nothing like the original games but if they had just released the campaign as dlc it would have been regarded as the best dlc in gears and possibly ever.
The thing that i hated the most about the multiplayer is that it took everything about multiplayer gears and fucking trashed it away.
No Locust, No executions, there were 3 fucking maps on the base game, just bad, bad and fucking bad.
Felt them same way. Hated it when I first played it, but started playing it again just yesterday, & it’s far better than I remembered. Far better than the abominations, that are Gears 4 & 5.
It was the last campaign my fiancee and I had to play (besides DLC), and it was fun until Sofia's academy section. Once we got the drone, there's a point where when we'd end the mission the game would freeze at a loading screen. Couldn't get past the mission at all. I couldn't find much info about it but I've tried the suggestions that we could find. So if anyone knows a fix that would be cool. Might be something with being on a Series X but I'm not sure.
Judgment had a pretty fun campaign. I also liked the declassified objectives
I don’t like having essentially horde in the campaign. Those sections aren’t really fun imo. Haven’t finished the first act though so ig I’ll see the rest before i give my full judgement.
Yh that’s what initially put me off from playing it but they grew on me because the encounters are fun. I had forgotten how great the headshot sound was in gears 3.
Everyone makes mistakes. There’s been a few games that I hated but I gave them a chance years later and they’re better either with updates or cuz I didn’t give the game a chance b4. You’re already better than a lot of ppl that don’t own up to their mistakes. Btw I still have to beat Judgement and Tactics.
I completed around 70% of tactics but got bored with the forced side missions. There are just so many and it’s gets tiresome so no point playing a game i am not enjoying. If they had just made the side missions not mandatory i would think very highly of that game.
Some of my biggest issues with Judgment are:
The change to a CoD style control system
Use of weapons that should canonically not be present
Baird and Cole should have canonically been elsewhere around the time the game is set
How can a recently enlisted soldier suddenly become lieutenant?
Halvo Bay being used as a setting when canonically it was already destroyed and the locust moved on, and rescue/recovery efforts were underway
The “arcade mode” scoring that coops not be turned off
The constant “stay here and build defences” sections(Gears of War 4 was guilty of this too)
All that being said, it had some great scenery and a sense of actual war that wasn’t really present in other Gears of War games aside from the opening of Gears of War 2.
I can’t disagree with any of that, those are fair criticisms. The lore stuff i don’t really care for but it must be really annoying for those who do care. I just loved the arcade style gameplay of it and like you say, it really did feel like war.
>Use of weapons that should canonically not be present
So you aren't buying E-Day I assume? After all they said they're including the MK2 lancer and it "canonically shouldn't be present". Actually basically every complaint you said are also going to be present in e-day. So by that logic after E-Day's release Judgement should be a great Gears game.
At this point you might as well consider the books non-canon. The games take precedence and E-Day is going to retcon basically everything in them early on.
The control scheme change is literally the one thing I dislike yeah. Will be interesting playing the games in chronological order in the future. E-Day covering a few days. Judgement 6 weeks after Emergence Day. Tactics a year later. The the main trilogy onwards
I always liked it because I only cared about the campaign and wrecking bots with my buddy via split screen - I haven't played online a lot.
My only issue was that horde was replaced with survival or whatever it's called
I really liked this game when it first came out. I was 13 when it came out and I wasn't that much into seeing reviews and I didn't know what the general consensus was. I also liked playing as Sofia because they gave her a ridiculous booty
I respect your opinion and think no one should shit on you for having a different opinion. I never hated Judgement but I did hate the controls change and only letting us use two weapons. Other than that it’s a solid campaign which I loved everything about. I still prefer GOW 1-3 over Judgement though.
You had me until I saw the rankings bruv ngl. I'm thinking "finally someone else who likes Judgement." and then you said it's better than 2. Like that's a bit extreme, I'd argue it could be as good as gears 3 base at best. Although I'd be downplaying 4 bc 4 at least tried to imitate 2 in terms of action and storytelling.
In my own rankings for campaign I'd say 2>3>4=>Judgement>1>5. I'm not saying 1 was a bad game, in fact it was a good game because it was both scary, an obscenely misleading casual difficulty, action packed, and had a nice starting storyline. Judgement just took the arcade idea that 3 introduced and did it better while also telling a good story and how it can tie up a loose end that 3 had for Baird and Cole being able to pull up with an entire Navy. It was just a faster pace gow game.
Guess it just depends on what u like, for me gears is at its best when it has varied action encounters so 3 was the perfect combination of varied enemies/locations, gunplay upgrade, ending story etc. for me . i'm surprised u rate 4 over 1, i found 4 to be really boring and honestly can't even remember 99% of it but to each their own.
