Imagine this: You’re 13 years old, living in late-2000s Dhaka, Bangladesh, which means that the new generation of consoles – the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Wii – have yet to make their way over to this little Southeast Asian country you call home. All you can do is fawn over the majesty of these plastic boxes through videos from IGN and Gametrailers.com. That is, until your home internet, provided by Grameenphone, inevitably goes on the fritz and you have to drag your router to the balcony with an extension cord, all the while sending prayers to Dr. Yunus with the hopes that he’ll grace you with internet once again (ah, the memories).

Then, one day, your cousin storms into your room, face red and sweaty, and tells you with stunted breath that your guys’ younger cousin just got the Xbox 360. Your eyes widen, and your heart begins to flutter. You can’t believe it. Within seconds, both of you run to the living room landline – yes, kids, back in the day, houses used to have one big phone with a spindly cord called a landline – and call your cousin, who acts smug and speaks nonchalantly as if he wasn’t in the possession of the coolest thing ever.

You ask him what games he has. He lists off a few, but one name, in particular, has you giddier than you already were: Gears of War. A game you’d watched trailers of and were blown away by seeing its incredible graphics. A game that was supposedly an example of what this new generation of video games could bring. The three of you make plans to visit your cousin on the weekend, a lifetime away in the moment, but you all knew that it was going to be a weekend of epic proportions. 

That weekend remains one of my fondest childhood memories. Staying up all night, passing the controller back and forth as the three of us made our way through the game’s campaign in split-screen co-op. Being mesmerized by the incredible graphics and heart-pounding soundtrack, gleefully shredding through hordes of Locust with a revolutionary third-person, cover-based shooting mechanic, and watching the screen splatter with gore that our PG-13 selves probably shouldn’t have been witness to. It was a blast.

A couple of years later, when I finally got an Xbox 360 of my own, I played through Gears of War 2, once again diving into split-screen co-op, though this time with my uncle wielding the second controller. From Epic Games’ last foray with Marcus and his crew in Gears of War 3, to The Coalition taking over the helm with Gears of War 4 and Gears 5, this is a franchise that holds a special place in my heart. 

Imagine my excitement, then, when Team Xbox announced that they would be releasing a remaster of the original Gears of War, this time with the subtitle: Reloaded. Now, I know the original game got a makeover with the Ultimate Edition back in 2015, but Reloaded came out during a time when I needed some nostalgia; I needed some Gears. And over the past couple of weeks, nostalgia and Gears were exactly what I got. 

The Controller

Playing Reloaded feels like slipping back into an old pair of jeans. I know exactly how it fits, which areas are really comfortable, and the few places where it isn’t. I booted up the game and began the campaign, this time playing as Dom, as I gave the honour of playing our goateed-having, durag-wearing protagonist to my Discord buddy, who had never played a Gears game before. It took us four play sessions and roughly eight hours to get through the game’s campaign. After which, I spent some time in the online multiplayer, where I would go on to get absolutely destroyed by sweaty dudes with Gnashers from across the map. 

From a mechanical standpoint, everything about Reloaded feels exactly how I remember the original Gears feeling, for better and for worse. Quirky elements like the “A” button being bound to far too many traversal elements, from sprinting to taking cover to diving, to the many, many combat arenas littered with chest-high covers, are somewhat relics of the time. But the hefty gunplay, chaotic set-pieces, and unique game-feel still feel fresh by today’s standards—chainsawing enemies asunder also never gets old.

I was also reminded about how well-paced the original game’s campaign was. Sure, there are a ton of combat arenas that, by the last chapter, can feel a little fatiguing. However, each of the five acts offers at least one sequence that adds an interesting twist—the boss encounter at the end of Act I, for instance. After spending the entire act mowing down enemies with countless rounds of lead from your Lancer with no notion of subtlety, you now must tiptoe around this frightening beast as sound is the only way she can detect you, and if she does, it’s RIP.

But for as much fun as I was having with Reloaded, for as much as the nostalgia was pouring down on me, I couldn’t help but feel that something was…off. A couple of the most distinctive emotions I remembered having during that night with my cousins were exhilaration and tension. Exhilaration because, well, we were playing Gears of War for crying out loud. But tension because the game was, for us preteens at the time, kinda scary. It was dark, gritty, and dour. These Locusts were frightening, and all the sounds and visuals surrounding them were haunting.

