I play a few chapters in a Gears3/4 almost weekly lol just pick up and play. Older ones were more brutal than 4/5 but yes SM2 is far more brutal than Gears ever was. The executions are closer to Doom Glory kills.  I love Gears but I think the series needs some tweaking to be fresh. I mentioned this to a friend and we agreed. Gears have lacked good enemy variety in the last 2 entries. The open world was not the solution. We thought to include the Bulletstorm slide. Just a short slide to evade. The other was to borrow the concept from Binary Domain is targeting limbs. Shoot the legs they can't walk but crawl. Shoot arm they can't hold a rifle. Most die by headshot but a new enemy type would go RE and grow something where the head was making them tougher and/or it explodes. The other is new enemy AI and behavior. Gears enemies haven't done anything really that different since the 360 era. Still have the same cover mechanics. Just some teaks to freshen up gameplay and enemies.

As for SM2, I keep trying to do active reload and wishing the game had Gears controls. Esp for reloading and melee.

Even as I attempted it, I was thinking "Why the fuck am I even trying to wall cover, I'm a Goddamn Space Marine"

So that brings the total this year for Xbox up to 2,550 I believe. How many weeks until we hear from the next publisher/studio about a few hundred more. 2,550 jobs is the price paid by workers when a $70 Billion acquisition takes place. They were never going to not cut the fat, but without the Activision acquisition there likely would have still been some layoffs judging by the rest of the industry.

I dislike the robots but that's more because I dislike fighting robots in almost everything, I find them to be 9 times out of 10 more boring than organic enemies to fight, in both gameplay and story, I don't know the deep reason why I think that though, Lol. I want them to go back to a linear Gears with a more gritty and horror-like experience, they can add some more combat stuff while keeping the heavy feeling of the game, make it a little more brutal but not too extreme to the point of absurdity.

I don't know what to do about the enemies, feels like they're stuck on Sera, a planet largely explored and destroyed, Swarm are just a less cool version of the Locust (and I don't even dislike the Swarm but they'll always be budget Locust) and bringing back the Locust would cheapen Gears 1-3 story unless it's done really, really, well. You can't just be like "hey look, some Locust survived"

I've always had a wild extreme scenario of taking Gears to space, Lol.

I've no doubt that Activision would be having layoffs as an independent entity, likely even worse, same with Zenimax, Bobby Kotick was a peak scumbag and Activision laid off hundreds of employees even in some of their best years. The dude would have gone nuts, especially since ABK stock was plummeting and they had hired like 5000+ employees across the pandemic.

Doesn't justify Microsoft's layoffs of course, they all fucking suck. My mood is fucking sour once again, Lol.

There's not much I can say which I haven't said about the other 50 layoffs in 2023 across tech. Fuck Corporations. Fuck Executives. Fuck Billion $ Corps. Fuck Billionaires. Unionise the entire industry, I know it won't stop layoffs but it will ensure employees are treated better and receive better severances from these blood sucking leeches, they don't care about you, they don't care about their employees, they only care about the pursuit of infinite growth. FTC can block every future big merger for all I care, well, once the laws are actually changed to support that.

Yeah, if Xbox would lead in USA and would be at 40% or so market share in Europe (without calculating Switch into it) I guess Sony would release that thing for 100 bucks less with a drive lol. 

Went trough a bit of a gaming slump the last days:

- Finally finished Doom 64 really enjoyed that one..

- So I played Powerslave next,  and ugh......it is really weak, also the character can't stay underwater for more than 5 seconds ...

- Then tried Turok again but the huge levels that all look the same really annoyed..

-  Star Trucker also dissapoints me,  I love Euro Truck and I hoped I would Star Trucker aswell but the space setting makes trafficking harder + the need of always getting batteries/Oil etc is rather annoying and hurts the flow of the game

- Doom + Doom II is basically the same but with MP...okay...

-Antigraviator looks fine but also felt to much like a mobile with rubberbanding AI making it not fun...

-Started up the Grandia collection but during the intro cutscene that isn't skippable I closed the game, really not in the mood for a story driven RPG at the moment

-  Played Armikrog short, funny,  felt good and make me miss Neverhood/skullmonkeys; 

Now just wondering what to play next...hmm..

What’s left of blizzard customer service is probably getting shit canned and replaced by AI

This time around the affected positions lead me to believe Xbox might be close to done with restructuring or at least it kind of feel like they're in the last steps. The fact that no project were impacted along with other news of studios expanding I think this might be it.

Robots were dull for Gears but I just meant shooting the limb's disabled parts. I did like being a giant mech that looks like a Space Marine in Gow4 tho lol. Tbh I keep thinking of Bulletstorm as a spinoff that's set a couple hundred years or more in the future.