Zero Punctuation: Gears of War 3

[danfrancis83]

Im glad there are some people who don't just accept a game with a bad story. Im sure those who do are the same idiots who like genre fiction. ha

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Ixal]

I think the entirety of Gears of Wars series runs on bayonet chainsaw vasectomy, because of the whole "HOLY SHIT BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY LOLOLOLOLOLZ!!" mentality of both the producers and the audience who bought them. It was only when they see the later games that comes after GoW that they go, "Hmm...you know, this 'plot' thing might not be such a bad idea after all!"

Well done, boys. Well done.

And sadly "BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY" now gets exported and ruins other games by dumbing them down go get that audience. Mass Effect 3 being the most recent example.
Thank you guys for ruining video games...

There is a big, A BIG, gap between a Lancer and an omni-tool blade...how the Hell did you even make that leap?

Lets see.
A lot of simple minded people buy GoW because of brutal melee finishers (itz kewl...) and praise it for being the best game ever. Other companies see that people care more about brutal melee finishers than story or good gameplay and start to add brutal melee finishers to their games too while neglecting everything else.

 

[JSRT]

I think the entirety of Gears of Wars series runs on bayonet chainsaw vasectomy, because of the whole "HOLY SHIT BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY LOLOLOLOLOLZ!!" mentality of both the producers and the audience who bought them. It was only when they see the later games that comes after GoW that they go, "Hmm...you know, this 'plot' thing might not be such a bad idea after all!"

Well done, boys. Well done.

And sadly "BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY" now gets exported and ruins other games by dumbing them down go get that audience. Mass Effect 3 being the most recent example.
Thank you guys for ruining video games...

There is a big, A BIG, gap between a Lancer and an omni-tool blade...how the Hell did you even make that leap?

Lets see.
A lot of simple minded people buy GoW because of brutal melee finishers (itz kewl...). Other companies see that people care more about brutal melee finishers than story or good gameplay and start to add brutal melee finishers to their games too while neglecting everything else.

There were no "brutal melee finishers" in Mass Effect. So either you played a different version than everyone else or you are just spewing hyperbole like most in this thread. Also calling others "simple minded" for enjoying games that you don't just makes yo look like an asshole. You're trying too hard to be cool on the internet and you seem unable to comprehend that some people have differing tastes than you. The fact that you attempt to insult people for it shows your own insecurity and need to bash others to make yourself feel better. I wonder at which point did such wannabe fake ass intellectuals started playing video games. Usually these were the people that turned their nose up at people interested in this hobby, when did these pretentious assclowns start buying consoles?

And while you call others "simple minded" for liking something you don't, you seem to simple minded to for your own opinions on a game and instead treat Yahtzee's word as law, when his "reviews" are ment to be entertainment. You little kids are funny.

Im glad there are some people who don't just accept a game with a bad story. Im sure those who do are the same idiots who like genre fiction. ha

And yet MGS4 is highly praised, so there must be quite a few people that love shitty stories more than actual gameplay. Which is why MGS4 has 35 to 40 minute cutscenes. I think people like you should give up gaming and watch movies instead.

 

[Shraggler]

Halo was lauded as the "second coming" eh? Guess i was absent on that day, could have sworn people just said it was a really good game.( which it was, go figure) As for the PC having "been there done that" ,i'm not seeing it. I played more than a few FPS's on the PC ( Doom 1 and 2, Quake and Unreal to name a few) and none of them play anything like Halo. Well there was Marathon, but that was made by Bungie.If you are talking about the whole multi player thing, PC's "doing it first" has fuck all to do with consoles, what matters to most people is who did it first there.

Also i love the whole "Halo has an ignorant fanbase" crap. I love how "gamers" these days when they don't like a series feel the need to throw insults at it's fans, you come off far more ignorant than any Halo fan ever could. I guess i could call those who enjoy games i don't like a bunch of fucking idiots, but i lack that overwhelming need to be an asshole. I think a lot of you forgot why it is we play games in the first place. This thread can pretty much be summed up in one phrase, "haters gonna hate"...

Hey, I'm not trying to insult you or start some sort of jab fest. I've obviously caused you offense but I think we're on the same page, so I'm going to attempt to clear up some points. Keep in mind, "ignorant" doesn't mean "stupid".