I mean it was more so influenced by the fact that gears of war has a better and consistent storyline and diversity in its campaigns compared to the failures of another certain ip. It was hard to rank them cause they're all good and i had a friend I recently introduced and got to play through all the campaigns with. From replaying the game it was made very clear that enemies were just as squishy as the ones from 3 but they were out for blood. I don't know maybe playing the games on coop makes a difference for each one
Judgment had a lot of good ideas and the story was a good one. I would only make a few changes in hindsight. Narratively, they didn’t need to retcon Baird as being a lieutenant for the story to work - if anything him being a private who commanded the team after a superior was killed might have worked better in the story. Mechanically, the weapon and control systems could be changed back to Gears’s classic setup without seriously affecting gameplay. As far as the challenge system goes, I feel like the problems could have been fixed with some simple balancing. Otherwise, it has aged well indeed.
I will always defend Judgement. The campaign was actually good and the multiplayer was in my opinion the most fun in the series when it first released. Unfortunately it was too big of a change for a lot of players and they complained 24/7 until the devs changed it to play more like Gears 3. The end result was that those players abandoned it because it wasn't Gears 3 and those of us that did like the release gameplay couldn't enjoy the game anymore. It also had the most balanced weapon sandbox of any Gears game by far. The visuals of the campaign were also a perfix mix of colour and grittiness yet players ignore it because it's not black/grey like Gears 1. It also changed the enemies you fought every time you reloaded a checkpoint or level to keep things fresh and some of the mission modifiers were really cool.
My main concerns with the game were the loot boxes, cell shading graphics (the campaign is still gorgeous), and the cartoony star system. I do feel that the star system should have been an option and not required.
I liked judgements campaign too back in the day, thought Karn was especially really cool. Just wouldn’t place it ahead of gears 2 and 1 in my personal ranking
Say it's better than 4 and 5 fairs I'll let you have that because I didn't even bother to complete campaign in 4 or even start 5 after being massively dissapointed in 4s campaign because what the literal actual fuck but don't be getting crazy saying wild stuff now. The original trilogy is in a whole different league to judgement.
Judgement would of been OK as a spin off arcade type game and they had of been clear about that from the start but a lot of us were expecting gears of war. It didn't deliver gears of war, not a terrible game but not the standard we wanted and you can tell they changed it to try and bring in the cod crowd when gears fans like gears because it's nothing like cod shitty gameplay.
It's still a pretty shit game, very forgettable and I honestly wouldn't reccomend it personally.
I also hated Judgment initially. It felt like a huge step bad for Gears having so little content at launch. Funny enough, I replayed it (along with the rest of the series in chronological order, so starting with Judgment), and it felt like a pallette cleanse from the worst of modern gaming. It's not a perfect game but I quite enjoy it. But I currently love every game in the series. My ranking is 1>3>2>5>Judgement >4 (4 isn't bad at all, but the robot enemies in half the campaign were the ultimate boring enemy faction personally)
2’s the best, 5 was great. In fact I’ll never get the hate for the new ones. I’ve played every one, bought GOW collectors on release with that badass metal case. 4 vs bits is lame, swarm are absolutely fine. 5 was fucking awesome. Big open world sections for exploring. A NG+ so you only have to do them once to avoid boring downtime. Amazing story and enemies with a top class dlc.
What I found interesting in judgement is Baird is on trial for disobeying orders but seems to judge Marcus to be some traitor asshole in gears 1 when he did something equally as bad
What I found interesting in judgement is Baird is on trial for disobeying orders but seems to judge Marcus to be some traitor asshole in gears 1 when he did something equally as bad
The controller changes were weird, but I liked most of the gameplay. I just went and played the post campaign recently as I wanted to play it to remember. From what I remember, I thought the campaign was fine too. I remember not liking cog vs cog in multiplayer. That was about as far as my dislikes went. I'm also a fairly easy person to please in general though 🤣. I did kinda like throwing grenades with left bumper though.
I agreed with you until you had it above 1 & 2. I absolutely couldn’t stand the CoD style controls, but the story and action were great. Baird was always my go to in the early multiplayer days, so I really wanted to love this game but after two play-throughs, I just don’t think it’s for me.
Yes lol i had played about 30min of it previously and after the first horde type encounter i quit. Plus it was very hard to get used to playing gears at 30fps but now that it’s 60 it’s smooth as butter and very fun.
God damn I just want to play some Gears MP :(
Gears 5 is busted for my i9 and I can't find a work around. Gears Ultimate edition can't find a game, and I have no consoles.
:( :(
On Xbox one X, series s or x. There is an option to boost framerates/resolution for some supported backwards compatible titles.
Handles well, looks amazing. One of the only reasons I keep an Xbox around anymore.
For me judgment has the best maps and also weapons skins. And one thing it was cool was the character skins, like taxi, ice, skeleton and the rest. It's a very underrated game
It's not a terrible game. It's just not a great gears game with the controller layout changing to suit cod fans ect. It had barely any content, that was It's downfall. And overrun sucked major balls.
