Tag: Gears of war

Gears of war 4 Locust Drones pack

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Locust are finally here in Gears of war 4. Earlier today the Locust Drones pack was released. We at X35 Earthwalker have been waiting all this time for the return of the Locust as they were awesome enemies and part of what made Gears of war what it is. We had nothing against the Swarm but the Locusts were much cooler and scary. Finally they brought them to us.

So whats in the Locust Drones pack? The contents that you can get from these packs are 2 locust characters and 2 enemy themed weapon skin sets. That’s it. Only 2 Locust characters. Just 2. No queen Myrrah or theron guard. That’s disappointing to be very honest. We know their strategy. It’s to bring things out bit by bit to keep gamers waiting and gaming to help keep the game alive for as long as possible. We understand it from a business point of view but it’s suppose to be about the gears of war gamers firstly.

Fine then. At least we get 2. What’s the price for 1 of the Locust Drones pack? What!!! 2000 gold coins! Now they have really crossed the line. Is it just like with the UIR pack which charged really high for a bunch of random items which didn’t guarantee anything. You could get doubles. Surely no but it is. X35 Earthwalker had enough to get two Locust Drones packs and after opening them both he got none of the Locust characters when he could have used all those coins to get well over 11 horde packs. It’s disappointing. At least each pack gives you 5 items but gamers like X35 Earthwalker have been excited and waiting for the Locusts for time now and got nothing. Now they expect players to grind their game until they get 2000, 4000, 6000 etc to open the packs. We actually don’t have the time. Once again, like with the UIR pack, we are greatly disappointed.

What’s also annoying is that the packs also gave out skins from different packs like the chillin lancer. Why is it here? Why can’t they just keep it Locust Drones stuff only? It’s not that hard to do. The other skins like the Juvie for the snub pistol and the boomer skin for the markza do have locust theme colours which is nice and how it should be. We have nothing against the contents as we were looking forward to them. It’s just how they are doing this is horrible. 

Overall we say that if you have the gold coins then get some packs and get your locusts. If you have little gold coins then wait and hope they lower the cost. If you have real money to use on games then buy some and give us half (don’t be cheap now). Otherwise we aren’t too bothered to miss this at all. We are sorry Locusts as we love you guys (even though you kill humans) but you aren’t worth that much time. So whether you buy it or not… don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Gears of war Multiplayer Mechanics

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Gears of war 3 is still to this day one of our favourite games to play. Gears of war 3 is the game that all the other gears of war games need to learn from when it comes to multiplayer mechanics and gameplay. The games were all very good and we love them, it’s just that they either lack or missing some great things that gears of war 3 has. 

For example gears of war ultimate edition has the same feel and movements like gears of war 1 but refined. The movements are still and we feel that wall bouncing is much harder to perform unless you have your sensitivity set to maximum, which isn’t something everyone can handle. We never liked it at all. Since it was based on the first game there is only the ‘Curb stomp’ execution which will always be awesome by the way.

Gears of war judgement is one of my favourites. This game was hated by many fans but it’s because of their mentality. Gears of war judgement was the best at balancing the weapons for multiplayer. Short range weapons rule short range battles. Mid range weapons like rifles actually rule mid range battles. Gears of war 3’s gnasher shotgun was the most over powered. The damage was really high, combine that with the range and you have a weapon that everyone uses. That shotgun could beat rifles at mid range literally. It’s that powerful. Don’t get us started on how much worse the weapon is with a perfect active reload as it increases the range and damage of the weapon. In gears of war 3, the shotgun literally is the best weapon to have and use. When in doubt, equip your shotgun. We hated the shotgun always. In gears of war judgement you could actually defend yourself against shotgun users.