I recently received an Xbox 360 and the first game I purchased was Halo: Reach. I have tons of Halo figurines all over the place at work and home. I like the game, but to say that the fanbase (and here the adjective "mainstream" is implied) isn't ignorant to the history and reality of gaming, and where Halo falls into that spectrum, is a fool's errand.

When Halo was released all of my friends who had an Xbox themselves, or had a family member who had one, and were ignorant of PC gaming, were very close to cumming because of Halo. A couple of them stayed up for literally days, playing the game non-stop. I'd come over to their house and they'd be just frothing, "Man, this is the best game ever! It's so good! So much better than everything else!", "You've never played anything like this, dude. It's soooo good!".

Just endless iterations of the above. What I find annoying is the willful ignorance of people like my aforementioned buddies when the random "facts" they interject into their opinions (you've never played anything like this; no game has done this before) are completely refuted and yet they make the same claims. Games have done this, and more, before... and I've played them. PC games had "been there and done that" - from my personal experience: Rainbow Six (eventually with NATO mod), Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Quake III. The reason why it does mean fuck all is that when PC games started really picking up down the FPS route (around 1998), FPSs were consistently featured in the era's computer and gaming magazines, and every developer/studio saw these successes and tried to emulate that success onto whatever platform they were coding for, and most failed.

I am a fan of the game and my point was that it basically took what PC gaming has been doing for years on the First Person shooter genre and successfully implemented it onto a console. Namely good controls and multiplayer support. It was the first console game to do this. Before, there wasn't even a thought of multiplayer support. The idea was laughable. Also before, FPS controls were notoriously terrible on consoles. Every company that ventured down that route met with scorn and ridicule because they couldn't create a stable and reliable controller platform, so right from the get-go, the game they release is shit because the user input was completely flawed. Halo changed this, and did it very well. That is my point. Halo is a great game, and in no way am I saying it isn't. But the ignorant idea that Halo did everything first, and is fervently defended as doing so, is insulting and that's what annoyed me about the player base. That is what I'm calling ignorant.

Also, notice I said "...group of people who lauded Halo as the second coming..." I wasn't talking about the entire fan/player base, but a percentage of the base.

OT: I'll include a new point here: I'm surprised that GoW 3 received this much coverage and Halo (along with its iterations) received comparatively far less, especially on mainstream television. GoW is clearly no where near as important nor industry changing as Halo is and yet it's being praised all over the place, given mainstream interviews on NBC and CBS - anyone else find this disturbing?

 

[Ixal]

I think the entirety of Gears of Wars series runs on bayonet chainsaw vasectomy, because of the whole "HOLY SHIT BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY LOLOLOLOLOLZ!!" mentality of both the producers and the audience who bought them. It was only when they see the later games that comes after GoW that they go, "Hmm...you know, this 'plot' thing might not be such a bad idea after all!"

Well done, boys. Well done.

And sadly "BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY" now gets exported and ruins other games by dumbing them down go get that audience. Mass Effect 3 being the most recent example.
Thank you guys for ruining video games...

There is a big, A BIG, gap between a Lancer and an omni-tool blade...how the Hell did you even make that leap?

Lets see.
A lot of simple minded people buy GoW because of brutal melee finishers (itz kewl...). Other companies see that people care more about brutal melee finishers than story or good gameplay and start to add brutal melee finishers to their games too while neglecting everything else.

There were no "brutal melee finishers" in Mass Effect. So either you played a different version than everyone else or you are just spewing hyperbole like most in this thread. Also calling others "simple minded" for enjoying games that you don't just makes yo look like an asshole. You're trying too hard to be cool on the internet and you seem unable to comprehend that some people have differing tastes than you. The fact that you attempt to insult people for it shows your own insecurity and need to bash others to make yourself feel better. I wonder at which point did such wannabe fake ass intellectuals started playing video games. Usually these were the people that turned their nose up at people interested in this hobby, when did these pretentious assclowns start buying consoles?

And while you call others "simple minded" for liking something you don't, you seem to simple minded to for your own opinions on a game and instead treat Yahtzee's word as law, when his "reviews" are ment to be entertainment. You little kids are funny.

Funny how you complain about the usage of "simple minded", yet you are not able to read properly.
Mass Effect 3? You know, the one they are going to release next year? I would be very interested in knowing who is "everyone" who already had a chance to play it.
You know what the big, new feature for ME3 is? Brutal melee finishers.
And considering your opinion about insults you are pretty good at them. So I guess you are as insecure as me?

