CHAINSAW CHESS

Fantastic combat makes GEARS TACTICS a strategy game worthy of the PC.

- Wes Fenlon

Gears Tactics and I share the belief that a sniper rifle should practically be an extension of the hand of god, so mighty it feels almost unfair. Late in my campaign I could fire off seven rounds in a single turn, chaining together shots that gave me free actions for every kill. This is the power fantasy version of a tactics game, and pitch-perfect Gears of War, down to the cranial pop of a Longshot’s bullet landing a critical headshot.

Tactics has a linear campaign, told with very pretty Unreal Engine cutscenes. It’s easily the best-looking tactics game I’ve played, and it’s hard to oversell how precisely this game translates Gears into an overhead turn-based perspective.

Gears Tactics is an aggressive strategy game that throws piles of enemies at you, because it knows you’ve got frag grenades that can turn a pack of scurrying wretches into chicken nuggets, or a chainsaw gun that has a 100-percent chance to slice even a full-health Locust in half.

XCOG