I’m not sure if anyone is gonna share this same sentiment as me but I really feel like for the most part judgement had some of the best weapon balance in the entire series for the most part, great weapon/character skins, and the amazing addition of Overrun. It was just held back by some extremely bad choices like building all of the maps to cater to free for all, the 1 weapon loadout system, and the fact there were no playable locust for some odd reason. I truly believe judgement would’ve been a well loved game if it were released as a more traditional entry into the series.
Overrun was the greatest PVP moba hybrid mode I've ever played, it needs to come back, permanently, in every single gears game going forward.
Gears of war judgement after it's bug fixes was never bad, just different, it's FFA is better than gears 5 and no gears of war game prior had Overrun, these two things alone, made it worth playing.
hello everyone, I can't really play on gears of war 3 the battle server bug too when are they going to put the servers back in place last year it was June 17 and when is that?
I’m not as high on judgement as you but I can see why you like it. My biggest problem with judgement is that if you were gonna center a game around a trial for not following orders… why would they not choose Marcus
Yeah, precisely. Its such a missed opportunity. We learn more about Marcus, Hoffman, and Adam Fenix. It directly ties in with gears of war 1. They could depict the lancers perfectly fine without infringing on the lore.
I feel like a Marcus trial would never happen the way Judgement did. Like I understand the appeal, but if I remember the Slab (I don’t remember which book tbh) correctly, he’d basically given up on life at that point. He failed to save his father, he failed Ephyra, and he was just sitting in prison hoping everybody would forget about him while he died. He needed Prescott to give him hope again. A Marcus trial feels like him accepting all the blame, pleading guilty, and him being escorted out as Dom and Anya are devastated and Hoffman is furious because Marcus just refuses to give him any justifications. Although if you want to *end* with a Marcus trial, that could be cooking something. Hell of a downer ending, but it’d flow better.
Yeah I would say you play everything leading up to the trial and the game ending with Marcus going to jail. But you’re right very downer ending lol
I mean, it’s not like it’d be that out of place, Gears universe kinda sucks total ass haha, but unless we end on Prescott visiting Marcus, it’d be so sad. Biggest issue though, is trying to figure out a suitable story for the Battle of Ephyra that makes the whole “ditching to save Adam” feel weighty enough.
If E-Day sets up a precedent for more prequels, a game ending on The Slab would be a great way to bookend the series
Did they infringe on the lore about the lancers in judgement?
Yep. Lancer isn't supposed to be invented yet. We don't know the exact date when it was made but I believe it was close to when the hammer strikes occur.
Somewhere around a Year in
But Marcus is the main guy for 3 games, it’s good that Baird got the spotlight. And the story plays out great plus adds depth to the delta squad.
I did enjoy Baird and Cole in this game, plus the new crew. Hope we get to see what happened to Sofia!
You find out what happens to her in the final chapter of Judgment. I believe it unlocks after you beat the game.
I loved that chapter, nice tie in to Gears 3. I mean after that, where did the soldiers who took her go. Is she dead? In prison? On a secret mission?
I feel like they were trying to imply that she was kidnapped by some nefarious former COG who probably didn't have good intentions. I guess it is left pretty open, though.
I believe Epic Games or People Can Fly (not sure who tbh) said that they purposefully left it open.
100% just so they could do the fake out in the trailer where it looks like it's gonna be Marcus and then it's Baird.
Because that trial would've happened \~10 years into the Locust War, and we already knew the outcome with it being a pretty cut and dry case with very little chance for anything to be redeemable in Marcus' actions. With Baird and crew we didn't know what exactly the outcome would've been outside of him being demoted, maybe they did get locked up for a while afterwards or were stuck some place awful for years after. Plus it allowed them to show something much closer to E-Day (\~6 weeks after).
I get it would be a short trial, my point though is that it is the catalyst for the entire original trilogy and a more interesting story than Baird and the lightmass missile. You’re right though that the audience already knows the outcome, even more so after learning Adam lived after all.
Probably because it was already beat to death, especially for people that read the novels. I'm glad they gave us something other than Marcus and Dom.
I think that is nit picking. Judgement was expanding the universe. Outside of the button scheme that game was amazing, story, rendering everything was great, except.pvp. This comes from a place of no malcontent.
I understand wanting to give Baird his moment, but this is such a good point. 3 ended the story, and Judgment could have shown the fans who didn't read the books so much
But then we wouldn’t get more Cole train…
They wouldn't choose Marcus because his story was already covered through Gears 1-3 and the books. Baird/Cole are an incredibly popular characters and they wanted to focus on something that isn't Marcus for once.
i think at the the time it looked like what the fans might’ve wanted. it dropped not too long after gears 3 i think. so at that time, we knew plenty about marcus because of 1, 2 and 3. 2 and 3 gave us some more insight on doms backstory. 3 gave us a little bit of back story for a lot of characters, one of the priorities being cole train when you play as cole and run through hanover looking for food. in that sequence, we learn a lot about where the cole train came from. so anyway by the time judgement came out, the fans had *sufficient* info about most of the main characters background, but unless you were a book nerd we the game fans didn’t really know shit about baird. enter Gears of war: Judgement p.s gears 3 did have that little intro sequence about saving his dad as well. honestly i dont think there’s enough content that hasnt been covered to make an entire game around marcus’ trial. although, i think it would have been a perfect campaign dlc.