Gears of war 4 was the closest thing to the mechanics of gears 3. The gameplay is faster than 3 but feels a little more like ‘Ultimate edition’. The game, because of the faster gameplay, has less executions and less rivalry. The best thing about gears of war 4 is that everything feels closest to perfect, except for the fact that their is no real defense against the shotgun now. The ‘Retro lancer’ and ‘Sawed off’ are gone now. The replacement that any player can equip is the ‘Enforcer’ smg. This gun has really high rate of fire but has a small clip with low damage. This means that unless you catch someone out of cover, you aren’t really going to kill them. Gnasher users can easily pop shot them making the Enforcer useless. The hammerburst has been nerfed so much that there really is no reason to use it as the lancer has better damage and a bigger clip. X35 Earthwalker just uses it for fun but says you need the active reload as that makes it fire twice as fast meaning you can down any opponent really fast. In gears of war.

Gears of war 3 was the closest to being perfect for many reasons. The gameplay was at a great speed. If you stayed still for too long, be sure that someone will come up behind you with the shotgun and kill you. The pace was also not to fast to the point where you don’t have time for executions and targeting certain players. The weapons felt like they do the right amount of damage. You can easily tell the pros and cons of the 3 rifles and when they should be used. Off course the gnasher shotgun was still too powerful and the main issue of gears of war 3. If you can’t use it, then you are screwed. Simple as that. 

To compare Gears of war 3 had the best balance out of all of them. Gears of war judgement not having four weapons as usual changed how some players could play due to the lack of options. The fact that you could throw a grenade without changing weapons because of one button made combat in most cases faster than normal but more grenade happy than they were in gears of war 3. The frag grenade having the ability to stick to enemies just made it clear that the best frag in the game was the frag; however the different options did make matches interesting and only the best will use the other grenades. Judgement also had the ability for us to drop of ledges to areas below and climb over edges too. This forced players to be more aware as attacks could easily come from above, like someone dropping in with a ‘Scorcher’ flamethrower while in 3 you just had to look ahead and behind. Judgement had the best weapon balancing of them all meaning that everyone couldn’t just rush with shotguns all the time unlike 3 where everyone lives of that gun. Gears of war 4 made wall bouncing easier and feels easier to use the shotgun making it more beginner friendly. This means that everyone stands more of a chance in matches than with gears of war 3. The gameplay in 4 is faster than 3 which does lead to less rivalry and targeted playing while in gears of war 3 you are always looking for that one player. Ultimate edition just feels to stiff and the shotgun was hard to understand in terms of what it can do.

Overall all Ultimate edition was the worse for us as it still has the mechanics and gameplay of gears of war 1. Ultimate edition also had the most weirdest damage for weapons making them unreliable. Judgement has the best weapon damage balancing but was overall just too different from what we are use to; however it is our second favourite multiplayer of all the gears of war because all the weapons are actually useful and the gnasher wasn’t the only thing to use. Gears of war 4 did an excellent job at balancing all aspects but in order to please majority of the gears fans, they made the gnasher the best weapon in the game again and left no counters to the weapons meaning you must learn the ways of the gnasher or be gnashed (whatever that means). Gears of war 3 has the right pace and the best tension in matches which makes all the difference. The rifles are still effective, also there are counters to the gnasher shotgun so if you can’t wall bounce and kill then you can rely on other weapons to stand up to them. Gears of war 3 is our favourite and we believe has the best multiplayer mechanics. Time to do executions and the boom shot is nice and explosive. We believe Judgement did the best for what it is but it was most enjoyable with gears of war 3. This is just our opinion after all but whether opinion or not… you must never forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Gears of war 3 has still go it

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Gears of war 3 is one of those games that is a personal favourite of ours. This is one of those games that we still play to this day. Gears of war 3 was released in September 2011. That is many years ago when you think about it but what’s still on fire today is the multiplayer. Many are still on and hooked to the feel of gears of war 3. If you started up your game now and checked out king of the hill, you will find multiple matches with serious gamers going on. X7 Earthenvessel, N63 Prodigy and X35 Earthwalker himself have been going back to king of the hill to destroy some gamers and have fun. If you aren’t prepared for what these matches hold then you won’t be able to destroy anyone or have fun.

