My Rants: Gears of War

So after reviewing that of which sapped me dry, I needed to review something that is one of gamers definition of masculine, something that will get my testosterone pumping, something action packed with guns and bloodshed. Then I looked at my shelf and discovered that I had plenty of those, so I looked hard and deep only to discover a game series that truly deserves the title to be one of the most manliest and most action packed game ever existed for the 360. And that game was simply known as Gears of War. Now what can I say about Gears of War, it's action packed, it has plenty of good scenes, great level and enemy designs, drama to intense the story and well a good story to boot. This world is rather fascinating but at the same time you wouldn't want to spend your vacation there since the world is in an eternal struggle with that of underground dwelling monsters who wishes to turn us into slaves and kill us. But like any game there are numerous problems with this one and I am here to address them. Lets get started by looking up on Gears of War.

So the story is that you are a soldier named Marcus Fenix who was arrested by the military police for leaving his post to save his father who is an extraordinary scientist from the evil forces of underground dwelling monsters with guns known as the Locusts only for your father to be killed. After a while you are saved by your friend Dom Marcus who is also a soldier and brings you in to join and become the leader of Delta Team which consists of you, Dom, a snarky yet mechanical genius Baird, and Thrashball super star Cole nicknamed the Cole Train. With your team you are sent out try to defeat the Locust horde as you try to destroy their underground tunnels with that of a Lightmass Bomb and defeat General Raam who is leading the Locusts. In the first game you slowly learn a bit of what has happened to the world. Apparently the world was fine and normal until one fateful day the Locusts emerged from underground and started attacking the people hence the day was called Emergence Day or E-Day. There soldiers called COGs are sent to the fray as for many years they kept fighting the Locust horde, destroying cities with that of satellite laser beams, nuclear weaponry, and heavy weaponry but for each battle brings back a stalemate as civilians suffer day in and day out and slowly start to hate the COG soldiers for what they've done. To prove their point towards their hatred, there was once a city that was attacked by the Locusts, and the COG's used their satellite laser technology to not only kill the Locusts but almost every civilian in the city including men, women and children alike thus naming the city Ash City where statues of those who were killed remain.

At the time the game was very graphic, from corpses hanging on the walls, to blood all over the place, to cutting enemies in half with your chainsaw assault rifle which by the way is pretty badass, and sometimes pretty terrifying. One example is that of the first encounter of a Corpser which is that of a giant armor plated spider with a giant mouth that can dig through dirt and stone like it was nothing and later in the game you have to fight that giant beast armed with only the two weapons and grenades you and your team have. Another moment that really drills in the fear factor of this game was that of the Berserker. In the Locust horde, one of the only females that are in the horde are that of the Berserkers which are tall muscular pale creatures that are blind, and have thick skin so that no form of bullets can penetrate it and can crush stone and metal like paper and you have to try to kill it before she finds you and rip you to shreds. The creators of this game really drilled in the fear over the Berserker in this game because not only you have to find the only weapon that can kill it but you must also get it outside where it's sunny and bright. Only then can you kill it, must suck for the COG's who had a cloudy day huh? And once you killed your first Berserker, there are still two left in the game you got to kill. The next one pretty much surprises you at every turn. From popping up around the corner and blocking your path only for you to escape and to find it burst through the wall in front of you. I practically screamed in terror when I first went through this. The last time you meet the Berserker is where you're on a train and you neither have the weapon to kill it nor is it sunny to charge the weapon itself so you're trapped with the Berserker until you figure out a way to get rid of the monster.

