There really isn’t that much I want to say about the game especially since everyone with a 360 has probably finished it already. In broad strokes, I’ll defend all the game play changes they made from the first game in terms of level design and pacing. A lot of people had a violent reaction to the worm level, but I thought it was just a nice way to slow the game down and give the player a breather. I also loved the game ending, even though it’s essentially a rail ride on a Brumak where you can’t die. Maybe it’s just me, but I preferred that to the horrible General RAAM battle at the end of the first game. In fact, the only problem I had with the game was the Centaur tank level – I still don’t understand why they chose to throw in a vehicle section in a game that’s a shooter. The Brumak is a throwaway level that’s meant to be the reward for completing the game... the Centaur level? That felt like something I needed to overcome in order to keep going.
And just as a random point – Horde mode is fun – but the fact that you can only choose your starting level if you start a private game is extremely annoying. At this point, I don’t know anyone still seriously playing Gears of War 2 online, which means I’m dependent on matchmaking. Halo 3 had the exact same problem – in order to have play a co-op match, you basically need to have people on your friends list willing to play the game. I guess it’s more the nature of console gaming and the preponderance of peer-to-peer matchmaking, but they really should re-implement the server browser and let people search for games by specific criteria if they want.
Everything about the narrative is pretty standard for a AAA game – it is gameplay first and story second. Which is fine, it’s just that there really isn’t much to say about how the story is delivered. You essentially move from set piece to set piece and while each set piece is very well designed (from the fallen city to the inside of a worm), there really isn’t any story or thematic content delivered through the gameplay itself. Again, like MGS4 and countless other games, Gears of War 2 relies on the cutscenes for the expositional parts of the game.
The one cutscene I want to talk about is the one that probably everyone who has finished the game remembers – the one that CliffyB claimed would make us cry. Yep, I’m talking about when Dom is reunited with Maria. I’ll fully admit that it was a very effective cinematic moment and if I was watching a “real” film, I might have been impressed. In fact, it’s very similar to the moment in Brothers in Arms that I described in a previous post. Dom frees Maria from a cage and he rushes over to her and holds her. The background is full of colour (well, comparatively speaking for Gears of War 2 anyway) and we see a healthy, attractive looking Maria featured in an earlier cutscene. But we soon find out that this is all an illusion; Marcus interrupts Dom and suddenly the scene changes. The colour in the scene is quickly removed and the world turns deathly brown. The camera pans out and we see Maria as she actually is – a victim of enslavement at the hands of the Locust. Ostensibly, she looks like a victim of a German concentration camp, as she is thin, pale and has lost all her hair. Unable to rescue her, ultimately the scene ends with Dom shooting Maria in the head – the only merciful act he could do in a horrible situation.
Now, the scene is fantastic but the fact that it’s something I had to watch renders some of its impact rather meaningless. Ultimately, after the scene is complete, I’ll go back to chainsawing guys in half with my Lancer and will forget that the scene happened. It’s another example of gameplay/narrative dissonance found in GTA4. I’m not saying they should have ripped off MGS3 and had you shoot Maria yourself (something that wouldn’t have worked giving the co-op nature of the game), but I feel like they could have tried to have given the scene more impact by tying it to the player’s actions rather than her inaction.
Perhaps the more interesting aspect of the scene was brought up by Shawn Elliot on episode 109 of the Gamers with Jobs podcast (incidentally, they read my letter on episode 110. Whoo!). He pointed out that the nature of the game pretty much spoils the outcome of the cutscene. Why? Because we know that Gears of War 2 just isn’t the type of game that will have a handholding escort mission – especially since they removed the limited squad control found in the original Gears of War. Since it’s highly unlikely that the game would make you babysit Maria as you went off to fight the Horde, you know that they’ll have to somehow get rid of Maria before the game continues and Dom shooting her is the most likely outcome.
I just think it’s interesting that games have developed enough of a convention that they cultivate reader expectations. One analog I can think of is how a veteran television watcher can spot a cliffhanger ending to an episode of a television series based on the time. If it’s 8:55 and the plot hasn’t resolved itself, you know that “To Be Continued...” will flash on the screen in the next minute or so (I believe a comedian did a routine based on this phenomena). It’s not something new, but it’s the first time I’ve really noticed it as I was playing a game. I first saw the scene while playing with someone on Live and the first thing I said was that “there’s no way we’re taking her with us” and that’s exactly what happened.
It’s not that I don’t like the game. While I didn’t really find the storytelling in the game all that interesting, the game itself is solid. Headshots are still extremely satisfying and the Lancer never gets old. Horde mode, despite the matchmaking difficulties, is a great co-op mode that is part of a larger trend in gaming this year (Call of Duty 5’s Nazi Zombie mode for one). It’s clear that they made an effort to tell a deeper story this time around – compared to the first game, the story here is Shakespearean. I just hope that in Gears of War 3, Epic directs their efforts toward HOW they tell their story and not just WHAT their story should be about.
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