Now it isn’t a huge amount of players but large enough that multiple matches are always going on but small enough so that you can recognise the gamer tags of players in the matches. X35 Earthwalker has frequently now seen many gamers who he has fought before. Also these gamers remember him as well. This poses a problem but in a good way. This causes intense matches where you must constantly watch your back because there is now intense rivalry with many players and big dislike for some others. So if you keep destroying certain people, well then they want nothing more than to down you and then execute you with style. Meaning that they throughout the entire match are looking for you and opportunities to kill you, whether from behind or in a duel. That’s right tea bagging and shooting dead bodies to rub salt in the wounds is here in abundance. 

This makes every match intense to the point where you are constantly watching out for that one of two players who are sneaking around and looking out for you. There are some gamer tags that when we the game announce in text that they have joined the match we say, “Oh I remember you. Looks like it;s going to be a rematch!” It doesn’t help that most of the players are good by now and will give you nasty shotgun battles and heavy cross fire from all directions. There has been many rage quits, camping and saltiness. All in the name of gears of war 3. Don’t get us wrong, these matches are a blast. We have had times when we would burst out laughing at what goes on in the matches and we have had our salty moments but who hasn’t. It’s actually great to see those familiar names again in matches. I remember a match from two nights ago where X7 Earthenvessel got a triple kill with the gnasher shotgun. N63 Prodigy was tea bagging everyone and X35 Earthwalker got 71 kills. It was awesome. 

Just a few tips to help some gamers out. Make sure to be skilled in all the starting weapons: lancer, hammerburst, retro lancer, gnasher and sawed off. This is because situation always changes and therefore a different strategy requires different weapons at times. Don’t be like those players who only use the gnasher and expect everyone else to as well, so when someone comes around the corner with a sawed off and kills them, they start complaining and send hate mail. Instead of being salty, just adapt. If you know someone is using sawed off all the time them stop going around corners tightly. Instead go around as far as you can so they can’t get the drop on you and splatter you. Then lancer them down and rub it in with a well deserved execution. If all someone does is stay back and use rifles then lay a trap for them and wait for a appropriate power weapon that can be used to deal with them. Think about the lay out of the map as some maps are small and close range, so shotguns will rule the place. You have to adapt to what’s going on. Also always get the power weapons. If you control them, you almost always control the map. Lastly don’t be afraid to die because you will, a lot. 

It’s all good fun at the end of the day, (however some take it too seriously) so start up your game, jump into a match, blow someone up with some frag grenades and ignore all the hate mails. X35 Earthwalker has gotten a lot of those. Seriously the matches are better than ever before and you will always a get a chance to settle the score with certain gamers. Gears of war 3 has still got it.

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How to beat the horde in gears of war 4

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Gears of war 4 horde 3.0 is known now for being incredibly hard to complete. Getting from wave 1 to 50 is proving to be a problem. Some have had problems with casual. Many are struggling with normal. Pretty much everyone is finding hardcore too hard. Insane is just plain insane (Forget about it). X35 Earthwalker has done hardcore difficulty and said that it was really hard and was glad he had awesome team mates. We decided to give some advice on how to tackle hardcore and insane difficulty.

First things first you yourself has to be ready. Please don’t join a team knowing that you are far too weak or haven’t got the skills yet. It will sabotage the team and ruin the whole thing for everyone. How do you know if you are ready? Well how frequently do you die in easier difficulties? Do you know when to stay back? Do you stay in cover. Do you fulfill the role of your class? In hardcore and insane you can’t be messing around as enemies will become so strong that they will punish all your mistakes and destroy your team. Do you need your own team? X35 Earthwalker said that he did hardcore with random online players and no mics. It just comes down to having a good team. Normally at hardcore the players are serious and actually want to complete it so trolling is less likely. So just search for a map and get into the action.