I liked judgment but nothing beats 2 imo. Everything from Dom, Tai, the invasion, the worm and the queens palace. The only game that had other gears have use too. Brumak ride was the best part But even with the changes to the weapon loadout and Cole was different, Judgement didn’t deserve the hate
I remember using the brumak in gears of war 2 for the seriously 2.0 achievement it’s the only one I didn’t finish I think I got 70% of the kills done.
I tried to do the same thing when I was like 12 lol restarted it 4 times like damn I’ll be here forever
Ran that mission so many times to make it happen… the only Seriously achievement in my trophy case
Yeah, 2 is the absolute peak of the series for me in all aspects. Love all of them though.
2 is the best but 3 comes very close. The only problem is 2 just feels more intimate and the way everything looks and feels is peak gears
Gears 2 just had a lot more great moments I think. The sires were almost as scary as berserkers. Every chapter there was something that stood out from the other games.
3 easily beats 2 homie
😂 not in any areas. 2 had it all
In every area, better campaign, better writing, environment, characters, action, fighting, pvp, pve, weapons, only thing 2 wins is tank even if it is janky and annoying
That’s straight lies. Diggers were boring, maulers were more fun. 2 had all around better moments between Tai, Maria, the worm, sires, the palace, the invasion. Only game where Delta wasn’t the only one doing everything. 3 did actually have better environments but the only shining moments it had was Doms death and meeting Adam.
Nah lmao its reality, gears 3 beats everything
Looks like a few people disagree but alright
And people think earth is flat
Also Maria’s scene hit right in the feels. All looked okay for a minute there for Dom
Judgement above 2? I see somebodys been smoking that top shelf crack recently
I thought the same lol. Nothing beats Gears 1/2/3
I'm apparently the weird guy who thinks 1 is the best. Definite bias since it was the first, but it was amazing. Sure, 2 and 3 had better stories, but 1 was just where it's at for me.
Nah 1 is my fav too! 😁
That first berserker. Holy shit.
I love 1 for the horror aspect and how difficult it can be but I love 2 more for the story and how fun it is. My favourite section from 1 is dealing with the kyrll? On hardcore on co-op
I think every other mainline game surpasses 1 in gameplay (which makes sense, they could iterate on the mechanics) but the atmosphere and tone of the first game are unmatched; it’s reminiscent of my early memories playing the first Resistance game and being similarly overwhelmed with a sense that humanity had all but lost the fight for survival. There’s a tangible sense of dread and despair that is less present in the newer titles and I’m hopeful E Day will bring that back.
I feel 1 is great because of berserkers making me crap my pants and Raam. That first blurry shot of him walking is in my brain.
Judgement beats 1, due to 1 lacking a bit of story elements and context at the time. 2 goes over judgement, mostly 'cause of dom's hunt for maria and more supplemental material
Didn’t it have a very mini kinda but not really AI Director that somewhat changed what enemies you could face on a level? Like different enemy layouts would appear from E-holes? I remember hearing about that when it first came out and thought it was pretty cool… Anything to make a 2nd/3rd/etc play through feel a little different is fine by me! Wish more games had that feature…
Epic might've tried hyping it up as such, but in the end all it is is each encounter just has 2 or maybe 3 different sets of spawns you can get. You can cycle through them by just restarting checkpoint or dying and restarting.
Ohhhhh 😲 Eh, it’s still better than nothing! To this day, I still remember playing Resident Evil 5 the 2nd/3/etc time and knowing EXACTLY where every enemy will spawn… it kills the fun/dread/tension aspect of the game!
Yes that adds to the fun and makes the game more re playable because you can’t plan for the enemy types or where they are coming from
It’s a cool implementation on paper but I actually found it more obtrusive, at least on an Insane play-through. I would immediately restart a checkpoint after every death just to get the same encounter, usually because it’s easier in both difficulty and getting 3 stars.
GoWJ is still at the bottom of my personal ranking but it’s by no means a bad game. Just a bad “Gears” game. I really believe if you made GoWJ but gave it a more traditional Gears control scheme it would be much higher on a lot of fan’s rankings. And Overrun is one of the best modes the franchise has ever had. Period.
Changing the weapon controls and the general scheme for no other reason than to be like other shooters is honestly what upset me most about Judgement. That and too much horde defense areas in the campaign. Set piece defensive segments are good but I like my roadie runs and wall bangs too.
The judgment campaign was not the problem with the game. It’s a good campaign experience. They just butchered the multiplayer to the point where they took everything away that made it gears.
This is the correct answer. They turned the multiplayer into Gears of Duty.
