Gears E-Day & Hellraiser: Revival REVIEWED (Plus Capcom's AI Scandal)

Scott Tailford (0:11)

Hello, everybody, welcome to the WhatCulture Gaming podcast. I'm your host, Scott Telford, joined by Dan Durkin.

Dan Durkin (0:16)

Hi, Scott.

Scott Tailford (0:17)

Hello, I'm Josh Brown.

Josh Brown (0:18)

Hello, Dan Durkin. And Scott Telford, of course. Yes, I've always here.

Scott Tailford (0:23)

I never leave this room, but we thought we'd bring in the Gears maestro himself, Gears of War E-Day reviewer, Mr. Dan Durkin, someone who I think if you slice him in half, you'll bleed Gears of War.

Josh Brown (0:32)

Probably literally he's got the tattoo on his arm.

Dan Durkin (0:34)

I know.

Scott Tailford (0:35)

You got that from the little event.

Josh Brown (0:37)

Yeah. That's so cool, man.

Scott Tailford (0:39)

Yeah, so it's Gears of War Emergence Day today. And I haven't played it yet, but Mr. Dan Durkin has. We thought we'd do a little bit of a mix of some stuff that we've been playing because Josh has also been playing Hellraiser Revival.

And then we've got a couple of news items that we want to get to as well. But Gears-wise, is it good? I know your review is on the channel, so you should go check out the channel and go watch the full review. But how are you finding it after you've kind of everything settled a little bit?

Dan Durkin (1:00)

It is good. So I got earlier access, obviously, for the review, and it was for the campaign section of the game. In the campaign, I gave a four out of five, spoiler alert. I had some issues with open zones. I'm going to look at you when I say that, because I know you're an open zoner.

But the back half of the game is where it really kicks in the gear and it's just, pun intended, pun intended.

Josh Brown (1:25)

It's just perfection. Good.

Scott Tailford (1:27)

What are you saying that the, yeah, the back sort of few hours were complete heaven.

Dan Durkin (1:31)

When it's, it is more linear, but I think that's where Gears works best, where it's more of a like guided experience, not as so much as Wolverine was.

Scott Tailford (1:40)

I do believe in Wolverine, but I want to talk about the open zone stuff for a bit, because that seemed to be the direction that they took Gears in in Gears 5 I thought it was fine, but it didn't do a whole lot.

Josh Brown (1:50)

Yeah, the skiff.

Scott Tailford (1:50)

You have this vehicle that you can pilot around. Are there any vehicles in here?

Josh Brown (1:53)

There's not, there is not.

Scott Tailford (1:54)

You still have like big spaces you can explore.

Dan Durkin (1:56)

Yeah, the thing is the traversal like isn't good enough to warrant these big areas. I don't personally think. And there are some missions where you're riding in a raven, which is like the helicopter, you've got the big machine gun, you're shooting things. But yeah, in terms of the open zones, I think there's like maybe four throughout the whole thing, but it feels like it drags, because the way that they do it is they just drop you in, there's different collectibles that you can go along, like it'll make the little noise if there's a cog tag near by.

But then there's also supply crates, and that's how you get your weapon attachments, because there's this element of, sort of, it's like RPG light, where you can get a lancer, but you can put a bigger mag on it, you can put a scope on it and stuff like that. So it's trying to expand it, but the amount of these little, meaningless collectibles that you have to go out and you wait to find. And then also we have the side missions as well, which are essentially all just versions of the same thing, where you'll go and find like a civilian or like a lone gear who's sniping Locust, and you have to help them defend. There'll be some emergence holes, and then that'll be it. Then you'll just go back on your merry way. And it's just, there's not enough, like content diversification yet. It's all very samey. And I think that's what really like, hinders it from being a better experience. But when you're doing the more linear stuff, and you're being like, sort of guided through the, you go underground at one point, and like the lighting is incredible. I think you love it, because it goes more like horror.

Scott Tailford (3:27)

I've seen a lot of saying that this feels like one of the most next-gen games.

Dan Durkin (3:30)

Yeah, and when it does that, you really feel it and it feels awesome to play. And it's like, the story is okay, but you know what's going to happen. Because you know Marcus and Dom aren't going to die. So there's not really any stakes there, but I really enjoyed it.