Next. What about your class skills? Your class must have at least 3 skill card slots but preferably four (The more the better). At least one of your skill cards should be level 5 and all the others should be level 4 (except epic skills). Now it does come down to what classes are in your team. Going all soldier will work very well for most of the game until you suffer from a lack of energy so variety is the secret here. The best combination of classes are: 2 soldiers, 1 engineer, 1 scout and 1 heavy. The reasons for this is because firstly soldiers are overall the most useful and versatile class. hey have good defence, dish out high damage constantly and can end the enemy push with one move. Off course over variations work well too like have 1 soldier and 2 heavies instead, which by the way is very strong but ammo may become a problem. At the end of the day do the combination that works best for you. Never have two snipers or two engineers as that is never a good thing. You never need two of them but you must always have an engineer and a scout. When a high level scout and engineer work together, they end up being the reason why you beat hardcore and insane in the end.

The one class that isn’t necessary is sniper. Snipers kill enemies at a much slower rate than other classes, they don’t do the most damage, they have no extra abilities and their epic skill is the weakest of the 3 strike skills. The soldier needs maxed out rifle damage (50%), at least level 4 grenade damage, ammo capacity and must always have the hammer of dawn skill. The hammer is the secret weapon that will save you and the whole team. The soldier must plant grenades to seal of areas from attacks and kill everything small and big. Heavies should have at least a level 4 explosive ammo capacity and damage. Mark damage is a good and can add that extra damage needed to kill bosses quick. Heavy weapons damage is up to you. The heavy must simply blow up everything that walks. Normally they ought to save some explosives for bigger enemies and destroy the bosses. Scouts must have maxed energy deposit, no questions asked. Other skills like maxed out movement speed and maxed out starting health truly comes in handy as time and low health can be an issue but when you combine those two you can be the main person to revive downed team mates. 50% energy deposit + the scouts natural ability to collect double energy is the best way to get energy. Engineers must have the repair tool efficiency skill maxed out and have at least a level 4 fortification health boost (which is a general skill). Those two are a must. Equipping the turret health boost and cost reduction will save you lots of energy as turrets are the most expensive things and always get targeted to be destroyed.

In the first ten waves you can take it easy and stay in cover. Only let the scout collect the energy. Only let the engineer to all the building. Try your best to safely complete all the objectives that appear in the waves as you need the energy they give. Do not buy weapons from the fabricator as you can scavenge many great weapons from dead enemies, everything from drop shots to grenades; however the only exception to this rule is if a soldier wants a retro lancer which doesn’t cost much. Think about how much damage a soldier could do with the rifle damage boost plus the power of a retro lancer. It becomes like a mulcher, seriously. If low on ammo for the whole team then open up an bonus creates you got from completing objective during waves as some instantly grants big ammo to all team mates. Make sure you have a line of turrets for the bosses as they are the only things that can kill the bosses before they reach you. Once bosses like the carrier and especially the snatcher enter your base, it’s almost all over. A heavy who has the increased turret damage skill can easily be the highest damaging thing in the game and will defeat any boss.  Level 4 turrets are a must have. X35 Earthwalker once had two other team mates and himself focus their level 4 turrets at a kestrel and that boss went down really fast… both kestrels. 

Never forget this one thing. Hardcore and insane are completely different from normal and casual. The enemies take less damage and give out much more. In casual you could run in the middle of them and beat them all with your shotgun but it is not so in hardcore. When playing the harder difficulties and reaching waves 30 and above you start to understand how important cover truly is. If not in cover even a ‘Deebee’ robot is easily capable of downing you very fast. At waves 40 and above the enemies will punish you for being in the open for a couple of seconds. Sentinels with tri shots will down you in less than a second if they catch you in the open. Juvies are have said that they are the worst enemies in insane as they are capable of ruining your entire day. They can sneak up on your team and in two swings can down you and then head for your team mates. Never forget to mark certain enemies who could pose a threat like Scion boomers and Pouncers. Enemies like that deserve attention, so let your team know and deal with them safely.

