14 DAY TRIAL // I was playing as Sofia, the new female character introduced in Gears of War: Judgment, and decided to activate all start of the level modifiers in order to get a tougher challenge and get more stars to unlock the special Aftermath campaign.
My decision resulted in a few levels where I managed to complete the missions, but only at the cost of more deaths than I would have liked, which negatively influenced the score that Judgment creates at the end of each level.
And I felt the urge to replay in order to get a better result, something that never happens when I play shooters.
The Declassified system is partly to blame for the impulse, but the clear structure of combat in Gears of War also helps because it allows players to see exactly where they went wrong and how they could improve their overall performance.
Developer People Can Fly understands these competitive impulses because it has also played on them in its previous big release, Bulletstorm, and further enhanced the Judgment system by adding plenty of Achievements and ribbons that players can collect in order to clearly display their performances.
In Bulletstorm, each kill that the player performed could be ramped up in order to deliver more points but that model often felt overpowering, always demanding better performance, taking away a feeling of joy from the player.
In Judgment, players’ evaluation only takes place at the end of a section and that makes it easier to enjoy the fights and only afterwards worry about how well one did and whether a replay is in order.
The biggest problem for me is that dying is severely punished at the end, which pushed me towards a rather conservative play style.
I often jump right into fights and try to take out enemies up close, but the new Gears of War discourages me to do that because such behavior would increase my chances of getting killed, decreasing my star reward.
In the end, I seem to choose more Achievements and public image over fun.