UPDATED: Dead Space Producer Slams Gears of War Script

Mike Kayatta

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Aug 2, 2011
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UPDATED: Dead Space Producer Slams Gears of War Script



Chuck Beaver talks about story's potential to ruin a game.

EA's Chuck Beaver, story producer for sci-fi horror shooter Dead Space, claims that Gears of War currently reigns supreme as the epitome of terrible storytelling, referring to the game as having, what he calls, "literally the worst writing in games." And what has Gears of War done to earn such an acrimonious title? According to Beaver, the series "contains atrocious, offensive violations of story basics."

The remarks stemmed from a simple question: "Can story ruin a game?" Beaver, who's worked as a story developer for over five years, replied that "Story can only ruin a game for those people who care about story, so it's a conditional answer." To him, Gears of War was the prime example of something with "atrocious" writing, still able to garner a significant fan-base. Still, his feelings about Gears aren't born of superiority. Beaver considers even his own work on the story of Dead Space to be lacking.

"The first story we had was a wreck of unrelated events and broken structure, so we cut our teeth getting that into shape, and didn't fully make it," Beaver said of the experience. "Plus, we got lost a bit in complicated lore and plot elements that didn't come through. And don't even get me started on the final boss sequence that they put in without me in the meeting! That was fun."

Though Beaver's remarks may not be the kindest, this isn't the first time Epic Games has taken criticism for Gears. During a recent interview last month, design director Cliff Bleszinksi said, "I didn't always make these dude-bro games at Epic. The intent was to make [Gears of War] a lot more Band of Brothers and take it a lot more serious."

Still ... the worst writing in game history? Surely, fellow Escapistites, we can think of at least a few titles more deserving of that honor.

Update: Chuck Beaver has asked to clarify his position on Gears of War and his previous comments with the following statement: "I just wanted to jump in and clarify some of my comments that were taken out of context about Gears of War. First, let me say that I'm a huge fan. It is an epic franchise that has trail-blazed more than a few industry-leading player experiences and mechanics. It is deservedly recognized as a top-tier title. Its success as a property is evidenced by its giant sales and rabid fan base. The industry is far better for Epic's contributions, and we all owe a great deal of inspiration to their work."

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.ea.com/news/breaking-into-the-industry-chuck-beaver]

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Waaghpowa

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Apr 13, 2010
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In before obligatory mention of ME3 story!

Personally, I found GoW to be painfully predictable and macho to the point of self parody, but worst? I don't know.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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heh that's quite funny, i tend to disregard games completely with little to no story (essentially most fps and rts and platformers, etc...) and i didn't mind gears of war one bit, hell i'm sure i didn't replay 1 and 2 tons of times just for the gameplay...

so by all means, bring on more of this "atrocious" storytelling!
 

Jack and Calumon

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Dec 29, 2008
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Mike Kayatta said:
Still ... the worst writing in game history? Surely, fellow Escapistites, we can think of at least a few titles more deserving of that honor.

In all honesty, it's not great, but Gears of War's writing isn't the worst. I mean, I played Mr Nukem's latest game, and I counted how only one of Duke's lines made me laugh, and that was one of the only ones that was original and not a movie catch phrase. Weirdly I still kind of like that game though.

Oh also, Cole. He makes things better.


I don't care, I found that funny.

Calumon: ...His arms are bigger than me! O.O
 

Scrustle

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Apr 30, 2011
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Gears' writing is pretty bad, but it's not the worst. In the games I've played (the first 2) the story seemed more non-existent than bad. That seems to be the most common problem with game narrative right now. But I could cite various Need for Speed games as being worse. Plenty of those tried to copy a Fast and Furious style story, and managed to make something even worse.
 

Bloodtrozorx

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Jan 23, 2012
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I see a man in a glass house with a large sack of stones...

Why do people start trouble when there didn't need to be any? I couldn't be bothered to finish Dead Space 2 personally, it felt predictable. Not like campy horror movie predictable but Lifetime Made for TV movie predictable.
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
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Apr 1, 2009
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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Soviet Heavy said:
Someone clearly hasn't played House of the Dead.
House of the dead is one of those, "its so bad its good" things.
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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Oh, clearly someone has never played Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

Seriously, i cant think of words to describe the 'pro Umbrella' co-op mode ending, lucky for me i dont need to waste time articulating more words.


Skipping to about 5:40 may save you about that much time.
 

RaNDM G

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If I had to list every game I thought had worse stories than Gears of War, I'd take up the whole page. Is it good? Not really, but it isn't horrible and most of the parody is based on the characters themselves.
 

80Maxwell08

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The worst? No. Good. Not even close. I bought the Gears collection some time after it came out to see what all the fuss was about and aside from some beyond boring gameplay the story was absolutely horrible. Major plot points were brought up then ignored completely without answering what they were in the first place. Characters that hated each other suddenly became buddies in a few minutes with no reasoning whatsoever. I have no idea how any of the plot points actually connected to each other now that I got rid of it. That was all just the first game. I gave up on the second one after several hours of nothing interesting happening.
 

Bobic

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Nov 10, 2009
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I was going to come in here and call him a bit of a hypocrite, but he was quite damning and critical of his own game, so props to him for being genuine and honest about it.

And while there are a few examples I can think of with worse writing, Gears is pretty daft and so close to a parody of machismo it's actually quite entertaining, in an embarrassing for gaming sorta way.
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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Someone should remind Mr. Beaver of the old adage "Those in glass houses should not throw stones."

Seriously, it's hard to take insults about story telling from a guy who wrote Dead Space, a game with more plot-holes than a story about swiss cheese.

For example:

OMG PROTECT YOUR WIFE WHILE SHE HACKS THE COMPUTER!!!

Turns out she's a ghost soooooooo how is she hacking the computer? And if she's just one of Isaac's hallucinations, why are the Necromorphs able to see/attack her?
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Worgen said:
Soviet Heavy said:
Someone clearly hasn't played House of the Dead.
House of the dead is one of those, "its so bad its good" things.
Thanks to the voiceover. The lines would still be atrocious in their original Japanese, except then you take away the good part of the delivery, and are just left with shit.
 

Landrius

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Feb 14, 2011
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The amount of ad hominem in this thread is disappointing, especially considering how critical the man was of the game he worked on.

In any event, as others have said, while Gears isn't the best story out there I would agree that it's certainly not the worst.