And you think that's bad, wait till you hear this. So while you fight the Locust horde by day, you must also do that at night with the inclusion of that of the Kryll which are flying bat demon like creatures who can turn a man into bones in mere seconds and can the only way to survive is by staying in a source of light and hope to god it doesnt go out. And it gets worse from there, there are Wretches which are monkey dog monsters that travels in packs, the basic Drones which comes in various forms from grenadier to sniper, and Boomers which are fat Locusts armed with that of a rocket launcher. So after killing General Raam and detonating the Lightmass Bomb which not only made the Kryll go extinct but killed a heavy portion of the Locust horde, but the Locust havent admit defeat and thus led us to the next game Gears of War 2. After a while after the Lightmass Bomb had been detonated several cities have started to sink underground. Meanwhile your friend Dom is on the search for his wife which leads to that of a tragic ending for him. For Dom there was so much character built up for him, he's desperate to find his wife and is willing to do whatever it takes to find her even if it isnt protocal or dangers the mission and that reason made the fans like him more. He's a soldier but he's also human, he has emotion, he has a story that makes him a great character. Then again he isnt the only character the fans like, there's also the Cole Train. This guy is energetic, humerous yet takes things seriously when it needs to be, it feels like he enjoys what he does. He's like a hilarious Jim Carry in a war. He cares about his team and not afraid to express himself and the situation and thus another piece of good for the Gears of War series.

So as your team heads down deep into Locust territory you discover that not only did the Locust horde has a new general named Skorge who is not only the high priest to the Locust religion but is but the controller of the reason how and why the cities are sinking. The one who's causing the cities to sink underground, it's a giant freaking worm! And you get eaten by it and the only way to kill it is to cut out its three hearts filled with blood only to escape by cutting through it in a pool of blood, covered in blood from head to toe. If that aint gruesome, disgusting, and awesome at the same time then I dont know what is. After killing the giant worm, you discover the true leader of the Locusts which is that of a Queen and you have to find where she is. So once we reach to the capital where the Locusts live, they not only discover what does the Locusts do with the humans, not only do we discover what happened to Dom's wife, but we also discover that the Locusts are at war with themselves. Yeah, apparently there's another group of Locusts called the Lambent which if you're familiar with the name it means when they die they explode which the Lambent are basically the Locusts themselves only glowing and they seek to take over and push the non Lambent Locusts out to the surface.

They also find out why the Locusts want to sink the cities, so that they can go to the surface and kill the Lambents that are underneath...stupidest plan ever but still it's something. But your masculinity urges you to sink the city before the Locusts and thus a race began to who will sink the city first. And the only way how to sink the city, is by riding on top of a Brumak which is a freaking giant dinosaur with duel barreled machine guns on its arms and a fucking giant cannon on its back as you kill off hundreds, thousands of Locusts as you punch the shit out of a Corpser like a boss! But after going through a strange golden yellow pool of ooze, the Brumak goes Lambent as you must kill it with satellite lasers and make it explode thus flooding all the tunnels and crushing the Locust horde. At first everyone thought that it was the end, the Locusts were defeated and everything was at peace. That is until Gears of War 3 came with the aftermath of the events of Gears of War 2.

After the loss of the city, even though the Locusts have been neutralized, the Lambent became the new main problem as the Lambent started to infect the world, creating large roots that spawns mutant monsters as you, your team, and all of humanity struggles to survive. This game was rather good, and was a great sequel to the series because it answers some if not all the questions the game has to offer. For example, Marcus Fenix's father is still alive and has been kept captured by the Locusts so that he would make them a weapon or a cure to stop the Lambent. And not only that, but we also discover that the Lambent can be practically anyone because the cause of the Lambency was that of a source called Imulsion to which in this world it is fuel and the main ingredient to make the Lightmass Bomb and that it is actually a parasite that feeds off on living organisms and make them turn mutant and Lambent! There was even a war for this stuff, way before the Locusts attacked humanity, and in actuality the Locusts were FORCED to attack humanity because of the civil war with the Lambents due to the long exposure of Imulsion and thus caused the distrust to humans because the humans were using the Imulsion and making profit and use for it as they suffered for it!

