Extra Punctuation: Manly Vs. Macho in Gears

Soviet Heavy

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Zhukov said:
That reminds me, why exactly were the Locusts in Gears deemed evil?

Sure, they didn't exactly treat their pets nicely, but beyond that, what gave them the "bad guy" label apart from being slightly uglier than the average human soldier?
I wonder this too. They are stated to be the bad guys, but every action they have taken in the series has been a direct response to the Human's aggression. The Pendulum Wars before the games were lasting for decades, and the Locust were perfectly content to let the top dwellers to rip themselves apart. It was only after the Immulsion drilling and subsequent dumping of fuel into their hollows that they got fed up and attacked. They are the native species, defending their planet from the destructive colonists.

The Immulsion dumping awoke the Krill, the flesh eating bat creatures. God knows how many locust were massacred by them. This forces them to live near the immulsion for illumination to keep the kryll away, putting them between being eaten alive and horrible mutations.

Yet being large, brutish looking thugs, they are declared evil.
 

Jkudo

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TheKasp said:
Versuvius said:
Ratchet and Clank had the billion guns/silent gameplay/voiced cutscenes before Half Life >.> just saying.

(Also a better game series)
/facepalm.

1: Half Life is older. 1998 vs 2002.
2: Half Life has no cutscenes. The protagonist is ALWAYS silent.
I think that's the point. Yahtzee jokes about them keeping him silent, i think he was just pointing out that they did the voice/silent and many guns thing a long time ago, it's not something copied from half life.
 
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I disagree on what Yathzee said about a protagonist that thinks only his grief matters. It can make for a powerful hero if it's done right. Think Punisher for example. I only played first GoW for about five minutes, so I can't tell for sure. But if you believe Yahtzee, Marcus Fenix is not a good example of that.
 

ThunderCavalier

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Personally, I agree with everyone on Fenix's defense, but I also agree with Yahtzee on the whole that Marcus could have used a bit more personality beyond 'badass.'

I mean, yes, the whole point of being a professional soldier is to strip away all human emotion so you can better focus on killing the person in front of you, but in a game like Gears of War 3, where it's essentially the final vestiges of mankind fighting for their survival, it helps if you've made the humans... um... relatable and... uh... not so much of snarky assholes. It helps for a good laugh, but if you're told these are the people to inherit the earth at the end of all this... you're not exactly given a good image.

Let's see who we can relate to.

Uh...

... There was Adam Fenix! ... Oh, wait, he's dead.

...

I got nothing.
 

Erttheking

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He mentioned that Marcus was indifferent to the death of Griffin's stranded and the plight of the Locust, I disagree with both of these.

Yahtzee, are you telling me that we were supposed to feel sorry for Griffin? He had one of his guys run around, planting traps for Delta, including releasing Poylps and using a baby's cry as bait and then just plain opening fire on them, all because they're "COG bastards", apparently Griffin thinks that All Germans Are Nazis. They only let them in after the Lambent show up. Then he took Dizzy hostage, forces Delta to fight their way through Lambent territroy into his tower, kill a bunch of his former workers (Yeah, he REALLY cared about the hundreds of people over there, just sitting around until Delta came along after they went silent [sarcasm]) Then the Locust show up and kill all of the Stranded, and somehow Griffin draws the conclusion that this is all Marcus' fault. Yeah you could say that they were tracking Marcus, but if that's the case, how the Hell did Griffin now that, and the Queen's scouts are so fired because they got the WRONG FREAKING TOWER! Hell I wonder if they even knew Delta was there, they didn't seem that concerned to find them. Also need I remind you that the Locust have a "kill all humans" strategy? They would have found Griffin sooner or later and then wiped them out, this is the Locust's fault, not Marcus and I feel no reason to feel sorry for Griffin. Also he was a dick.

Once again, are we supposed to feel sorry for the Locust? Yahtzee, you mentioned that you didn't remember much about GOW history so I'll provide a crash course. E-day (First contact with the Locust) consisted of the Locust tunneling to the surface, and absolutely slaughtering all Humans that they found and sinking entire cities, to the point where they wiped out a quarter of the Human race and prompted the Hammer of Dawn counterattack. By GOW 3, 99% of the Human race is dead and we're supposed to feel sorry for the Locust why? They never tried to contact us, they never said "Oi, tentacle mutants are killing us all, can you give us a hand?" no, they just went to the surface and starting going to town on the Human race. I also really hated the queen as she said "All your father knew how to do was destroy", I just wanted to scream "SAYS THE ***** WHO ORDERED THE DESTRUCTION OF ENTIRE CITIES!" and who earlier screeched "ACCEPT THAT YOUR SPECIES WILL DIE!" The Queen came off as a massive hypocrite, if I was Marcus, I would've stabbed her too.

So yeah, two people that I still don't feel sorry for and I'm still bummed that I didn't get to blow Griffin's head off.
 

Erttheking

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ThunderCavalier said:
Personally, I agree with everyone on Fenix's defense, but I also agree with Yahtzee on the whole that Marcus could have used a bit more personality beyond 'badass.'