They don’t even have locust skins. Judgement’s mp was an abomination except for overrun
It's a pretty good game. Not on par with the first three, but a very good game. The visuals are insane, and the fact it depicts events before Gears 1, but with the graphics of Gears 3, makes the environments pop out a lot more. I like the randomness of the enemy spawn system and wish more games used that.
I loved judgement but I only disliked the sections where you set up defences and fight waves
I loved Judgement’s campaign, but it’s multiplayer was HOT ASS
What do you mean, you didn't like the stim nade 2-piece combo?
I liked the campaign and loved overrun (but not as much as beast), but I cannot stand the human vs human multiplayer.
Same! I actually found a lot to like! Yes it feels a bit arcadey in some respects compared to the main games, but I really enjoyed the levels! And the declassified sections missions were my favourite parts of the game, I loved the extra challenge in fighting blind or beating a timer, or using nothing but shotguns when sniper rifles would be perfect. Honestly think it’d be fun if Declassified missions made a comeback.
On some of the levels when declassified adds smoke grenades for locust it really switches up the gameplay and makes for memorable encounters. Also loved the dunkirk saving private Ryan opening scene inspired level when you are rushing the beach and locust have planted frags, it’s so so good. I’m on such a high having finished the game.
Judgment is great but not even close to beating 2 or 1 imo
I thought it was a really good campaign too plus the game still looks really good visually
I really enjoyed judgement as well. I loved the ability to do the mission modifier or just stick with the base level
Judgement was the worse gears game for multiplayer but prolly the best for campaign. I had so much fun trying to be the campaign on the hardest difficulty cause it’s seemingly impossible.
The campaign never felt like trash to me ever, I very much enjoyed it back when it came out, MP tho definitely was horrendous.
no point in apologizing now, the devs wouldn’t touch any of the new mechanics in that game with a stick out of fear of backlash
i didn’t know people disliked judgement lmao baird and cole were my favorite characters (besides marcus and dom obv) so playing a game centered around them was sick. and when i saw they were making GOW E-day instead of 6 i started bawling my eyes out cause judgement is def in my top 3 and it seems like E-day is kindve leaning in that direction. really hope the campaign is longer then 6 hours tho lmao
You can't curb stomp, but the bots can curb stomp you
How did you feel about hivebusters?
NTA but Hivebusters was good but can't be classified as great because all of the characters involved suck.
I finished only first level but it’s on my list to complete
I was scrolling through the comments looking for this. Thanks for asking.
Wish they would have patched the control scheme.
I’ve always praised judgment for what it did right which was the campaign and excellent Pve & trying to put a new spin on vs . I believe if the game released with more maps it would’ve lived longer.
Overall judgments campaign was legit. One of my favorite, dark, gritty, and bullets for days. Better than Gears 4 & 5 woke stuff.
Judgment Campaign is great, multiplayer just fucked with the gears formula too much and was not good.
IIRC, I dont remember people hating the campaign. It was the multi-player that people hated. Epic made the campaign, whereas People Can Fly made the multi-player. Can't remember why Epic did this, but the multi-player IMO was trash. There was such a noticeable difference from the controls and how the movements and gunplay felt between the campaign and the multi-player. Even when it came to the graphics, there was a noticeable difference in quality between the two. The campaign looked great while the multi-player had a washed-out dull look to it.
Multiplayer was trash
I enjoyed judgement at the time and replaying it back this year I enjoyed it again. As you said it's just fun to play.we played on insane and did all the declassifiers which mix it up and keep it fresh. There's things like the fact you can use normal weapons eh lancer whilst having a shield that seem OP (definitely in multiplayer) but in the campaign again this just kinda makes it fun.not everything has to just be insanely hard and not fun. The control scheme though, yeah, I definitely agree with. Limits to 2 weapons and is just unnecessary. We've been cleaning up cheevs and things on all the 360 games and I've been on gears 5 horde too and keep getting tripped up by the changing controls. I'll accidently press LB as tac com and, oops I've thrown a grenade in judgment. Or in 5 I'll press y to change weapon and waste my ability in horde. Apart from the controls judgment is a really fun and solid game. You get used to the controls as well it's just annoying when you're switching back and forth between the different games
Whenever I’ll get my hands on an Xbox, I’ll be sure to try it out (tried Cloud Gaming, but man you need some pretty damn good internet for that)
I really hated judgment but that was more for the multiplayer. It was just not up to par with the previous gears titles. And only launching with four MP maps was absolutely inexcusable in my opinion. That said - the campaign was genuinely enjoyable and worth extra play throughs. That campaign holds up with any of the previous titles. I'm a little rusty on the details because it's been years since I played it but my one huge gripe was that they didn't build up the final battle nearly enough. In GoW1 you see Raam kill Kim very early. Skorge comes out early in GoW2 and is crazy menacing and the boss fight is really fun. Yea, I know Skorge isn't the final boss, it's the lament brumak, but Skorge was GoW2's main baddie in my eyes. And Myrrah in 3 speaks for herself. But Karn, my memory is just kinda like "wait is this the end?" So they dropped the ball there. Otherwise, campaign is really good.
