Gears Of War 4 Roadie-Runs Onto Windows 10
Chainsaw guts
"If wanting that gun Blaine has is in the Predator is wrong, who'd want to be right?" Old Man Gillen said in 2008 about the first Gears of War. I mean, sure, Kieron's in favour of anything letting him pretend his tadger is a steel deathcannon spaffing at six thousand loads per minute, but the point is: big daft action games can be a right lark. That's why I'm glad to see Gears of War bring its crouch-running and chainsawing back to PC, with Gears of War 4 [official site] now out on Windows 10. Yes, Windows 10 only. But: chainsaw guns, yeah?
Gears of War 4 half-continues the story from the previous games, though facing a different threat to the original trilogy's and bringing some younger, less-cuboid soldiers into the squad. It's more cover-based third-person shooting (and meleeing and chainsawing) with a surprising amount of gibs.
Until now, we've only seen the first game (in its original and fancied-up Ultimate Edition forms) on PC. Here, I'll catch you up: Moonmen from inside the notEarth came out and tried to kill everyone with their pet monsters, but fridge-shaped notEarthmen killed them all first. If you want something more in-depth, hey, Gears 4's prologue chapter plays through a few key moments from the series' history anyway.
The only Gears of War game I've played a lot of is, somehow, Gears of War 2. It had some big fun set pieces, pleasant shootybangs, and the hilariously daft idea that I cared about the personal struggles of any of its characters. But I liked the bits with the shooting and chainsawing. Going by what our pals at Eurogamer say, Gears 4's campaign sounds a bit too sentimental and not silly enough, which is a shame. That's not what I want. I want to be swallowed by a city-devouring worm then fight through its guts to chainsaw its hearts while shouting (an actual Gears 2 level). Multiplayer sounds all right though.
Gears is out of the hands of creators Epic Games now, being made by Microsoft's own badly-named studio The Coalition (formerly Black Tusk Studios - better? - and Microsoft Vancouver - worse?).
Gears of War 4 is out on Windows 10 through the Microsoft Store for £41.74/$59.99. It's an 'Xbox Play Anywhere' game, meaning that buying it digitally gets you the game on both Xbox One and Win 10.
Apparently Run the Jewels are coming as multiplayer characters?