Recent reviews by Father Hay

Major Order Completed: Sony overruled.

Democracy triumphs, once more.

I hate to say it, but between the overly simplistic economic system and the, what can only be described as utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ military mechanics - this' by far Paradox's most disappointing title. I've over a thousand hours in EUIV & HoI4, several hundred in Vic 2, HoI3 and CK2. And honestly, this title is in the gutter with the likes of Imperator. I'm not even sure that the hundred pounds of DLC that'll inevitably spawn from this ♥♥♥♥-up will be able to salvage this utter dumpster fire. The AI's military acumen is about on-par with a Russian VDV commander in the opening days of the war in Ukraine, and the UI is so convoluted - I could've vomited on my monitor and been able to create something more intuitive.

I went in with very low expectations, and was incredibly surprised. Ended up buying it for some homies and doing a full lobby. Good ♥♥♥♥.

Game has a huge deal of potential; at the moment, it's fun - but y'know, not quite there yet. I played for around 6 hours, in a totally blind play-through, with a bit of knowledge of the type of game it was. And I got to around 700 pop or something. And it's a lot of fun, you can be as hands-on and decorative with your building as you want, in an almost rim-world esque style. Or you can play it like any old city-builder and just dump things in the most space-efficient and cramming way possible.

With the updates coming pretty regularly, and the with features expanding every day - Yeah, I'd recommend it. It's a lotta fun and I can only really see it getting better with time.

Malding.

I'll start with the one jarring issue I've had with Gears 5, and it's something that appears pretty widespread - the surround settings for my headset don't seem to work with it, you'll find that any voices in front of your character appear muffled and pretty much inaudible, so when it comes to the Campaign, I basically had to just play without a headset and use my actual speakers. I've also had a popup pretty much every time I launch the game warning about my GPU having 'known issues', but I can honestly say - that I'm yet to encounter anything weird, other than a brief stutter at the start of cutscenes.

A lot of people have also mentioned micro-transactions, but they're basically just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ skins. I mean, yeah - they're pretty expensive, but - if someone wants to be a dumbass and buy some skins, sure? I guess? I really don't care - it's not impactful on gameplay and I think a lot of people are just looking for reasons to be mad, more than anything.

With that out the way, I honestly cannot recommend Gears 5 enough, It's been out just over a day, and I've already sunk a ridiculous amount of time into the game - at this point, having played, I think at least a little bit of every Versus gamemode, having done some of the early Hive acts and played Horde through to about wave 30. I'm also in Act III of the campaign, which I'm playing through on Hardcore.

The Campaign is by far one of the most story-rich and lore-packed we've seen from the franchise so far, and it's clear they're trying to emphasize it a bit more, which is a welcome addition, especially since - so far, it doesn't seem to have detracted from the flow and pacing of the game too much. The writing is pretty good, it has to be said. My only real gripe with the campaign, has to do with the open-world sections in acts II and III, although they add a little bit more content and more things to do; the spaces do feel a tiny bit barren. And it shows it's these guys' first try at implementing this into one of their games.

I feel like the game's challenging on Hardcore, to a reasonable level - generally you won't die much, outside of the Boss-fights and some of the larger set-piece engagements, and you never tend to feel stuck, as you'll generally be able to work out what to do after a couple attempts. But I'm looking forwards to trying it on Insane with some pals, just to see how much the difficulty ramps up.

Versus, is the same old gore-fest we all know and love, packed full of intense shotgun battles and dramatic stand-offs. Again, can't really fault it, apart from the odd issue with the servers, though I have to admit - in the four or so hours I've sunk into multiplayer, I've only encountered this issue once, but I know that others have seen it happen a lot more.

Escape - I don't even really know where to start with, I've only really played three matches of it, and only completed like one act so far, it's definitely a lot of fun and even on the lowest challenge level, it can be pretty tricky if you're not coordinated. Especially with the low levels of ammunition in the start of each round. But yeah, it's an enjoyable addition to an already solid game.

Horde, I've not played a lot of high-difficulty rounds of, but it's pretty solid, basically the same deal as past titles, but with a bit more flexibility on where you can place items, and with a few odd little things here and there like energy extractors to make it feel like it's own beast.

Tl;dr, Gears 5 is an amazing addition to the franchise, bringing you back to the glory days of the first three games, easily one of, if not the best AAA titles I've played this year. And I'd give it a solid 9/10. They just need to work on a few little issues with connectivity and audio for headset users, and it'll definitely be a game I remember fondly years from now.

10/10 Game of the year, though that may be the large tumour this game gave me putting pressure on my brain that's causing me to feel that way.

10/10 Big black man partnered up with a scrawny white boi.