The carrier and snatcher boss will follow you relentlessly, if you don’t have the line of turrets and powerful weapons then you have to do the ‘leading strategy’, invented by X35 Earthwalker himself. First of all, the chances of this strategy succeeding once dealing with the higher level waves is lower than normal. By wave 40 you should have a fortified base with powerful turrets by then. Basically your whole team moves together as a team and leave the base. moving around the border of the map while killing everything in your path. You must be together as that’s the only way to save each other easily and beat strong enemies fast. This way the boss won’t destroy your base but instead keep trying to get you, saving you energy. It’s best that you have your heavies in the front so that they can blow stuff up without obstruction. Have the engineer and scout as a distraction and let your soldiers kill everything and plant grenades behind your team to stop any enemies from making a sandwich out of you guys. 

What is probably one of the most important factors is location. Where you place your fabricator and build your base are immensely important. If you build in the wrong place, you will find that you get attacked from too many angles. if this happens then you won’t get far at all. Next is the location of your team mates. Your engineer has no business being at the front lines. The engineer must stay behind the others but top priority is the base and repairs. The soldier must be at the front line. The scout must be assisting everyone and be the first to help with revives. the speed increase skill is very useful and versatile. The heavy must be second to the soldier. Deciding who gets the ammo boxes is important. Heavies run out of explosive ammo fast and so should be a higher priority for ammo. Make sure that everyone gets ammo. special loot you get for completing challenges should be saved up until later waves and only opened when fighting bosses. if you need ammo then just scavenge from the dead enemies. Always stay nearby and never separate from the group do whatever you want after the wave is done. If your team is getting overrun and all hope is lost then have your soldier use the hammer of dawn ability to destroy absolutely everything because it will.

The last to remember when taking on the hordes is to gain experience. Get playing and give it a go. Don’t be afraid to fail at a wave. Try your best and have fun.

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UIR Pack? Not happy!

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

The UIR pack for gears of war 4 was released on the 22nd of December 2016 and boy did it bring a lot of disappointment and complaints. The problem isn’t what the pack contains as there are some cool looking stuff. The epic characters look really cool in fact. The UIR elite especially looks like some elite forces for sure and that he alone could blow some stuff up. The problem is the price. One pack costs 4400 coins! That’s outrageous, even for those characters. That’s more than the golden elite packs which costs 3500. It’s basically the price of 11 horde booster packs. X35 Earthwalker even said that he would rather buy the 11 horde booster packs every time. The fact that you get the gold coins very slowly in the game doesn’t help at all. One social match earns you around 70-80 coins so you will need to play at least 55 matches to get there. That’s ridiculous by anyone’s standards. Even playing horde wave 1 through to 50 would even get you half of the amount you need to get the UIR pack. You will have to do 50 waves three times and we all know just how hard that is. It’s such a shame.

Many season pass players are upset that they don’t get this stuff for free or even a a discount and are questioning why they even bought the season pass. However the price is a big problem but not the biggest problem at all. The biggest problem is that the pack doesn’t guarantee you the 3 characters and the skins. Nope!! It’s all random. This means that you will have to spend over 10000 coins to try and get everything and 3 attempts will not get you everything at all. This means that you can’t rely on your coins to get them. The only other option is to buy them using real money. That’s right. The price is £8.39 per pack. That’s more than 4 one leg and chips at a chicken shop. That’s more than games on the Xbox store. That’s travel money right there. Now some will say that that’s not much but that depends on your situation. Many players feel excluded from UIR pack and many aren’t able to get it at all. It’s like letting only a few children in on the new toys while the rest can’t play with them. It’s not fair. All this stuff just have to stop. If you go online, you will see the responses and experience of other gamers concerning the UIR pack.

