Why does Gears of War still hold up?

 "Wha- are you kidding? You are the support!"

You're trudging across the war-torn streets of a fallen world, trading mud covered lead with monstrous bullet sponges, lost irrevocably in the haze of sweaty action, and then you stop and think: it's 2021, why am I still playing the original Gears of War? So many times I've come back to Gears of War from 2006 and everytime I treat is as my personal time-capsule moment; a chance for me to take a nostalgic look back at a game which once ruled my days and nights. Of course, I'm only looking for a single night- and then before you know it a week has passed and I've beaten the campaign again. I'm being serious, it's a legitimate problem of mine, so many other games I can appreciate for a quick play session but never Gears. It gets me wrapped up under its spell, and it's not even as though it's a particular personal favourite game of mine or anything, in fact it's not even in my top 10. And when I look at it objectively, every aspect of the game should repel me from it given the many advances the 3rd person shooter genre has gone through which should all render this game moot. And yet somehow, against all odds, Gears of War still holds up; and I'm itching to know why.

Gears of War isn't just a third person shooter action game, mind you, it's the third person shooter action game; the one which was so influential to the genre that many of it's quirks and features became staples of the genre that still get replicated by the few third person shooter games that are still made today. (However, it's so difficult to nail a good feeling third person shooter that there's not actually that many modern examples to contrast against.) So many features owe their direct genesis to Gears that even a lot of the now redundant aspects (or just abandoned ones) of the genre came from here, a fact which should inherently make this a ridiculously dated game. But it stands out despite all of that. Cover based shooting, vaulting, swapping between cover; we're talking fundamentals here that would not be possible without the hard work of the folks over at Epic Games, and despite over a decade of reiteration and improvement there's something special about the way the original Gears handled it. Something earthy and primordial that may have been improved upon here and there, but never whole-sale supplanted. 

Exploring Gears again has made me realise that there's actually a plethora of features and ideas in this game that don't work in the modern landscape, and yet they kind of do here. One being a trademark not so much of the future but the upgrade in technology for the time as a consequence of the new Console age. People never can get enough of playing with the shiny new toy and they, gods willing, never will. So forever will we see games that throw in something that doesn't really help the gameplay or benefit the aesthetic, just because they can today and they couldn't yesterday. Point-in-case; motion blur. A stand-out of the age that has become so disparaged in the years to the point where it's genuinely bewildering when you play a game that has is turned on as default. Why? Because it's just ugly, hides the graphics of what you're playing, makes the frames look like they're chugging, and is just stupid. 

And yet Gears pretty much pioneered motion blur during gameplay back in the day. Every time you went to do the iconic Gears ground-sprint; the camera would zoom in and blur the surroundings as you hoofed it; but for some reason it works. I think it comes back to the in-your-face attitude of the Gears world and the way they try to bring you as close to the mud and dirt of the battlefield short of making it first person. (No idea why the series never went First person as an offshoot for this franchise, I think it'd really work.) The blur is supposed to bring you into the moment, and it truly does. Of course, mechanically I think it also works because the sprint brings the camera so close and into the butt of Marcus that you literally cannot see the world around you, thus you can't dwell on how ugly everything looks. Sprinting in Gears is never really what you do when you want to cover a distance (definitely not with the tanky handling) but more when you're closing in for the kill; so visual information doesn't need to be imparted all that much and the developers focused more on heightening the intensity of the moment. A sublime idea, that quickly got lost in the plethora of imitators. (Did The Nintendo Wii's 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' need motion blur for sprinting around the Hogwarts Campus? No. It didn't.)

Here's another aspect of the game that's been criticised into the ground and back again: The visual stylings of brown and grey. Back in the day there was a perception that as video games were approaching the visual complexity to look 'realistic' that meant they had to embrace muted colour palettes in order to match that aesthetic. This of course aged badly as a concept so that even other developers would point and laugh about the fact anyone actually thought this way. Uncharted 2 famously featured a 'Next Gen' filter which just desaturated the screen in mocking homage to this period. Gears sort of spearheaded this movement once again except, again, it actually kind of works for Gears' world. Remember that Sera is a world living in the aftermath of an almost total fallout-event, it's a fallen dead world. So a visual that lacks the colours of life we're so used to seeing; (blue, green, etc) matches the story of the world that's being explored. Does this make the screen less appealing to look at? Yes. But is it uncalled for? No, I think it's rather fitting. Just a shame so many other games of the time decided to copy it. (Even Gears started to adopt more colour as the games went on, realising that otherwise the games would look dull.)

