Louis_Cypher
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2016
- Messages
- 1,563
Although it could be dull in places, I enjoyed Gears of War 1, for what it was, as a bit of simple fun on Xbox 360. It kinda had Warhammer 40,000 vibes. Apocalyptic war, xenos, chainsaws. I didn't like the sequels as much, as GOW1 had a 'wartime London' aesthetic full of neoclassical buildings and bomb damage. They didn't, and threw in big cinematic 'moments'. The guns were fun to shoot. The gameplay was pretty solid. Couch co-op was alright with friends. What little story there was, mainly suggestive, declined over the trilogy, as writers manifested innuendo into a less interesting story. Now I've had the chance to play some of Gears of War 4 many years after it's 2016 release.... and it's one of the most typical examples of a new dev creating a monotonous sequel.
The enemies, rather than a real organic life, are robots. Why do they always do robots? From the Locust, to blandness:
They are tedious to fight. No personality. Who thought this was a good introduction for the first half of the campaign?
I did some reading out of interest, and it seems SJW politics touched the franchise. It turns out that your female companion in this game, is destined to become the main character in 2019's Gears of War 5, for reasons of diversity/inclusion, as stated by the new in-house Microsoft developer. They already had women in Gears of War 3, where Anya got roided up enough to carry a Lancer. However, it was again justified for all the worst, utterly predictable, reasons:
Gears of War, famously about four ridiculous body-builders in a running gun battle through a hellscape, had too much of a "dudebro" or "hypermasculine" image. This hilarious reputation, is apparently a bad thing, for reasons. Nobody bothered to explain why it's terrible for one cartoony franchise to own this niche, in a world full of other options for gamers.
The Coalition had to undergo a "culture change". In a game famously populated by men who look like walking tanks, there was an audience of millions of women just waiting to jump onboard. They were merely prevented from rushing onto the Gears of War fandom train, by the terrible suffering inflicted by not being able to see a woman protagonist, on which their interest in playing rested. They would have permission thereafter to give into their long urgings for cover shooters and chainsaw kills.
This didn't satisfy every SJW though, as while it's okay for Teal'c to voice Kratos, Laura Bailey voicing an alien who resembles a Latino was bad:
Well, Cliff Blezinski already said of women's chest sizes in Gears of War 2, that "She has a very modest chest and doesn't look like some sort of heavy metal movie fantasy." Who cares about someone's harmless juvenile fantasy? Guys didn't need impossible basketball sized biceps toning down to feel good about themselves, it should be noted.
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