Deadly Furniture

It isn’t often that we spend a weekend playing a first person shooter game staring two very large, bulky, muscular male characters. Although these types of games are innovative and ground-breaking in their own right, we tend towards the story and character-driven masterpieces of Bioware (not that we’re biased or anything.  Look for our DragonAge 2 review in the near future.)  But Gears of War is one of those trilogies that you hear about when you’re on the interwebs, so when we found the opportunity to borrow the first two games in the series, we bunkered down for the weekend and marathoned us some chainsaw-shotgun-ARGS-REVIVE ME!-action.

Basic plot (as we, and Wikipedia, understand it): Humanity, colonizing the galaxy in search of an illusive energy source called Imulsion, greatly angered the ingenious species of Sera.  But Avatar, this ain’t.  The Locusts are pretty horrific and have more than basically almost caused the extinction of the human race.  This is where you step in, or rather Marcus “Ugly Face” Fenix.  A war hero that was disgraced and imprisoned after fleeing his post to try to save his father, You/Marcus “I’m Too Cool To Spell My Name Right” Fenix is rescued by his best friend Dom “I’m Way Hotter Than Marcus” Santiago.  Together, Marcus and Dom cut-up moon worms (not actually from the moon), ride the troll from Fellowship of the Ring, and chainsaw some troubled souls, all in the name of COG--the last human government left on the poor, war-torn planet that’s not Earth but kinda is.

Although this is all relatively linear and, try as we might, we couldn’t add RPG elements like make our characters comfort each other or stop separating from each other when obviously bad stuff was waiting for us just around the dark and evil-looking corner. But, despite these shooter faults, we found ourselves quickly involved in the lives and non-epic concerns of two men facing a war so much bigger than they are.  This, as well as the game play, becomes even more evident in Gears of War 2 than in its predecessor.  In all ways, Gears of War 2 steps up the action and the awesomeness.  Where Gears of War has an  “Oh, he might die.  That would be sad.” feeling about it, Gears of War 2 has a “This is going to end in tears. Don’t look Dom!  DON’T LOOK!!!!” Perfect example: Dom is just supposed to be your plucky sidekick who has some good one-liners, revives you when you’re fallen (or, Rebecca will admit it, the other way around when she’s playing Dom), and just basically has Fenix’s back.  But in Gears of War 2 he’s given a storyline that is pretty darn heartbreaking. War is never easy, victory is never clear-cut, and you’re made to feel the weight of each choice made in the heat of battle.

The thing that Gears of War is known for is its epic cover mechanic.  Cover mechanic, we hear you say?  That’s just squatting behind chest-high walls and waiting for the Locust-who-aren’t-actually-bugs to reload so you can shoot them. But believe it or not, the cover mechanic makes you feel like a bamf.  As you run and shoot and dive and roll, you know you look awesome.  You feel awesome.  You are awesome.  Other games rely on nine-foot swords, giant oozies, and fire magic from the sky to make you feel big and important. Gears of War relies on the perfect switch from cover, to gun, to melee, to cover again.  Sure--the game has great effects, some pretty awesome bad guys, but the cover mechanic man.  You just don’t know.  You weren’t there.  But you should be.  Play this game. You’d like it.  And afterwards, watch this trailer.  ’Cause Gears of War 3 is going to be awesome (now with 100% more chicks!).