Level structure and gimmicks is something else that has moved on vastly since the first Gears game, and as such we don't really see many action-game story beats like the mine-cart level. And there's a good reason for that being phased out; sitting in a box and having to shoot enemies as they come to you is never fun. Movement is important to action adventure video games for reasons so fundamental it isn't even really worth listing them. Sticking them in any sort of forced turret section is already iffy, Gears 2 just about get away with a limited movement section right at the beginning only because the whole set piece is so cool. But getting thrown into a minecart and carted around is dated and feels like it only really exists as everyone's attempt to homage 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'. Here's one I actually cannot defend, I do not like the minecart level, but it doesn't bring down the entire game and it functionally serves as a bridge between a rather slow-paced ambush-centric part of the game to an upcoming more heavy action event. So I can say it's purpose is at least functional, if nothing else.

And then there's some features that most of the industry have left behind altogether, realising how bad of a turn the developers did them. Such as half-hearted squad command features like Gears has. You know what I'm talking about; games wherein your AI teammates need to be commanded around the battlefield like dolls, although the heart of the game clearly isn't in it so the commands you have are ludicrously limited or prohibitive. (I'm talking: 'Stand here' 'Go there' 'Wait' 'Follow me') Yet again, Gears did it to begin with, and in fact Gears is still doing it to this day. Whilst other games have acknowledged that such systems work better in the hands of tactical developers, Gears still insists on rudimentary squad commands so that they turn around, stick out their tongues, and insist they have tactical cohesion in their game. Honestly, these systems can be forgotten about in all but the most trying times, so I don't find them too annoying. It's just endearing, really, to see this slightly mismatched mechanic in a game that doesn't really need it, but the attempt is earnest at trying to enrich the gameplay. I like that.

My respect for Gears of War in today's day and age is more than a little nostalgia seeped, and I'm not sure if I would even recommend anyone try it out if they've never played the series before and are curious. But I'll be damned if I'll throw that game under the bus, file away my happy memories and label it a bygone relic. Much of what Gears represents is a time of gaming where the art of some of the most homogenised genres was still being written, and ideas that are now so very tired were once fresh and celebrated. That alone imbues this vitality into a game that shouldn't rightly have any left, as though you can feel the sense of "We're doing something special here" that the developers baked into the foundations of this product so very long ago, like the spirit of a time capsule. It may be inexplicable, it might be illogical, and you may not have understood a single opinion I expressed today, but despite everything I affirm that Gears of War 1 is one of the most enduring games of it's kin for the modern age. And that's a respectable accomplishment in my book.

 

Gears Tactics

Brother!

You might have heard me express, every now and then, my personal issues when it comes to playing tactical games. It's not that I dislike them, rather the opposite in fact, I'm just inherently terrible at all of them. Perhaps it's  testament to my patience or intelligence, but I could never wrap my head around the basics of tactical planning without bashing my head against a wall time and time again. Oftentimes my go-to solution for any problem is to crush with overwhelming force, which isn't even remotely real tactical planning but more just common sense. Be that as it may, I can't get enough of the genre and, by extension, the sub genre of tactical turn based games.

The Tactical turn based genre owes much of it's DNA to the original 'X-COM: UFO Defence', and much of it's renewed interest in that series' revival; 'X-COM: Enemy Unknown'. Folk like me just couldn't get enough of the unparalleled tension of splitting one's fate between the responsibilities of strong management and a roll of the dice. It's an absolutely intoxicating balance, possessing that slight control over the positioning of your troops, knowing that a single mistake could spell their doom. Whatsmore, this genre is colourized by the fact that most of these titles boast a permanence to their consequences. Once a member of your team ends up dead they are, more often than not, gone for good. A fact which exacerbates the tension behind your every choice, for obvious reasons. This is the allure behind the X-COM games, The Wasteland Games, and is sure to have a part to play in this upcoming 'Gears Tactics' if my cold-read holds any merit behind it.

Although, I will admit that my initial gut reaction to the very concept of 'Gears Tactics' (All the way back in it's E3 announcement) was trepidation mixed with confusion. The Gears of War games, in their purest form, were little more than mindless shoot 'em up games with an incredibly loose grasp on story and characters. The main feature of a 'Gears of War' game is the ability to eviscerate the enemy in the most brutal possible way whilst roleplaying as a literal mountain of meat. Those first three games revealed in this identification and the team never once sought to expand beyond this, which is why many people saw the franchise as dead after that finale. Once the new studio took over, however, the games started taking a new 'story-first' approach. This was a new 'Gears of War' which invited investment, personal attachments and, crucially, expansions upon the lore. This is the world in which this new 'Gears Tactics' title fits nicely.