And I stay with using the term "simple minded" because it fits. Why was/is God of War such a big success? Because of the gameplay? No, because you can rip heads off. Thats what the mainstream wants. Not beautiful, interesting or complex stories, most AAA games today hardly have one besides a token "World is in danger, kill dudes to save it!", not challenges they have to overcome as games become more and more easy and no worlds to explore and interact with as the levels tend to be limited to a straight path with no choices and decisions to make in them.
The mainstream, the simple minded people as I call them, they want blood, they want gore, they want explosions. The more graphical they are the better. That is where the success of God of War, Gears of War or Call of Duty comes from. From catering to the people who only care for blood and explosions.
Its the same business like with cinema where the blockbusters are not the intriguing films, but the films with the most explosions in them (likely made by Michael Bay).

 

[JSRT]

I think the entirety of Gears of Wars series runs on bayonet chainsaw vasectomy, because of the whole "HOLY SHIT BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY LOLOLOLOLOLZ!!" mentality of both the producers and the audience who bought them. It was only when they see the later games that comes after GoW that they go, "Hmm...you know, this 'plot' thing might not be such a bad idea after all!"

Well done, boys. Well done.

And sadly "BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY" now gets exported and ruins other games by dumbing them down go get that audience. Mass Effect 3 being the most recent example.
Thank you guys for ruining video games...

There is a big, A BIG, gap between a Lancer and an omni-tool blade...how the Hell did you even make that leap?

Lets see.
A lot of simple minded people buy GoW because of brutal melee finishers (itz kewl...). Other companies see that people care more about brutal melee finishers than story or good gameplay and start to add brutal melee finishers to their games too while neglecting everything else.

There were no "brutal melee finishers" in Mass Effect. So either you played a different version than everyone else or you are just spewing hyperbole like most in this thread. Also calling others "simple minded" for enjoying games that you don't just makes yo look like an asshole. You're trying too hard to be cool on the internet and you seem unable to comprehend that some people have differing tastes than you. The fact that you attempt to insult people for it shows your own insecurity and need to bash others to make yourself feel better. I wonder at which point did such wannabe fake ass intellectuals started playing video games. Usually these were the people that turned their nose up at people interested in this hobby, when did these pretentious assclowns start buying consoles?

And while you call others "simple minded" for liking something you don't, you seem to simple minded to for your own opinions on a game and instead treat Yahtzee's word as law, when his "reviews" are ment to be entertainment. You little kids are funny.

Funny how you complain about the usage of "simple minded", yet you are not able to read properly.
Mass Effect 3? You know, the one they are going to release next year? I would be very interested who is "everyone" who already had a chance to play it.
You know what the big, new feature for ME3 is? Brutal melee finishers.
And considering your opinion about insults you are pretty good at them. So I guess you are as insecure as me?

And I stay with using the term "simple minded" because it fits. Why was/is God of War such a big success? Because of the gameplay? No, because you can rip heads off. Thats what the mainstream wants. Not beautiful, interesting or complex stories, most AAA games today hardly have one besides a token "World is in danger, kill dudes to save it!", not challenges they have to overcome as games become more and more easy and no worlds to explore and interact with as the levels tend to be limited to a straight path with no choices and decisions to make in them.
The mainstream, the simple minded people as I call them, they want blood, they want gore, they want explosions. The more graphical they are the better. That is where the success of God of War, Gears of War or Call of Duty comes from. From catering to the people who only care for blood and explosions.
Its the same business like with cinema where the blockbusters are not the intriguing films, but the films with the most explosions in them (likely made by Michael Bay).

Again you just can't grasp the fact that some people have different tastes than you and feel the need to insult them for it. It's very unfortunate to have people like you in this hobby. Who the fuck are you to tell people "why they enjoy something" anyway? For all the shit i give the God of War series, i can at least acknowledge that the gameplay is very polished and yes fun.( though it pales in comparison to the queen of action games Bayonetta)
Gears of War was another extremely well made game and yes fun to play. I will say this again this time in all caps, FUN TO PLAY. Do you even get this concept at all? These games can have as much blood and gore as the devs could put into them and it wouldn't mean fuck all if hey didn't have the gameplay to back it up.

