Tag: gears of war

#oneaday Day 610: Gears of Bore (No-One’s Ever Made That Joke Before)

I suppose with the world gripped by Gears frenzy I should probably explain why I’m not a fan of the series.

I have nothing in particular against shooters. I have nothing in particular against space marines, either — I have a copy of Space Crusade sitting proudly on my shelf as proof. But something about the first Gears of War really rubbed me up the wrong way after the “my GOD these graphics are nice even on a standard-def TV” shock wore off. I played it for a while and got a reasonable way into it before realising that I wasn’t really having any fun. The series’ oppressive brownness was getting to me, and what few attempts at humour there were in there just came off as silly action-movie posturing — I guess that’s kind of the point, but still.

Consequently, Gears of War 2 and now Gears of War 3 hold little to no interest to me. The first game didn’t make me want to get to know these characters any more, so why should I spend any more time in their universe? It wasn’t just due to the risible dialogue, of course — the infuriating bullet-sponge nature of most of the regular enemies in the game put me off somewhat, too, along with numerous sequences in which snipers could insta-kill you if you didn’t work out where the best cover spot was. Constant repetition of a short sequence in shooters is something of a bugbear for me, and Gears hit me right in the fury spot with one particular section.

Alongside all that, I’m not a huge fan of competitive multiplayer games (largely because I’m typcially crap at them) and it all adds up to a package that I’m not interested in in the slightest. I don’t begrudge people their excitement for the new game, but it seems that the days in which every triple-A title was an essential purchase for everyone are long gone — at least so far as I’m concerned, anyway.

I’m not sure exactly when this happened. I know it was definitely this generation, as I vividly recall throughout the PS1 and PS2 eras picking up the “essential purchase” titles almost as soon as they were released. Perhaps now there are simply too many high-profile, high-quality games being released to make this practical, perhaps I’m no longer interested in the “blockbuster” genre, or perhaps I’m increasingly disillusioned with ever-more underhanded tactics to get players to part with even more of their money beyond purchasing the game itself.

Whatever the reasons, as I say, I certainly don’t begrudge the Gears fans their upcoming fun-fest, but I’m more than happy with what I’m playing right now: Xenoblade Chronicles (awesome), Minecraft 1.8 (buggy but awesome), TrackMania 2 Canyon (aweso– you get the idea) and Wing Commander III (surprisingly still great). The fact that I’d rather play a Wii game, an indie game, a niche racing game and a space sim from 1994 is perhaps a sad indictment on the mainstream gaming industry, however.

Ah well. Horses for courses and other such clichés. If you’re playing Gears this weekend, have a blast. I will not be joining you!

#oneaday, Day 244: Halo? More Like…

I have a peculiar and complex relationship with the first-person shooter genre of gaming. On the one hand, I have very fond memories of growing up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. In fact, as I may have shared before, such was my obsession with Wolfenstein 3D and the early days of the mod scene, that 10 of my levels are part of the official Apogee “Super Upgrades” expansion pack, a feat which netted me $200 and means that I can technically call myself a professional game developer.

On the other hand, I have vivid memories of playing Halo, Gears of War and Modern Warfare 2 and getting inordinately frustrated with sequences that are so difficult they require you to play, die, play, die, play, die, play, die, sometimes for hours at a time until you figure out the way to beat that particular sequence.

Such is the experience I’m having with Halo: Reach at the moment. There’s no denying it’s a great game, and the sheer amount of stuff that Bungie have crammed into the game is incredible. The fact that any mode can be played in multiplayer, and the fact that Forge World actually allows the construction of some truly hilarious structures, is enough to make me adore the game and praise its name for all eternity.

What was almost enough to make me fling it out of the window, though, was the Campaign mode. I had played through the mission called “The Long Night of Solace” and was reaching the end of it. Those who have played that mission will know it’s the awesome one that includes space combat. As a matter of fact, the space combat was so good I happily proclaimed on Twitter that I’d play a whole game based on that engine. And I stand by that. It was stunning. Not only that, it allowed a full 360 degrees of movement, which is practically unheard of in console-based space sims. So hats off to Bungie for that.

Unfortunately, all of the hard work that mission did to convince me that yes, Halo is not all that bad really, was promptly undone by the very last sequence of that mission. Here, you get jumped by about six Elite Specialist enemies, all of whom are armed with weapons that are quite capable of one-shot killing you. Not only that, but they spread out around the room so there is no place where you can find cover. Not only that, your companion who, it should be added, has an absolutely fucking massive gun and is invincible, is utterly useless at killing them, so of course it’s up to Muggins, sorry, Noble Six, to save the day.

I must have repeated that sequence a good thirty or forty times. By the end of it I was literally screaming obscenities at the television. I was very glad that no-one else was in the house.

“Well, then,” you may say. “Don’t play the Campaign mode. Play the stuff you do like.” But… Achievements…

In seriousness, I do kind of want to play the Campaign mode through to its conclusion because of my good friend Mr George Kokoris‘ regular assertions that Halo‘s lore is, in fact, far more in-depth and interesting that “OMG SPACE MARINEZ AND ALIENZ LOL”. And to be fair, thus far I’ve mostly enjoyed the Campaign. I just find it a pity that there are short sequences such as the one I’ve described above that (temporarily at least) spoil the experience. It causes a curious ping-ponging effect where I bounce back and forth between loving and hating the game. Sometimes I get stuck on the “hate” part, and it’s for that reason I never beat the original Gears of War and have no interest in the remainder of the series. There was one sequence that involved a sniper who repeatedly one-shotted me in that game that eventually caused me to turn it off, put it in its box, trade it in and never speak of it ever again except to slag it off.

Hopefully it won’t come to a fit of nerd rage with Reach. At least there’s plenty of other stuff to enjoy if the Campaign does get too much.