Did no scientist at all looked closely at this Imulsion? Did anyone took the time and effort to fully research this explosive energy making parasite filled fuel!? If the humans were to take their time to study more on the Imulsion then maybe, just maybe they would be able to find a way to I dont know cure it or get rid of the stuff like Marcus Felix's dad has. And maybe the Locusts would be able to trust the humans and create a new order, a new way of life where Locust and human work together, Boomers can be like the new demolition crew for new buildings, Wretches being a new breed of dog, Drones living the life of suburbia like Dick Van Dick, and all that shit! So with that in mind we now know who is the real blame for all this, all the deaths, all the destruction, all the millions upon millions of dollars and resources we spent to make war machines and ammunition, it's all because of us, humanity in its entirety. We became so blind, so greedy over this new source that it caused us to go into a war with that of a race that has nothing to loose! It's up to the surface or bust to them! Which actually brings up another thing, why did the Locusts attack the humans? I mean sure there are numerous reasons but they had a peaceful way out of all this. If they would just explain the hardships they are going through thanks to the Imulsion, then maybe the humans will help the Locusts in defeating the Lambents! If the humans refuse and continue their use of Imulsion then by all mean, kill them all. But for practically every war, most people will try the peaceful way out. War if not genocide is the last option if all other options fail!

So not only did Marcus Fenix's dad discover the means to destroy all the Lambents and the Imulsion in the world, but also a way to kill off every Locust in the world on the surface and underground. So not only must you travel the land, gather resources, fight off against the Lambent and the remaining Locusts, but find that of your fathers whereabouts and see if his machine can work to save all of humanity. So far the game was good however there were that of some dumb moments as well as some confusing ones. The first dumb thing about this game is sometimes the AI can be pretty dumb, from just standing around, to not helping you in the slightest, to making things worse, and the list goes on. Granted it improved over time but when it first started out the AI were a big problem. Then there was the Berserkers. In the first game you had to encounter three of these creatures and do your best and plan out to kill them. In the second game, they were nowhere to be found? What did the Locusts just decide to keep the Berserkers contained since one can kill four locusts, but three cant kill two guys and they were considered useless? In Gears of War 3 they do make a return in Lambent form, but they felt nerfed out. Basically all you have to do to kill the Lambent Berserker is to shoot it in the chest when it glows. That's all you have to do.It didnt had that terrifying experience the first game had, it felt like just an ordinary boss you had to kill.

The game felt played out but in the end all was good. The Locusts and the Lambent were eliminated as well as all sources of Imulsion, the war against the Locust was over, and a new day has begun for humanity to rebuild and learn from this war that lasted them for fifteen years and costed the lives of millions of innocents. The series left with a good high note, and will always be remembered for the good that they brought to us...several years later, a new Gears of War game was announced...how can you continue a game that just ended? The Locusts are dead, the Lambents are dead, there's no Imulsion on the entire planet, all the questions were answered, so how can you make another Gears of War game if there's nothing else to kill? Well apparently the creators wanted to add more to the series so they created that of Gears of War: Judgement and I got to say it sucks. This felt like I was watching the movie A.I. after the little boy found the blue fairy only to continue where it didnt needed to continue! Basically you get to play as, get this, not Marcus Fenix, not Dom, not even Cole, but as Baird and his unrememberable teammates. Yeah, the same Baird who's life was on the line of the most bought T-Shirts saying whether he lives or dies in Gears of War 3. The game apparently takes place before the events of the first Gears of War and it focuses on Baird and his team being sent to court for illegally detonation a Lightmass Bomb as the team defend their case. The gameplay is...it just doesnt really feel like Gears of War game, it just feels like Duck Hunt with random objective like Protect this Statue, or Kill this amount of Enemies with This and what not. It felt boring! There was no tension to this game because not only was it a prequel but we all know what happens in the end so there's no risk or anything of interest about this game! Maybe if this game came out before Gears of War 3 or a DLC for Gears of War 2 then maybe there would be some form of interest but no. They didnt and instead made a game that didnt need to be made.