Gears of War fans on PC have finally gotten some gears action after years of waiting with Gears of War Ultimate Edition making its way to Windows 10.
Yes Windows 10, not everyone’s PC, so there’s that. Microsoft’s DirectX 12 integration has led to them leaving out a large number of PC gamers, but given how they are treating PC and how Direct X is coming to more and more games, its only a matter of time before everyone finally makes the shift to windows 10.
Now, on to the main game itself, in terms of visuals it’s not a massive jump from the Xbox One version I reviewed last year, so it is definitely the not the glorious PC port you wanted to see. The game runs quite smoothly if you can find the right settings for your system, however since I was running it while live streaming on high settings it was stuttering a fair bit; though I assume that’s a problem most people won’t face if they just tweak the settings to a notch lower.
Optimisation isn’t perfect, so it will take a while and a few updates before everyone can experience the game. Playing the game on highest settings on 1080p will push even the most powerful PC’s to the limit, so 4k is going to be a massive ask of any device.
While I enjoyed reliving Gears of War in all its PC glory, my main problem was the AI in the game. The game was clearly made for coop play back in the day, but playing in 2016 with the AI is like shooting yourself in the foot and not using a crutch; the AI is infuriating to say the least, you’re basically on your own but get reset if he dies. Other than that minor issues with Windows Store’s slow download and server connectivity issues marred the experience a little.
The game is priced approximately '800 on the windows store making it affordable; but at the same time given that it’s a 55+gb windows store download most gamers won’t be able to access it anyway. The game for Windows 10 is a pretty good experience.
