Though a little on the lean side in terms of content, Gears of War: Judgment is pretty good... provided you like third-person Halo games.
Shooters are the video-game equivalent of jazz music. To some people they seem like so much chaos and noise, and many have trouble discerning the subtleties that distinguish one work from another. Through practiced appreciation, though, the connoisseur learns to identify tightly woven patterns of structure and balance, a framework that allows seemingly minor creative changes to have a massive impact on the mood and feel of the piece. This dichotomy of chaos and order is why two games like
Halo and
Call of Duty can seem like interchangeable murder simulators to the layperson, whilst the expert experiences them as differently as one would a Thai massage and a colonoscopy.
The narrow chasms that differentiate shooters are especially relevant when we consider franchises and sequels. For example, the
Gears of War series sets itself apart with combat that is far more deliberate and strategic than that of "twitchier" shooters like
Call of Duty, while still achieving the kind of high-octane arcade flair not present in tactical shooters like
Rainbow Six. However, when designing a new entry for an established franchise, developers face a dilemma: how can the game evolve, without changing so much that it becomes an entirely different kind of shooter?