I mean, yes, the whole point of being a professional soldier is to strip away all human emotion so you can better focus on killing the person in front of you, but in a game like Gears of War 3, where it's essentially the final vestiges of mankind fighting for their survival, it helps if you've made the humans... um... relatable and... uh... not so much of snarky assholes. It helps for a good laugh, but if you're told these are the people to inherit the earth at the end of all this... you're not exactly given a good image.

Let's see who we can relate to.

Uh...

... There was Adam Fenix! ... Oh, wait, he's dead.

...

I got nothing.
What about Dom? Cole had some good moments at the beginning of GOW 3 too.
 

Erttheking

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Zhukov said:
That reminds me, why exactly were the Locusts in Gears deemed evil?

Sure, they didn't exactly treat their pets nicely, but beyond that, what gave them the "bad guy" label apart from being slightly uglier than the average human soldier?
Because E-day (First contact with the Locust) consisted of them rising to the surface of Sera and committing mass genocide on the Human race with no prior contact. Quite literally the first time some of those people ever saw a Locust is when their pet Corpser was about to crush them.
 

Not-here-anymore

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Zhukov said:
That reminds me, why exactly were the Locusts in Gears deemed evil?

Sure, they didn't exactly treat their pets nicely, but beyond that, what gave them the "bad guy" label apart from being slightly uglier than the average human soldier?
Holy shit! Maybe the whole series is surprisingly deep, and deliberately avoids painting the locust as evil just so people rethink their usual ideals of combat in stories?!

Or maybe who cares, chainsaw gun.
 

Not-here-anymore

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erttheking said:
I'm still bummed that I didn't get to blow Griffin's head off.
That's what the multiplayer's there for!

I liked Griffin. Well, I liked the idea of Griffin. As a series, GoW is woefully lacking in any characterised people beyond the ones you play as.
Still annoys me that no-one explained just how Adam Fenix knew the locust queen for years without anyone else in the human race knowing about the sentient sub-terranean race on the same planet as them. Though I guess that means game does a good job of keeping you no more informed than the characters - the way stories in real life work, rather than how they work in fiction.
 

Erttheking

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Akalabeth said:
Personally I'd have to agree with Yahtzee by and large with regards to Gears 3 anyway.
Especially at the end when the queen is giving some empassioned speech about how they deserve the right to live too and no one seems to bat an eye. It's like why even go into that territory if you're not going to explore it.

It's like the main characters were in a different dialogue scene and didn't know what was going on.
Um, I can't help but remember that five minutes ago she was screeching "ACCEPT THAT YOUR SPECIES WILL DIE!" and she had spent the last 17-ish years trying to wipe out all of Humanity despite having made no attempts to cooperate with them...why I am I supposed to be sorry and not dancing for joy as she gets stabbed? I think no one is batting an eye because she's coming off as a massive hypocrite, I kept muttering that word under my breath as I played.
 

Erttheking

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Akalabeth said:
erttheking said:
Akalabeth said:
Personally I'd have to agree with Yahtzee by and large with regards to Gears 3 anyway.
Especially at the end when the queen is giving some empassioned speech about how they deserve the right to live too and no one seems to bat an eye. It's like why even go into that territory if you're not going to explore it.

It's like the main characters were in a different dialogue scene and didn't know what was going on.
Um, I can't help but remember that five minutes ago she was screeching "ACCEPT THAT YOUR SPECIES WILL DIE!" and she had spent the last 17-ish years trying to wipe out all of Humanity despite having made no attempts to cooperate with them...why I am I supposed to be sorry and not dancing for joy as she gets stabbed? I think no one is batting an eye because she's coming off as a massive hypocrite, I kept muttering that word under my breath as I played.
Well then she was poorly written/characterized and should have been one way or the other.
Even so, one can give a lot of premises for their refusal to co-operate. Namely if the pentagon wars soured the locust's impression of humanity they may have taken a specific course of action. There is also the fact that they're obviously very desperate.

The point is the ending didn't click with me. The story sounded grand but in the end it just didn't come together and a lot of things don't really make sense. Maybe I missed something from GoW for example, by why were the Locusts capturing and torturing people? Was there a purpose behind that? Or was it just to kill off dom's wife?

Where's the locust civilian cast? We've been in their castle. Is everyone a soldier? Where's the support structure? Etcetera. Even Half Life 2, which I'm not a huge fan of, had some zombie labourers in the alien buildings. So did Prey. So did a lot of games.


I like Gears of war but in terms of story it fell a bit flat.
I think that the soldiers in the horde multitask, as in they fight and when they're not fighting they do manual labor, I can't help but remember Locust soldiers putting together ticker bombs in Gears 3. Not to mention the that Locust had an impression for Humanity was a real stupid choice for starting a war with them, and while we're on the subject, why the Hell would the want to fight a war on two fronts? What, the Lambent is supposed to be threatening to tear them apart but the still have enough soldiers to order the mass exception of a race that coats the planet.
 

ironlordthemad

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OK for what has too be the hundredth time on these forums, I'm going to point at the Gears of War novels by Karen Travis and say that "If you want to realy see whats going on under the hood of some of the best known characters in video gaming, read these books."

