Stripped Gears
As I stated previously, I'm not a skilled gamer. I am, in truth, a button masher. In a typical first person shooter, I'm the guy who's running in circles, shooting at the ground and lobbing grenades into my own sniper's nest. I frag myself before anyone has a shot at me, totally screwing with the blood-bath bell-curve summary at the end of a round.
Next generation consoles change none of this.
I finally played "Gears of War" on the 360 a while back and was completely blown away by not only the immersive experience but by everything that had a gun. I suck at games.
The graphics are gritty, pretty, and very cool. I'll leave the description of the gaming technologies and rendering power to those who get paid to masturbate to frame rates.
Instead, for me it was an all-out assault on my hair-trigger, caffeinated senses. Sounds, colours, flashing lights and loud noises; all are enemies mine. Then again, you'll never hear a gamer as giddy to be shot and killed as I am. The blood pools and splatter are a rich, dark red. You don't know how hard it is to find a game with gore that's properly satisfying. Often it's just a bit of bright, default-red pixels flashing from the sprite's head. Dead bodies immediately flash away to Valhalla and that's it. I mean, at least in Halo you can tea-bag a corpse.
In this one, while dropping one's ball-sack onto the forehead of the recently departed isn't as easily accomplished, you can still at least kick a brother when he's down. I don't know if that's an immediately desired effect, but walking around the corpse allows you to kick its' parts along.
Want more gore? Two words: Chainsaw. Your melee weapon has been gloriously fashioned into a chainsaw bayonet automatic rifle. Sure you can slay a baddie from across the room. But it's all the more satisfying to get a sweet little cut scene of you sawing the head and torso in half. The effect is even complete with copious amounts of sick fluid splatter on the screen. Perversely satisfying.
Granted, most of this was experienced second hand as I had my far more ambidextrous friend lay waste to the levels. Most of my game play involved me doing a SWAT maneuver around the same burnt car chassis for ten minutes as I am assailed by bullets. Picture a bohemath of a man decked out in 21st Century weaponry and armor dancing like a coked-up chimp. That's my guy trying to out run my friend's silent killer. After trying out a few new secondary weapons on me, he'd snuff me like Old Yeller.
Curb stomp my pixelated skull into a few gooey fragments and call it a night. I was a nervous, sweaty, swearing, high-pitched wreck.
Damn I want to play it again!
Next generation consoles change none of this.
I finally played "Gears of War" on the 360 a while back and was completely blown away by not only the immersive experience but by everything that had a gun. I suck at games.
The graphics are gritty, pretty, and very cool. I'll leave the description of the gaming technologies and rendering power to those who get paid to masturbate to frame rates.
Instead, for me it was an all-out assault on my hair-trigger, caffeinated senses. Sounds, colours, flashing lights and loud noises; all are enemies mine. Then again, you'll never hear a gamer as giddy to be shot and killed as I am. The blood pools and splatter are a rich, dark red. You don't know how hard it is to find a game with gore that's properly satisfying. Often it's just a bit of bright, default-red pixels flashing from the sprite's head. Dead bodies immediately flash away to Valhalla and that's it. I mean, at least in Halo you can tea-bag a corpse.
In this one, while dropping one's ball-sack onto the forehead of the recently departed isn't as easily accomplished, you can still at least kick a brother when he's down. I don't know if that's an immediately desired effect, but walking around the corpse allows you to kick its' parts along.
Want more gore? Two words: Chainsaw. Your melee weapon has been gloriously fashioned into a chainsaw bayonet automatic rifle. Sure you can slay a baddie from across the room. But it's all the more satisfying to get a sweet little cut scene of you sawing the head and torso in half. The effect is even complete with copious amounts of sick fluid splatter on the screen. Perversely satisfying.
Granted, most of this was experienced second hand as I had my far more ambidextrous friend lay waste to the levels. Most of my game play involved me doing a SWAT maneuver around the same burnt car chassis for ten minutes as I am assailed by bullets. Picture a bohemath of a man decked out in 21st Century weaponry and armor dancing like a coked-up chimp. That's my guy trying to out run my friend's silent killer. After trying out a few new secondary weapons on me, he'd snuff me like Old Yeller.
Curb stomp my pixelated skull into a few gooey fragments and call it a night. I was a nervous, sweaty, swearing, high-pitched wreck.
Damn I want to play it again!
Labels: button masher, gaming, gears of war, xbox