Set 12 years before the rescue of Marcus Fenix at the beginning of 'Gears of War', 'Gears Tactics' looks to take place not too long after the firebombing of world in a desperate attempt to eradicate the Locust threat. (An attempt which does not work, obviously, or else we wouldn't have a series.) This title looks to divorce us from any of the main cast of previous titles and saddle as with a group of unknowns lead by a character who is apparently the father of the main series' new star. (I stopped playing these games after 3, cut me some slack.) This means that everyone in this title apart from the captain is a brand new face with the potential to snuff it before the credits; potential which, in my opinion, 'The Coalition' would be foolish not to capitalize upon at some point.

From the little gameplay glimpse that we have seen from the Game Awards trailer, we can see how the team behind 'Tactics' have gone above and beyond to secure the 'X-COM' crowd, even going so far as to literally copy their HUD layout in identical fashion. (Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.) We've yet to get any tangible hands-on gameplay to sift through, but honestly everything looks so familiar I can likely give you a good overview of what to expect. Combat will be broken up into rounds wherein the player has a chance to perform their actions, after which the enemy can respond. Actions will be split into 3 categories, movement, firing and special abilities, with the act of firing usually finishing the turn no matter how many 'action points' that the player still has available. The trick will come in the fact that whenever the player takes a position to fire, instead of having to rely on the accuracy of their trigger thumb they must count on a percentage chance of hitting the desired target. This percentage can informed by a number of factors including the individual stats of the firer, how much distance there is between the them and the target, and how much cover is in the way. (Alongside how protective that cover is.)

'X-COM' may have set the groundwork for constructing a game like this, but it is up to The Coalition to populate that game with context and a large amount of enemy variety. Luckily for them, Gearbox already did wonders in that regard 10 years ago. Although in the trailer all we've really seen so far are the Grunts, Brumaks and the Corpser I would be surprised if the final game didn't feature Beserkers, Boomers, Theron Guards and all the other creepy monsters that are so fun to shoot through in the main games. In fact, I feel like the Gears universe has such variety to their enemy design that they could seriously even give 'X-COM' a run for it's money in that category, and that's something that I do not say lightly.

As far as story potential goes for a title like this, that's where I start to have my doubts. The trailer from the Game Awards seems to tease some plot about chasing down "The monster that made the monsters", but I thought that whole storyline was what the new Gears games were following. Isn't that what the whole 'Queen of the Locusts' plot point was created for? (I genuinely have no clue, I stopped caring about these game's stories the moment that the team started to care.) I also wonder about whether or not this genre of game opens up enough space to tell a story. As I said, this genre is almost reliant on the implementation of perma-death functionality in order to fuel it, and it can be hard to tell a serious linear narrative when staying true to constrictions like that. (Just look at how weird the story cutscenes look in the upcoming 'Watch Dogs: Leigon')

Personally, I gave up on the Gears of War games once 4 rolled around, and haven't looked back since. As such, Tactics has been the first title to truly turn by head and make me pay attention; and yes, that is entirely down to the fact that this title went 'turn based tactical' on us all. Even if I don't care much about the story and lore behind this franchise anymore, I still find myself particularly intrigued by that core gameplay because the 'TBT' formula is just so darn strong. Unfortunately, I am held back by the fact that Gears doesn't appear to have bought anything new to this genre, (Or if they have, marketing stubbornly refuses to talk about it in trailers) so it makes it feel like their using this gameplay approach as a clutch rather than because they thought it would make a good addition to the Gears world.

Celebrity Cameos

They're just like you or I

Let me be cynical for a second as I say that the easiest way to circumvent the process of creating an interesting and likeable character who is loved for all of their strong personality traits and/or driving goals, is to just replace all that with a celebrity cameo. Now, of course, that isn't always the case when it come to arrangements like this but it sure tends to be more often than not. Afterall, celebrities already have a following of some sort, must be innately likable in some way, and can draw a decent crowd to your project. This is the reason why big name actors now rule the Hollywood screens and why we see gaming studios drop big money to bring such talent over to this world.

I've always approached the fabled celebrity cameo with a healthy degree of skepticism as I try to figure out exactly what it is that the studios are trying to sell me. Even in the times when the cameo has worked out so well that you forget you're listening to the soothe vibrations of celebrity vocal cords, there is still a hint of exploitation behind the whole process that turns my stomach a little bit. The exercise must rake in some success, however, seeing as how video game studios are still giving it a swing as recently as this year. (It still isn't rampant as in main stream movies, though, so it can't be too profitable in the long run.)

