Review: Gears of War Ultimate Edition

G'day there guys and gals!

In the year of 2006, when flip phones were still cool and mine came from a Coca Cola bottle, it only took me a few weeks after launch to hear the news that was flying around my small town: Gears of War is amazing. Being only fourteen at the time, I begged my parents to let me buy it, fell in love with the game, the story and their characters and ever since, it has held a special place in my heart. Here we are nearly 10 years later, and I'll be the first to admit to my growing disapproval of HD remakes, but I have been so pleasantly surprised by Gears of War Ultimate Edition that I cannot praise it enough.

For those who have never touched the series, Gears of War is a Third Person Shooter over the shoulder of Marcus Fenix, a COG soldier released from prison to fight alongside his friends Dom, Baird and Cole against the Locust Horde army; a brutal, scale-covered humanoid race living deep below the surface of Sera and waging an all out war on humanity. Back at release, the game was well received and won a few awards, critics only being the lacking storyline and its plotholes and the lack of depth in characters. With all that aside, we now turn our attention to the Ultimate Edition.
Gameplay is superbly done: despite the shiny new overcoat, the game plays nearly exactly like the original Gears of War, the controls being smooth and easy to use and the gameplay even smoother than that, while including mechanics from the newer editions such as roadie running and spotting. Storyline is just as good as before, with the addition of five new chapters (further explaining how Delta escaped the Brumak and how they got to the train) from the PC version that never made it to the console. Seeing these chapters brand new brought a lot of fresh air into the game itself and added a further 2-3 hours of gameplay on top. Voice acting was ripped straight from the original game and sounded to be somewhat enhanced, it did sound off at times (especially the beginning sentences - beautiful graphics, smudge-y audio).

I cannot continue without mentioning what stood out most in my eyes, or better case, ears; the audio quality. The sound effects were new and beautifully done, especially the slicing of Locust and the weapons, but the soundtrack was were the game began to shine. New pieces into the cinematic and the gameplay itself truly brought in the hopelessness of the COG and humanity as a whole, revamped originals were also present as well as original score straight from the first game. It was an utter joy to hear it remastered.
And obviously we're brought to the graphics and to put it in a single sentence; much more than just a reskin. The team at Epic and The Coalition truly brought out the beauty of the Gears world with completely new scenes, new character models and changes to the look, adding much more detail to the characters while keeping them in their original forms. With many HD remakes, developers simply re-render the scenes in a higher setting, Epic and Coalition animate completely new cutscenes, remake the old ones and give the game a whole new paintjob! It's clear that this was a work of labour and not one for a quickie cash grab.
Finally, multiplayer. Nothing too big to report on the multiplayer side; players can now choose between social and competitive gameplay, with a wide array of modes from all across the series (and yet does not have Horde Mode! That is a definite negative). Players can choose which character and skins to use for their weapons. I personally haven't experienced any bugs in multiplayer and matches with all the new modes and maps (also redone as well!), however I have experienced a few bugs in the single player: being stuck in an invisible floor, enemy (and NPC) AI standing still or never moving for cover, not to mention an abundance of glitching through walls. The biggest would be with the additional chapters: cinematic freezes, off audio-to-visuals and of course, the weird audio I mentioned before.

While none of these were game breaking overall, it would be wrong of me to give this game a perfect score (especially without Horde mode), but that does not mean it's a terrible game! In truth, Gears of War Ultimate Edition is by far the best remake for any game I have ever seen. Epic and The Coalition have truly paved the way to what remake games should be (minus their skin pack DLCs - however not promoted in game!); adding most/all DLC and a HD render does not suffice for a remake in my eyes anymore. I have been spoiled by this glorious Gears game, and now I'm left wanting more!

Out of 10, I give Gears of War Ultimate Edition a 9/10

Gears of War Ultimate Edition is out now for $40!
And you can read my original review right here.

(Fair warning, I wrote it when I was just starting out, it's fairly bad!)