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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Gears of War

I know I'm late with this post. I could give you all of the reasons why (school, friends, copious amounts of drugs, ect.) but anyone who reads this is more than likely one of the people who partook in whatever I was doing so congratulations on gumming up the works guys.

Gears of War is one of the most influential shooters of all time. It was a selling point for the Xbox 360 and introduced gameplay mechanics still very much in-vogue. One need only look at the regenerating health as well as a lack of any health bar in the HUD present in nearly every modern shooter to see its influence. However, the game is not without problems, some of which are glaringly obvious from the get-go. However, the game is also useful in a discussion about how meaning and feeling can be conveyed through gameplay.

The story is unoriginal, to put it bluntly. Its about a bunch of steroid-pumped space marines doing what steroid-pumped space marines do; shoot metaphors for enemies of the US. Yes The Locust, which is what the alien horde calls itself in this game, are obvious stand-ins for terrorists. They pop up wherever they want and the government can't stop them. They're zealots fighting because an authority orders them to. Hell, they even travel through the sand and there's mention of emulsion, which seems to be something like oil. I don't think I have to mention that when the average American thinks of terrorists, they think of the Middle East and two things the Middle East has a lot of is sand and oil. I shouldn't expect subtlety from a developer named Epic and a game called Gears of War, I know (also, the soldiers are called COGs. Get it? They're COGs in the GEARS of WAR!!).Anyway, big Americans shoot brown people facsimiles is the basic plot of the game.

The main characters in this space marine saga are Marcus Fenix (player character), Dom (second-player), Cole and Baird. They don't go very far beyond their roles as tough guys, usually having lines like, "Over there," and "Got him!." Grunts and shouts are the order of the day, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some room for charm. I can't deny that I love Cole Train, the big African-American guy, despite I also recognize that his only character trait is being the big African-American guy. Dom's character gets some development (he's searching for his wife) that works slightly better in the second game than this one, even though its very manipulative. On the other hand, Baird's one character trait is that he's a dick and I'm pretty sure that Marcus Fenix was voiced by the Kool-Aid Man. Actually, it was John DiMaggio, who you may know as Bender from Futurama, doing my least favorite voice in his repertoire. I'm not kidding about the Kool-Aid Man thing, by the way. Fenix even says, "Oh yeah," sometimes. It's extremely distracting.

The story isn't the draw, though, it's the game play. You don't play a game called Gears of War to think. However, game play is, strangely, where Gears of War becomes the most interesting in an academic way. Most shooters, especially before Gears, have a tendency to feature a nearly invincible protagonist mowing down countless, faceless enemies. In a lot of ways, this game keeps that tradition alive in the mowing down countless, faceless enemies sense. However, you don't feel invincible while playing the game. Epic uses a cover system that was revolutionary for its time. Even on the lowest difficulty setting, if you sprint around with Marcus and try to hack up everyone with the chainsaw-bayonet (yes, there's a chainsaw bayonet), you're going to die. Marcus can't take bullets of that magnitude. This cover system fundamentally alters how the gamer experiences the game and what the game is about. Now you aren't firing an endless stream of bullets, but your jockeying for the best cover positions. They also introduced the active reload which makes it so that, if you hit the reload button at the right time, you reload faster or if you're really good a boost to damage. Now reloading becomes a major factor. By placing less emphasis on the shooting and more on movement and reloads, Epic creates a feeling of fear. It can be scary, especially in the later levels when explosive arrows can kill you in one hit if you're too cocky. While the game is still dripping in testosterone, there's actually a hint of melancholy to the proceedings rather than an all-out dick sword fight.

Is Gears of War perfect? No. Not even close. The dialogue is terrible and all of the characters are as flat as cardboard. I also wasn't impressed with the boring brown colors and the equally uninteresting story line. However, what makes this game interesting and important is how it engages game play. It uses the cover system and the active reloads to create a panicky, somewhat depressing atmosphere that the story should have played up more. The ultimate problem with the game is that they couldn't decide if they wanted to make a manly shooter or a slightly more thoughtful game about how scary it must be to be entrenched in a land that is not your own, under fire from a people you don't understand. They tried to make both.

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