I felt none of that tension or feeling of dread during my playthrough of Reloaded. Now, granted, it’s been almost twenty years, and I am now a brave man in my 30s (he said, fully knowing that he couldn’t play Alan Wake, an action-adventure game, in the dark). Still, something felt different with Reloaded. Something that took away from what the original made you feel. That something is the audiovisuals.     

The Eyes & Ears

In their efforts to have Reloaded aesthetically match the look and feel of the later games in the series, The Coalition and Sumo Digital seem to have stripped much of the grit, grime, and punch that the original game had. In so doing, Reloaded looks and sounds different from the original Gears of War. This isn’t just nostalgia, either. Watch any comparison videos on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. The guns feel a tad subdued; the rumble effects whenever Marcus or Dom smash into a chest-high slab of cover have a smidge less “oomph,” the shrieks and shouts of enemies are a little less emphatic and intimidating, and the overall colour tone and atmosphere feels far less severe and oppressive—something that made the original so iconic. 

Now, all of this is not to say the game doesn’t look or sound great—far from it. The linked YouTube video above will showcase the wonderful work the devs have done in modernizing the audiovisuals. From textures, environment details, character models, lighting effects, and even a few added sound effects, Gears of War: Reloaded is a treat to look at and listen to. Playing on my MSI Claw 8 proved no issues, either, as I was able to crank the settings to high and enjoy a very pretty and violent experience while on the go. But, there’s no denying that, for as beautiful as Reloaded may look, some of its identity was lost in the process. 

No longer did I feel a haunting sense of dread as I slow-walked across the woods at night in Act III. No longer did the sight of a Berserker send chills down my spine each time it charged towards me. I still felt like I was playing Gears, just one that looked and sounded closer to its pretty and bombastic modern brothers instead of its dark and harsh original. The stark contrast of the blacks and browns with the blown-out white textures made for an incredibly unique look. Combine that with Epic wanting to lean in to the changing landscape of the games industry of the mid-2000s, which wanted to be more “adult,” and the result was one of the most iconic-looking, sounding, and feeling games of the Xbox 360 generation.   

The Heart

When it comes to the narrative, there’s not much to be said here. The game takes place on the fictional planet of Sera, 14 years after a race of subterranean creatures known as the Locust Horde emerged from beneath Sera’s surface and wiped out more than 25% of the population. You play as Marcus Fenix, a commando from the Coalition of Ordered Governments, better known as COG, on a mission to plant a bomb within Sera’s depths with the hopes of ridding the Locust once and for all. 

The moment-to-moment storytelling is satisfactory, but what highlights it is your crew of big and hilariously burly men. Dom, Cole, and Baird are instantly memorable characters who are performed to a T. Their relationships with one another and banter during gameplay are a blast to listen to and keep you engaged in the world and narrative far more than the story itself, which is…fine. Though the writing surrounding the main villain is practically non-existent, and I would have liked to see more character-driven cutscenes that fleshed out these memorable companions a bit further, what we get here is still a world and story that keeps you engaged with awesome characters and an instantly likeable protagonist in Fenix, all the while setting up the rest of the franchise aptly.   

The Verdict: 7.5/10 — “It’s Solid”

Gears of War: Reloaded is the perfect way to step into the boots of one of gaming’s most iconic characters. The Coalition and Sumo Digital have done a commendable job of modernizing the visuals of this 2006 classic to make for a very good-looking game. However, that modernization comes at the cost of losing some of the darker, more punchy and grim aesthetic that made the original’s atmosphere so hauntingly memorable. This includes the audio, which sounds slightly more subdued compared to the original. Nevertheless, going through this game after all these years with a friend in co-op was a wonderfully nostalgic trip that reminded me that, for however many innovations this industry has seen over the past near-20 years, and for however many minor flaws and dated designs it may have, there’s still nothing quite like Gears of War.    

Shaz Reviewed Gears of War: Reloaded on PC via Xbox Game Pass