If blood and gore were the only reason for these games success, then why wasn't the last Soldier of Fortune game a highly praised, and financial success? It had gallons of blood and cursing in it too. I'll tell you why, the gameplay was shit and it wasn't fun. If blood and gore are the main reasons for games being successful, how do you account for Halo ( the least gory FPS i have ever played) being so successful? For that matter why is Mario still relevant and Mario Galaxy so acclaimed and sold so well, it didn't have violence in it. Not to mention the success of Kinect games like Kinect sports and Dance central, maybe they don't achieve COD like success but they do very well. I will tell you why, they are FUN TO PLAY. I keep using this word "fun" over and over, because overly pretentious asses just don't understand that concept at all.

They don't understand that Micheal Bay movies are "popcorn flicks" and not meant to be "intriguing cinema". They can't enjoy things for what they are because they feel the need to beat their chests and scream at everyone how "intellectual" they are. This is gaming, my friend. It's supposed to be fun. I have been playing games since the fucking Vectrex, i have played games on the Commedor 64, Sega Master system , NES on up to my Xbox and PS3, yet my reasons for gaming have not changed at all. I still play them for fun. Get it? I HATE COD with a passion, but i am not going to shit on people who get enjoyment out of playing it, but then again i am not trying to prove to everyone that i am better than them based on the games i like(lol) Your game could be compared to fucking Citizen Kane story wise, if it doesn't have the good gameplay to back it up, then the developer failed. It's a paperweight.


ME3 has nothing in it compared to the brutal finishers in Gears and even if it did, that's not Epic's fault. It's EA/Bioware's fault for trying to copy Epic. Also Bioware has been on the decline since Dragon Age, Epic and Gears have fuck all to do with that.

 

[idodo35]

well while i love gears and dont realy agree with most of yatzees claims i will say this...
there is ALWAYS a room for expending the clevage (misspeled!) department of the brain!

 

[Yosarian2]

Remember when Yahtzee said something on the lines of "It's not funny or interesting to like a game".

It's getting equally obnoxious to hear a guy hate stuff all the time.

Also I completely agree with this. It will be his undoing in the end, people will just get sick of it. I know its funny for some people watching people get upset because a game which they spent big money on gets trashed but its just getting old. I remember reading the thread where he smashed WH40K and there were many unhappy faces that night.

To conclude. Its just not funny anymore.

He's "always negative"? Did you guys miss that he gave the last game he reviewed a very positive review just last week?

Or do you just get really angry when someone points out that the game you "spent big money on" was a pretty terrible game?

Personally, I have yet to see a review of his I disagreed with. Quite a few times now I've ignored him and bought a game he said was terrible, and every time, I've regretted it.

 

[Benarikun]

Speaking as one of the story enthusiasts who actually went out and bought the books, the plot makes a degree more sense with the 18-24 months of time between 2 and 3 actually explained in more than a two minute cutscene where Stroud can paint a crimson omen on her Lancer. They're pretty well written to be fair, and although there is a lot of brakka dakka dakka *insert gunfight here to remind readers this is a gears of war story*, a lot of the characters end up getting serious development, especially in the backstory sections.

Having gone through the game, a lot of people will probably have reactions such as:
- Who the hell is Sam?
- When did Anya armour up?
- Who the **** are the Gorasni?
- Anvil Gate, is this significant?
- Old lady with dreads screwing Hoffman?

etc.

While it's not a good formula for a game to have a massive plot dump over literature, I still found them a good read, and would recommend them to fans who're interested.

 

[Erttheking]

I think the entirety of Gears of Wars series runs on bayonet chainsaw vasectomy, because of the whole "HOLY SHIT BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY LOLOLOLOLOLZ!!" mentality of both the producers and the audience who bought them. It was only when they see the later games that comes after GoW that they go, "Hmm...you know, this 'plot' thing might not be such a bad idea after all!"

Well done, boys. Well done.

And sadly "BAYONET CHAINSAW VASECTOMY" now gets exported and ruins other games by dumbing them down go get that audience. Mass Effect 3 being the most recent example.
Thank you guys for ruining video games...

There is a big, A BIG, gap between a Lancer and an omni-tool blade...how the Hell did you even make that leap?

Lets see.
A lot of simple minded people buy GoW because of brutal melee finishers (itz kewl...) and praise it for being the best game ever. Other companies see that people care more about brutal melee finishers than story or good gameplay and start to add brutal melee finishers to their games too while neglecting everything else.