It will explain why marcus has the mental capacities of a 12 year old.
It will explain why he is distant, even too those he loves most.

Hats of too Therumancer for sticking up for a good set of video games with logic and reasoning rather than just jumping on the "GRRRR I AM MARCUS FENIX AN ANGRY ROBOT!" bandwagon.

Quick question, did anyone see the final scene in Gears of War 3?
Seriously anyone?
You know that bit where it all hits Marcus and he takes off his armour for the first time (metaphorically and physically) since we knew him as a video game character and we realise just how deeply unwell he is a a person?
Nah just me then.

Or did you miss it in Gears of War 2 where he shows concern for the love of his life, the woman he hasn't made a move on because it would get in the way and just complicate things?

How many of you have realised that the ENTIRE point of Marcus Fenix is just plain and simple: you wont see much of him as a person, he raises his shields around himself so he doesn't get hurt, but when something hits home, when something realy hurts, you see it and you realise how hard he has to work to keep himself protected because he is so weak?
 

warrenEBB

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People don't seem to want to think about Gears, because the game hasn't asked them to.
When a beefcake Gear walks past a skinny Stranded you can either: complain that the artists only know how to design macho stereotypes, or you can wonder why the military people in this story are well fed steroided jocks, while the free people are starved wimps. I choose to give the game props for storytelling with more than just dialogue.

- people seem to overlook that Marcus is a genius rich kid. At first glance he's just a cliche grizzled beefcake grunt. But when you find out he's a genius rich kid - you instantly have an interesting character. If einstein's son showed up in armor, wouldn't you think "ok, interesting. What made him so gruff?" But I don't think most players ever stop to wonder about this.
Clearly he rebelled from his important politically connected father in order to get his hands dirty - yet we know Marcus eventually abandoned his post to save his father. i love it. I wondered whether Gears3 would ever try to explain what Marcus did to end up in jail in the first game - and was THRILLED to see that a dreamy/nightmare flashback of exactly this event was the opening of Gears3. I thought it was a very bold awesome way to start the game (for people who are actually thinking about the game's story).

- My favorite character has always been Baird (until this game), because he's such an asshole. Clearly he's a mechanical genius, but all he can do is insult everyone and complain about having to fight. He's like a brutalized little kid, but everyone tolerates him because he has demonstrable talent. The fact that he and Marcus aren't constantly high fiving shows that Marcus is not thinking all the negative bullshit Baird is vocalizing. Plus Baird's "look" reminds me of Iceman from TopGun (another "efficient" dude, who seemed angry he wasn't the most important person in the room). I found it interesting to wonder : why is he so close with Cole? Cole is so warm and funny. they're an odd couple. (but in this game, we had several moments where Baird is less of a jerk, and seems to be growing up. soo. bleh. I felt like they squandered him a little. Probably to keep focus on marcus's journey into hate.

- I hated Griffin. Marcus is out there trying to do something, and Griffin is just holed up behind his traps, hiding from the world. erttheking alrteady summed up why Griffin sucks very well.
I think most players just think of Griffin as "ice-t overacting" and never consider that maybe the character is MEANT to be a special sort of fast talking loser.

I think the whole Gears series has a fascinating way of inviting jocks (and now, rap music lovers) in, then shoving their face in the flaws of what they love.

- as for stabbing the queen - I was holding my breath at that moment. I was convinced she was going to be revealed as Marcus's long missing mother. so when he steps over the ashes of his father to stab her in the guts, I was stunned.
(however, true Gears lore nuts have pointed out that collectibles in Gears2 explained the Queen to be someone else. And that the books have stuck to the point that Marcus's mother was found dead in tunnels long before Eday.).
 

The87Italians

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Soviet Heavy said:
Zhukov said:
That reminds me, why exactly were the Locusts in Gears deemed evil?

Sure, they didn't exactly treat their pets nicely, but beyond that, what gave them the "bad guy" label apart from being slightly uglier than the average human soldier?
I wonder this too. They are stated to be the bad guys, but every action they have taken in the series has been a direct response to the Human's aggression. The Pendulum Wars before the games were lasting for decades, and the Locust were perfectly content to let the top dwellers to rip themselves apart. It was only after the Immulsion drilling and subsequent dumping of fuel into their hollows that they got fed up and attacked. They are the native species, defending their planet from the destructive colonists.

The Immulsion dumping awoke the Krill, the flesh eating bat creatures. God knows how many locust were massacred by them. This forces them to live near the immulsion for illumination to keep the kryll away, putting them between being eaten alive and horrible mutations.

Yet being large, brutish looking thugs, they are declared evil.
Humans were around a long time before the locust, they weren't colonists. I'd say the biggest reason the locust were characterized as "the bad guys" in the series was mostly because of that whole thing where the locust tried to commit mass genocide against the human race preemptively. Seriously, that was in the first ten minutes of the first game they went over that.