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Gears of war 4 so far

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker
 

 

Gears of war has always been a game loved by us for years. We have played the game since gears of war 1 and each release has made us happy. Gears of war 4 has made a big success and pleased many gear fans from campaign players, to horde players. Gears of war 4 was released October 11th 2016. The campaign was our least favourite of the game modes. This is not because of the fact that the ‘swarm’ aren’t as cool as the ‘locust’ at all. This is because we feel they could have done much more concerning the plot. You discover that the ‘locust’ (spoiler alert) didn’t really die but instead have been mutated into a new enemy. We felt that this new enemy which didn’t make a large impact. When the locust showed up they had the whole of humanities attention and really did rock the earth. The swarm felt like a private matter that literally a handful of soldiers was able to deal with. We didn’t get much action from the cog. We thought maybe the cog would tackle the swarm themselves and in the game we would see a scene where an army of ‘Deebee’ machine soldiers going up against the swarm in a big battle… but nope. Instead we see five robots fight a small group of swarm and that’s it. Gears of war 4 could have done more with all this. Also we felt that ‘Del’ was just the one liner, comical relief guy. He didn’t come of as significant really and really disappointed in that. Dom from earlier gears of war games was way more significant.

The mutiplayer is very good. The multiplayer game mechanics here feels like a mix between gears of war ultimate edition and gears of war 3. It would have been better if they kept it like gears of war 3. It seems harder to casually play the game types that you want as social is based on votes while match making is all ranked or versus bots. Again gears of war 3 felt better but we do see why they done it this way. This way game types that are less popular have a higher chance of being played. The shotgun once again feels like the only weapon to use in the game, especially once they nerfed the hammer burst. Now there isn’t really that much to help players counter the ‘gnasher’ shotgun. The ‘Enforcer’ smg is not good enough. The clip size is too small, if you miss a bit then you won’t have enough to down an enemy. In gears of war 3 you have the sawed off and retro lancer to help stop ‘gnasher’ shotgun worshippers in their tracks. Off course those ‘gnasher’ users complained everytime they died to one and the game developers removed them to please those gamers making this game less beginner friendly as new gamers will die all the time until they learn to use the ‘gnasher’. Judgement was the best at balancing weapons we believe as rifles were actually ruling the mid range battles (Like they should), after all they are rifles. From when a shotgun can beat a rifle at mid range shows there is something wrong. The executions of the weapons are back and there are some awesome ones, especially the ‘tri-shot’ execution. There seems to be less executions than ever before in gears of war 4.

Horde mode is back and better overall. As usual it’s up to 50 waves and they can get brutal real quick. The difficulty has been amped up. Many say that it is in fact too hard. Some can’t beat it on normal difficulty. X35 Earthwalker himself has completed fifty waves of horde on insane in gears of war 3 but explains that horde in gears of war 4 is more than a step up in difficulty. This is also due to the fact that getting fortifications is harder because of the new ‘fabricator’ system. In order to build anything, even caltrops, you need to collect fabrticator energy which you primarily collect from the dead bodies of enemies and secondly from completing wave challenges. The amount you get unless, you are the highest level scout, is so small that you must go many waves without anything which should not be the way to play horde. Horde is about having base and placing defences to help you survive the whole thing. Not going fifteen waves without anything because you really need to save. The bosses make the whole getting and keeping fortifications harder as two of the bosses make the whole process pointless. The ‘Snatcher’ and ‘Kestrel’ are the worst. The Snatcher can leap and just straight up charge right through everything and reach you within seconds. Kestrel just fires over cover and flies wherever it wants,bombing everything you ever held dear to you. In the higher difficulties these two almost means instant death. The horde class and skill system is good though as it adds more replay value and adds a new layer to horde. Upgrading skills is a real pain though as you need packs to get more skill cards but getting packs require golden coins which take long to get. It does become a grind.

Overall the whole game is great and having a lot of fun killing, executing and receiving hate mail from online gamers. Just add options to counter the gnasher, create an free add on to the campaign, give more gold coins per horde and multiplayer matches and readjust the fabricator system in horde and the game will be multiple steps better. The devlopers, ‘The Coalition’ has done a great job.

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