Format: Windows 10
Genre: Strategy RPG
Developer: Splash Damage
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios

If this reviewer has to play one more game with woke-style female characters, he's likely going to lose whatever hair he has left! Lantern-jawed and with shoulders wider than Michele Obama's, they look absolutely absurd, and are a constant distraction. The game uses the same rendition of Unreal Engine 4 as did "Gears 5", and although it looks nice enough, the high texture resolution and polygon counts are in fact rather distracting when viewed via the genre's roughly overhead perspective.

Different composer this time around from "Gears 5", similar result: more boring, totally forgettable Hollywood orchestral work. At least this time there are a couple of average songs, with some synth elements: one at the end of each stage, and another during the first boss fight. The voice acting is par the course, with the men sounding mostly like passive weaklings, and the women like vulgar eighteen year-old frat boys.

Gears Tactics plays exactly like the modern "XCOM" reboots, sans base-building: move units from cover-to-cover, and defeat foes. In this case however, the emphasis is shifted towards chaining character abilities to accumulate more action points: during a cleverly well-structured turn, as many as a dozen enemies can be defeated. The game's boss fights as incredible: they take place in "three phase"-style, sort of like a Nintendo boss, but are very challenging due to the compact arenas.

We've got "woke", now hopefully next we'll obtain "broke". This reviewer despises bringing politics into video game reviews, but said politics are such a central part of modern video games-- which are used not just to entertain as in the days of yore, but to push radical Leftist agendas-- that they can't even be evaluated without addressing the topic. This game goes so far as to shout "fucking Fascist!" multiple times at the player! A pity too: the core gameplay is rewarding, and it's cool to see cutting edge engine tech brought to a niche genre.