Gears Tactics is a spin-off game from the Gears franchise developed by Splash Damage. I've never played a Gears of War game in my life before this, so I had no real idea what to expect. I just knew that that they were third person shooters set in a sci-fi Universe where aliens have invaded and soldiers known as Gears were fighting to save humanity and all of that usual stuff. In some ways, it me of a testosterone infested but otherwise lite version of Warhammer 40,000.

I guess it was this over-emphasis on bulky MANLY MEN that put me off the series... I had no idea that it had even released on PC as well as the consoles where it would have a more receptive audience.

Anyway, I had heard that there was a Turn-based Tactics game that had recently been released in the style of XCOM... and so, loving these sort of games, I had wish-listed it... but given that XCOM2 (Long War 2 or War of the Chosen versions) is an almost perfect game, I wasn't in a hurry to actually spend money on Gears Tactics. However, when I bought the XMG Fusion 15, it game with a pretty nice bundle of game keys to help show off the power of the machine. Gears Tactics was the headline game of this bundle!

Unfortunately, it wasn't a Steam key... which was slightly annoying, I really like to keep all my games in the single store that I use most often. Even worse, it was on the Microsoft Windows Store... which I have NOTHING on! Still... free is free, grab the key and start the download!

The Setup

Gears Tactics follows the story of Sgt. Gabriel Diaz, a Gears hero from a previous war who had demoted himself to being a motor pool mechanic after some ethical disagreements with the civilian and military leadership of the state. The exact details aren't really clear from the intitial cutscenes... only that he appears to be on a first-name acrimonious relationship with the President of the nation and that he is THE ONLY MAN FOR THE JOB!

Our lead character is holed up in a mechanics bunker when the Locust Horde starts invading and killing humans left, right and centre.

The initial government response appears to be to raze the cities in an apparent Scorched Earth policy. Personally, at this point in time... I think I would just pack it all up and hide in the bunker as everyone seems like a complete tool.

However, our reluctant hero steps up... to chainsaw some aliens and GET TO THE TRUTH!

The Game

Gears Tactics takes many cues from it's XCOM inspiration but blends in some pretty neat elements to give the game it's own unique style and pacing. Like XCOM, there are the usual half and full height cover mechanics and the top down view. Each turn starts you with a 3 (instead of the XCOM number of 2) "moves" that you can use to move or shoot or deploy a skill. Unlike XCOM, these can be used in any order and shooting doesn't end your turn.

So, much like XCOM, line of sight and cover placing is a core focus to keeping your team alive and effective. Overwatch and careful layered movement is a staple of these sorts of games...

However, this is where Gears Tactics throws a huge chainsaw sized spanner in the works. Your team of 4 is constantly outnumbered by increasing reinforcements of progressively stronger enemies... which gives you a distinct impetus to keep moving to stay ahead of the difficulty curve.

It also incentivises risky plays by gifting EXTRA turns for executions. Executions can be performed pretty gruesomely on enemies that have taken a critical amount of damage. You have two turns to rush them and perform the execution, which pulls one of your units completely out of position into an exposed spot... BUT it gifts the rest of the team an extra turn. Plus, this can be chained onwards... for some pretty lethal results.

It is a huge risk/reward mechanic... it pulls you out of cover, into a faster moving pattern... but it is the only way to keep the numbers of enemies manageable with such a small roster. In addition, further incentives are bonus of healing and power-ups that come via kills.

So, a more kinetic and fluid take on the layered cover and support mechanic from XCOM. One that is different... but really keeps you on edge, as you are constantly pushing out of your comfort zone into exposed positions.

The mission types also are designed in a way that keeps you constantly on the move. Limited turns and time-limited optional objectives combine with the reinforcement mechanic to keep you on the hop... and then there are the various equipment crates that further tempt you with pushing your luck and over-extending your positions.

Having an incredibly low unit limit of 4 Gears per mission means that you are always looking to squeeze as much out of each turn as possible...

On the non-tactics front, Gears Tactics is nothing like the open-world strategic management of XCOM and other similar games. It is highly story focussed, and it features three well defined Acts that keep the player on a single path of pre-defined mission and maps. This allows the developers to really tell a story instead of relying on emergent stories in a open-world design.

Each Act is concluded with a set-piece Boss battle... a notion that is more in line with the epic story designs of the original Gears games. It does make for some pretty hairy battles where you are scrambling to take down a much more powerful enemy.. but like most boss-type battles, there is always a weak point that is signposted for you to target.

So, the strategic layer is only really about equipping and evolving your soldiers. There is no Geoscape equivalent and there is no base building or anything like that. There are just the 5 unit classes: Vanguard, Scout, Heavy, Support and Sniper.

Each of these can be further specialised through skill selection to a choice from 4 subclasses. The subclasses are quite varied, but then you are left with the feeling that you might have really nerfed your build at some point. Some skills synergise quite well... others, are a bit of a waste of time. It's really hard to tell what will work best... and you don't have time for experimentation as the game doesn't have much in the way of extra missions to test out new pairings.

Equipment provides incremental bonuses to unit attributes or provide new passive skills. I have to say that the equipment and inventory management of the game was definitely one of the worst that I have seen in a game of this type. It becomes really quite difficult to track who has what... and when you can only field 4 Gears per mission, the constant checking around to see who has the best equipment is really annoying with the way that they have implemented this part of the game.

Visuals, Sound and Performance

Gears Tactics has some really lovely cutscenes in the story sections of the game... somehow, they really manage to convey the small-unit cog in an epic war sort of feeling. In game visuals are a little less impressive... but for a turn-based game, you don't really need too much in that area.

Sound design was suitably heavy metal... but to be honest, I can't actually remember if there was any music at all! Possibly not....

Performance-wise, this game had no problems running on the XPS Fusion 15 on which it was showcased. Turn based games don't really benefit that much from the high refresh 144Hz screen... but it all looked really quite nice. Although the fans were blowing decently strongly, I doubt that the game actually were pushing the hardware that hard. It's not a FPS game! That said, it does seem like it does need a dGPU and decently powered CPU to push this... this is NOT a chromebook game!

My Thoughts

The story-centric design of Gears Tactics is both it's strength and weakness. It can be nice to play a tightly scripted game where you can see that there is an overarching narrative and a BIG BAD to fry at the end. However, in a game like this... it means that there is very little ability to experiment with Gear combinations. Plus, there are a very limited amount of map and mission types in the "optional" missions.

In XCOM, you would learn from your mistakes and pick yourself up off the floor... failing was part of the game. In Gears, it feels like you are playing a more arcade-like version of the same game...

I did sort of enjoy the mechanics of the tactical layer... even though I'm more of the camper and careful type of gamer rather than the headstrong charger... I think I would have been happier with the same tactical game, but with a more developed strategic layer that was less story focussed or had more options for open-world development of your team.

I'm afraid, despite the interesting story... XCOM wins from the gameplay point of view!

Review Specs

XMG Fusion 15
Intel Core i7-9750H
RTX 2070 Max Q
16GB RAM
Nvme/Sata SSD
144 Hz 1080p IPS

Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)

Humble Bundle

Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!

1. A 100+ USD bundle of games delivered direct to you each month, redeemable on Steam, Uplay or direct download (depending on the game). This includes recent Triple A games!
2. Access to the Humble Bundle "Trove", a list of 60 games (and growing...) which are free to play as long as you remain a subscriber!
3. Additional Discounts on the Humble Bundle store, with the choice of supporting charities, Humble Bundle or developers in whatever percentage that you wish!

Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!