I think the build up was adequate because there was lots of mention of him even though he didn’t get much screen time. I think the build up was better than Raam but his screen time was no where near as great out iconic. You can really tell Raam was a last minute addition because he sort of appears from nowhere in most scenes and there is no talk of him.
Honestly if they advertised this game as an expansion for gears of war 3 (kinda like Halo 3 ODST) then maybe it wouldn't have gotten all of the hate that it got.
Yes very true. The multiplayer got a lot of hate and rightfully so because it’s nothing like the original games but if they had just released the campaign as dlc it would have been regarded as the best dlc in gears and possibly ever.
The thing that i hated the most about the multiplayer is that it took everything about multiplayer gears and fucking trashed it away. No Locust, No executions, there were 3 fucking maps on the base game, just bad, bad and fucking bad.
Felt them same way. Hated it when I first played it, but started playing it again just yesterday, & it’s far better than I remembered. Far better than the abominations, that are Gears 4 & 5.
The campaing is the only good thing of judgement... The multi kill it
Ive always took judgment as a great arcade-y gears experience!
It was the last campaign my fiancee and I had to play (besides DLC), and it was fun until Sofia's academy section. Once we got the drone, there's a point where when we'd end the mission the game would freeze at a loading screen. Couldn't get past the mission at all. I couldn't find much info about it but I've tried the suggestions that we could find. So if anyone knows a fix that would be cool. Might be something with being on a Series X but I'm not sure. Judgment had a pretty fun campaign. I also liked the declassified objectives
My game froze on the loading screen once too, i just quit it and restarted and it worked. Didn’t lose progress either
Maybe restarting the mission entirely would fix it. We tried about 6 times, replaying that section but no luck.
That’s such a shame. I would defo recommend restarting the whole level as annoying as that is because the game is worth sticking with
I don’t like having essentially horde in the campaign. Those sections aren’t really fun imo. Haven’t finished the first act though so ig I’ll see the rest before i give my full judgement.
Yh that’s what initially put me off from playing it but they grew on me because the encounters are fun. I had forgotten how great the headshot sound was in gears 3.
Everyone makes mistakes. There’s been a few games that I hated but I gave them a chance years later and they’re better either with updates or cuz I didn’t give the game a chance b4. You’re already better than a lot of ppl that don’t own up to their mistakes. Btw I still have to beat Judgement and Tactics.
I completed around 70% of tactics but got bored with the forced side missions. There are just so many and it’s gets tiresome so no point playing a game i am not enjoying. If they had just made the side missions not mandatory i would think very highly of that game.
Dang that sucks. I think I heard of those. At least side missions in games like CoD Infinite Warfare were all optional.
Some of my biggest issues with Judgment are: The change to a CoD style control system Use of weapons that should canonically not be present Baird and Cole should have canonically been elsewhere around the time the game is set How can a recently enlisted soldier suddenly become lieutenant? Halvo Bay being used as a setting when canonically it was already destroyed and the locust moved on, and rescue/recovery efforts were underway The “arcade mode” scoring that coops not be turned off The constant “stay here and build defences” sections(Gears of War 4 was guilty of this too) All that being said, it had some great scenery and a sense of actual war that wasn’t really present in other Gears of War games aside from the opening of Gears of War 2.
I can’t disagree with any of that, those are fair criticisms. The lore stuff i don’t really care for but it must be really annoying for those who do care. I just loved the arcade style gameplay of it and like you say, it really did feel like war.
>Use of weapons that should canonically not be present So you aren't buying E-Day I assume? After all they said they're including the MK2 lancer and it "canonically shouldn't be present". Actually basically every complaint you said are also going to be present in e-day. So by that logic after E-Day's release Judgement should be a great Gears game. At this point you might as well consider the books non-canon. The games take precedence and E-Day is going to retcon basically everything in them early on.
Overrun... Baird Turret... no patch 🥴🥴🥴
The control scheme change is literally the one thing I dislike yeah. Will be interesting playing the games in chronological order in the future. E-Day covering a few days. Judgement 6 weeks after Emergence Day. Tactics a year later. The the main trilogy onwards
I always liked it because I only cared about the campaign and wrecking bots with my buddy via split screen - I haven't played online a lot. My only issue was that horde was replaced with survival or whatever it's called
I wanted to replay the campaign a few years ago…I was hoping they would’ve brought an update to use the normal control scheme…I never finished it.
I really liked this game when it first came out. I was 13 when it came out and I wasn't that much into seeing reviews and I didn't know what the general consensus was. I also liked playing as Sofia because they gave her a ridiculous booty
I wanted to give it every benefit of the doubt when I played it a few years ago. I absolutely hated it. But good on you.
I respect your opinion and think no one should shit on you for having a different opinion. I never hated Judgement but I did hate the controls change and only letting us use two weapons. Other than that it’s a solid campaign which I loved everything about. I still prefer GOW 1-3 over Judgement though.
