Did we really need another Gears of War?
That is the question I had when I first learned about Judgment, a prequel set immediately after all hell broke loose on Emergence Day, several years prior to the first Gears. The original series was a bit too boneheaded for my liking - it was full of action but sat too awkwardly on the line between gravitas and kicking ass.
Judgment finds that line and walks it perfectly.
Marcus Fenix, the series icon voiced by animation legend John DiMaggio, is almost entirely absent from this title. Your heroes this time are the soldiers of Kilo Squad, including younger incarnations of Damon Baird and the "Cole Train," and they've been breaking rules to save lives. Admirable, yes, but a no-no in this military.
The game begins as the four members of Kilo are forcibly led into a damaged hall - inconveniently located in a live fire zone - to stand before a military tribunal led by a doggedly officious man who, dismissive of the violence unfolding outside, is determined to find out how our heroes came to be arrested as war criminals.
