Having watched a few runs it's clear to me that a few mechanics aren't being used to their full potential. Wall bouncing is almost never seen and it allows for input buffering which would help some areas of the map where run/jumps are commonplace. Also considering the weapons are coded so that the shots leave the chamber, implementing wall bounces and running with point blank barrel headshots with either sniper or shotgun would save a considerable amount of time in places where enemies are clumped together, act 4 comes to mind especially. Do many people still run this game?

For the most part actual wall bouncing is a waste of time. We want to move in a straight line to the next opponent or kill it without approaching it. There aren't a lot of close cover areas that it would make sense to do so. There definitely some swifter movements that can be done sometimes, but in most cases we avoid it because either (a) Gears 1 is legit clunky af or (b) we're trying to stay safe on a decent pace. Also don't forget that just because one part can be faster doesn't mean we don't know. You can have a bad segment and still get a great run overall. That's why my SoB is like 5 minutes lower than my PB. By all means prove me wrong though. Give us some timestamps and tell us what we can do better. Alternatively you could even get involved yourself! Join the Gears Speedrunner Discord channel and teach us a thing or two (or nothing and just do it better) by doing some runs. We haven't been super active on anything besides Gears 4 recently - or at least on the USA side. IDK what Live is doing in Australia lmao.

I've been known to float around on different games after several months of not playing it especially if I feel like I can have some good competition on something again. So if you've got some good stuff go ahead and show us.