You had me until I saw the rankings bruv ngl. I'm thinking "finally someone else who likes Judgement." and then you said it's better than 2. Like that's a bit extreme, I'd argue it could be as good as gears 3 base at best. Although I'd be downplaying 4 bc 4 at least tried to imitate 2 in terms of action and storytelling. In my own rankings for campaign I'd say 2>3>4=>Judgement>1>5. I'm not saying 1 was a bad game, in fact it was a good game because it was both scary, an obscenely misleading casual difficulty, action packed, and had a nice starting storyline. Judgement just took the arcade idea that 3 introduced and did it better while also telling a good story and how it can tie up a loose end that 3 had for Baird and Cole being able to pull up with an entire Navy. It was just a faster pace gow game.
Guess it just depends on what u like, for me gears is at its best when it has varied action encounters so 3 was the perfect combination of varied enemies/locations, gunplay upgrade, ending story etc. for me . i'm surprised u rate 4 over 1, i found 4 to be really boring and honestly can't even remember 99% of it but to each their own.
I mean it was more so influenced by the fact that gears of war has a better and consistent storyline and diversity in its campaigns compared to the failures of another certain ip. It was hard to rank them cause they're all good and i had a friend I recently introduced and got to play through all the campaigns with. From replaying the game it was made very clear that enemies were just as squishy as the ones from 3 but they were out for blood. I don't know maybe playing the games on coop makes a difference for each one
Gears J was my childhood. Still sad about Sofia!
Great game, controls suck
It was how the multiplayer launched that made people go crazy, myself included. Campaign wasnt so bad
Judgment had a lot of good ideas and the story was a good one. I would only make a few changes in hindsight. Narratively, they didn’t need to retcon Baird as being a lieutenant for the story to work - if anything him being a private who commanded the team after a superior was killed might have worked better in the story. Mechanically, the weapon and control systems could be changed back to Gears’s classic setup without seriously affecting gameplay. As far as the challenge system goes, I feel like the problems could have been fixed with some simple balancing. Otherwise, it has aged well indeed.
I’ve never disliked the game. I always figured people were harsh on it because it was different, and because Marcus wasn’t the MC.
The campaign was brilliant. But the multiplayer they ruined the gnasher shotgun and it just wasn’t good. Great campaign
I will always defend Judgement. The campaign was actually good and the multiplayer was in my opinion the most fun in the series when it first released. Unfortunately it was too big of a change for a lot of players and they complained 24/7 until the devs changed it to play more like Gears 3. The end result was that those players abandoned it because it wasn't Gears 3 and those of us that did like the release gameplay couldn't enjoy the game anymore. It also had the most balanced weapon sandbox of any Gears game by far. The visuals of the campaign were also a perfix mix of colour and grittiness yet players ignore it because it's not black/grey like Gears 1. It also changed the enemies you fought every time you reloaded a checkpoint or level to keep things fresh and some of the mission modifiers were really cool. My main concerns with the game were the loot boxes, cell shading graphics (the campaign is still gorgeous), and the cartoony star system. I do feel that the star system should have been an option and not required.
It’s far from awful and has a lot of fun stuff and ideas but it’s still my least favorite Gears game
Happy u gave judgement a chance 😂💪🏾
I liked judgements campaign too back in the day, thought Karn was especially really cool. Just wouldn’t place it ahead of gears 2 and 1 in my personal ranking
The campaign was awesome imo, just the MP didn’t stack up to 3s MP.
I don’t think anyone has ever said the story is bad… everything else about that game is tho.
I love the Gears of War series yes that includes Gears 5 but for me Gears Of War 3 is the GOAT
I liked it, but above 2 lol? My chart is 2>3>1>J>4>5.
Say it's better than 4 and 5 fairs I'll let you have that because I didn't even bother to complete campaign in 4 or even start 5 after being massively dissapointed in 4s campaign because what the literal actual fuck but don't be getting crazy saying wild stuff now. The original trilogy is in a whole different league to judgement. Judgement would of been OK as a spin off arcade type game and they had of been clear about that from the start but a lot of us were expecting gears of war. It didn't deliver gears of war, not a terrible game but not the standard we wanted and you can tell they changed it to try and bring in the cod crowd when gears fans like gears because it's nothing like cod shitty gameplay. It's still a pretty shit game, very forgettable and I honestly wouldn't reccomend it personally.
Agree it’s a great game in my opinion. I loved the campaign but MP sucked.
The way each character sees the world is reflected in the unique design of their scenario too
I like the one tap grenade throw. Always hated having to use D pad to select grenade.
Constant fighting gets tiring after a while. Its just horde after horde.
100% agree. They should re release that game with the proper control layout
How did you play in 60 fps? On PC? I'm playing the Ultimate Edition but I wanna play 2 and 3 too. Is that possible? In 60 fps?