I think that perhaps the most contemporary example of this is in Hideo Kojima's latest work, Death Stranding. (Light spoilers.) Some ripples have reverberated over the Internet in regards to this title and it's not just because of the fact that the game is as weird and wacky as people have been assuming it would be for all these years. Nor is it due to the occasional piece of out-of-place product placement that we see scattered around the game world. I think the biggest "What?" that seems to have been stemming from this game is the secret in which you can track down Conan O'Brien and have him give you a hat in the shape of an Otter. Now I could go into details of where you find him and the potential links that this appearance could have to his 'Clueless gamer' skits, but honestly does any of that really matter? Conan O'Brien's hologram shows up in a Hideo Kojima game. 'Nuff said.

When I forced myself into Gears of War fandom in order to keep up with everyone else's hype, the last thing I was expecting was for a rapper to turn up as one of the side characters in the latest entry. And yet, Gears of War 3's Aaron Griffin turned out to be exactly that as he was voiced and loosely modelled around Ice-T. Epic games were clearly proud of this particular collaboration as he was one of the hardest characters to unlock in that game's horde mode too, requiring players to make a stupid amount of money through playing the mode. (Enough to require several days worth of playtime to be dedicated exclusively to this mode.) Epic even reached out to Mr. T again (Not that Mr.T) when it came time for Borderlands 3. Or at least, I assume the Epic connection was the reason why Gearbox were saddled with bringing Ice into their game.

Ubisoft wanted to get onto this train this year with a game that I have covered a decent bit on this blog: Ghost Recon Breakpoint. If you remember, I mentioned how they wanted to make a big splash with the major villain of that game by modelling him and having him voiced by Jon Bernthal. Now Mr. Bernthal is a tremendous actor known for his roles in Walking Dead and the Punisher, and casting that man as a disgruntled ex-special forces terrorist seemed like actual dream casting. Unfortunately, this game was written by Ubisoft's games-as-a-service team and so they actually managed to bungle a script that literally wrote itself. Bernthal's Walker does what he can but there is only so much anyone can do with a generic, unfocused 'mad at the system' character who is, bizarrely, designed in such a way that the player can kill him off half way through the game and have the rest of the plot play out without him. (Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a mastermind?)

Mass Effect Andromeda is hardly a game that will go down in history for great characters and/or voice acting but I always keep it at the back of my mind for several odd reasons; one of which being the fact that it is currently listed on Natalie Dormer's IMDB page. That is because Bioware decided to cast her as the Tempest's medical office, Lexi T'Perro. This was clearly done in a way to capitalize off of her recent 'Game of thrones' fame and not to benefit the actress' talents, as was made apparent by the way that Bioware published several videos teasing her involvement whilst in game she played an extremely forgettable side character. Lexi hardly has any baring on the main narrative and even when she does get the chance to speak it is as cold and clinical as humanly possible. (I honestly can't remember if this character has an emotion in the entire game.) So when it comes down to a question of wasted talent, Mass Effect Andromeda knocked it out the park here, too.

The Saints Row series, known for the odd wink-and-nod to the audience, went above and beyond with their cameo when they announced that Keith David would be playing your vice president in Saints Row 4. This came alongside much fan fare and advertisement despite the fact that, as veterans of the franchise would know, Keith David already played a character in Saints Row lore; the original leader of the Saints: Julius. (And you can bet that the Devs didn't miss a chance to mention that in the game.) Keith David is placed front and center in this game as a main character and given plenty of material to be as funny as possible, making him one of the better examples of cameos that we can see in the world of gaming.

Of course, one can hardly talk about gaming cameos without bringing up the classic; GTA San Andreas. That is because San Andreas is a game that is practically dripping with cameos out of every orifice. (Such to the point where the term 'cameo' actually loses all meaning.) We're talking about a cast containing the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, Ice-T (again), James Woods, Peter Fonda, David Cross, Danny Dyer, Frank Vincent and more I'm sure. What makes it even better; some of those characters I mentioned are actually reoccurring or main characters. None of these characters are celeb fodder and most of them use the talents of the actor to elevate a strong character into an unforgettable one. This is the reason why San Andreas' cast is still remembered as the best that Rockstar ever assembled. (Also the music tracks. They were great too.)

Oftentimes celebrities are used as a replacement for good writing, that's immutable, but occasionally something decent and interesting can come from it. For every time that CoD uses Kevin Spacey or Kit Harrington for forgettable stock villains, there are games like Fallout New Vegas who know exactly how to use one of their celeb stand in's, The Radio DJ: Mr Las Vegas; to make for a fitting subject, The Radio AI; Mr New Vegas. I suppose it's up to the consumer to decide if they find the very prospect insulting enough to hold it against the larger game, or if they'll at least keep an open mind up until their suspicions are confirmed.