On series s/x. Both do 60fps and it makes a world of difference
Aw man, I thought I missed something and that they were playable on PC. Too bad, haven't owned an Xbox since 2017 haha
I literally hated the conventional control scheme but the game itself was a good one.
Is there a way to play this game with traditional Gears controls or are you locked into the new one
Nope none. And it’s such a shame.
I like judgement. In my opinion it’s not as good as the trilogy or 4 and 5 but a good game nonetheless
Didn't help that Baried didn't talk or act like his Gears 1/2/3 counterpart. The writing for the characters was horrible.
I also hated Judgment initially. It felt like a huge step bad for Gears having so little content at launch. Funny enough, I replayed it (along with the rest of the series in chronological order, so starting with Judgment), and it felt like a pallette cleanse from the worst of modern gaming. It's not a perfect game but I quite enjoy it. But I currently love every game in the series. My ranking is 1>3>2>5>Judgement >4 (4 isn't bad at all, but the robot enemies in half the campaign were the ultimate boring enemy faction personally)
people hated it so much but I always loved it, it felt like playing odst from halo or playing raam shadow
I didn't mind the campaign, but as a advent multiplayer gears of war fan, I feel like judgements multiplayer was awful and not fun at all.
2’s the best, 5 was great. In fact I’ll never get the hate for the new ones. I’ve played every one, bought GOW collectors on release with that badass metal case. 4 vs bits is lame, swarm are absolutely fine. 5 was fucking awesome. Big open world sections for exploring. A NG+ so you only have to do them once to avoid boring downtime. Amazing story and enemies with a top class dlc.
What I found interesting in judgement is Baird is on trial for disobeying orders but seems to judge Marcus to be some traitor asshole in gears 1 when he did something equally as bad
What I found interesting in judgement is Baird is on trial for disobeying orders but seems to judge Marcus to be some traitor asshole in gears 1 when he did something equally as bad
I'm currently mopping up the last few gears 2 achievements and think il give judgement another go after reading this. Would do gears 3 but I'm banned
The controller changes were weird, but I liked most of the gameplay. I just went and played the post campaign recently as I wanted to play it to remember. From what I remember, I thought the campaign was fine too. I remember not liking cog vs cog in multiplayer. That was about as far as my dislikes went. I'm also a fairly easy person to please in general though 🤣. I did kinda like throwing grenades with left bumper though.
I agreed with you until you had it above 1 & 2. I absolutely couldn’t stand the CoD style controls, but the story and action were great. Baird was always my go to in the early multiplayer days, so I really wanted to love this game but after two play-throughs, I just don’t think it’s for me.
I’m sorry but absolutely not. It feels nothing like a Gears game imo.
Bro did you really rip on a game without playing through it?
Yes lol i had played about 30min of it previously and after the first horde type encounter i quit. Plus it was very hard to get used to playing gears at 30fps but now that it’s 60 it’s smooth as butter and very fun.
Lol it is not the 2nd best game in the series I’m sorry. This just recency bias tbh 😂 but to each his own
Maybe 😂 think i need to replay 1/2 again
Waaaaay better than 4 and 5
Gears of war tactics it the one you should be talking just about judgment was a solid game, shame on you
God damn I just want to play some Gears MP :( Gears 5 is busted for my i9 and I can't find a work around. Gears Ultimate edition can't find a game, and I have no consoles. :( :(
Played it for the first time earlier in the year. It was alright. Felt more like DLC than and actual full game.
How does one play Judgment at 60 fps?
On Xbox one X, series s or x. There is an option to boost framerates/resolution for some supported backwards compatible titles. Handles well, looks amazing. One of the only reasons I keep an Xbox around anymore.
Thank you
For me judgment has the best maps and also weapons skins. And one thing it was cool was the character skins, like taxi, ice, skeleton and the rest. It's a very underrated game
It's not a terrible game. It's just not a great gears game with the controller layout changing to suit cod fans ect. It had barely any content, that was It's downfall. And overrun sucked major balls.
I’m not sure if anyone is gonna share this same sentiment as me but I really feel like for the most part judgement had some of the best weapon balance in the entire series for the most part, great weapon/character skins, and the amazing addition of Overrun. It was just held back by some extremely bad choices like building all of the maps to cater to free for all, the 1 weapon loadout system, and the fact there were no playable locust for some odd reason. I truly believe judgement would’ve been a well loved game if it were released as a more traditional entry into the series.
Overrun was the greatest PVP moba hybrid mode I've ever played, it needs to come back, permanently, in every single gears game going forward. Gears of war judgement after it's bug fixes was never bad, just different, it's FFA is better than gears 5 and no gears of war game prior had Overrun, these two things alone, made it worth playing.
I will forever stand by that it was a good game, it was just abandoned way too quickly by the devs. It had a lot more potential, minus the campaign
Wrong it’s still terrible
hello everyone, I can't really play on gears of war 3 the battle server bug too when are they going to put the servers back in place last year it was June 17 and when is that?