Mass Effect is one of the few games that not only makes their story and gameplay good, they make both of them fucking outstanding, take it from someone who has played both of them. The thing is ME3 is the only one to have a finishing move like that and you can't really judge it due to it having a bad case of not being fucking out yet! Half a year buddy, way too freaking soon to jump the gun and say Bioware sacrificed their story and gameplay to make it look kewl. Next time try to judge something when there is actually something to judge.

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

Great to see Yahtzee ripping this series. Gameplay from the 360's launch doesn't really hold up in modern day.

Still the one thing I can always attest to is Gear's uniqueness in this sea of modern day shooters.

 

[Ixal]

Great to see Yahtzee ripping this series. Gameplay from the 360's launch doesn't really hold up in modern day.

Still the one thing I can always attest to is Gear's uniqueness in this sea of modern day shooters.

Sea of modern day shooters?
Deus Ex, Hard Reset, Rage, Bulletstorm, Killzone, Resistance, DNF,...

 

[JSRT]

Great to see Yahtzee ripping this series. Gameplay from the 360's launch doesn't really hold up in modern day.

Still the one thing I can always attest to is Gear's uniqueness in this sea of modern day shooters.

The "modern day"? When do you think the 360 launched? ( also Gears of war came out in 2006, it didn't launch with the 360) What are these "modern day" shooters out that Gears gameplay doesn't hold up to? Even Resistance 3 which Yahtzee praised , plays exactly like the last two resistance games. Why isn't he "ripping" that series?

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Who is it that buys these shooters for campaign and single player purposes? How much different can you make a shooter campaign from the hundreds that have already been released?

If you're looking for single play experience you're choosing the wrong genre, never mind game. I don't see why yahtzee bothers with reviewing these games if all he cares about is single player, they're made for multiplayer imo. Don't give me the "It has to stand up on it's single player" speech either, because if every game was made with a really good single player, what would people who wanted multiplayer buy?

Gears of War has always been about the non noob friendly multiplayer, and thats why i love the franchise, it's a multiplayer that actually takes a bit of getting used to rather than POINT THE FUCK AT THAT ENEMY AND KILL HIM IN A SECOND.

It's your own fault if you bought this game for £40 for a mediocre 10 hour campaign, go enjoy the multiplayer or sell it if you did.

 

[Sushewakka]

You know what I find funny? People on the Escapist complain constantly about "brown shooters" but don't have a problem with Fallout 3's visuals, which is nothing but brown and grey, with the addition of shit textures.

Well, being able to run around in a leopard strip night gown and wearing a stovepipe hat tends to alleviate the brownness a bit.

Deus Ex, Hard Reset, Rage, Bulletstorm, Killzone, Resistance, DNF,...

If you play Deus Ex as a shooter, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Babitz]

This review was kind of "meh", but that's because the game itself is like that. There was really nothing to say about it since it's just a quick cash grab. Sadly, this won't stop it from being one of the best selling titles of the year.

"Quick cash grab"? First of all, three years to make a game does not count as quick. Second, the campaign was pretty decent with varying locations. Third, dedicated servers. Fourth, beast and horde mode are fucking awesome. And finally fifth, fuck you.
Also, no where in the campaign did anyone say that the world would explode. People said that the human race would go extinct, they said the planet itself was dying, but not exploding. Talk about pulling things out your ass.

Yes, indeed. The things you listed add exceptional variety to the game. Had it not been for these things, I would have thought it was just a map pack for Gears of War, like the sequel was. It's remarkable you have dedicated servers now. I guess that required three years of work from the developer's end. After all, dedicated servers are such a novelty, a very rare and exceptional thing among the console crowd people actually started to list it as a feature.
Funny really. Using such lackluster arguments and accusing me of pulling stuff out of my ass. I'm not a bleeding vagina, so I won't report you for that insult over there, a move you would undoubtedly perform yourself had the situations been reversed.

Come on now, entertain me more. Please explain in great detail how the game isn't (just) another cover based, brown, health regenerating, third person shooter with a laughably bad story and narrative; all the while you add insults as arguments.

 

[cbert]

...I live on a planet?

HOLY SHIT!!

 

[duchaked]

And it's like I said in previous posts, he can't, or wont accept that some people don't like it and has made it his duty to go and tell them they're wrong and furiously defend it. Which is the loose definition of a fanboy.

oh gosh yeah totally. it's annoying on any side

I mean, at the end of the day it's just not worth the energy (but maybe that's just an old person thing LOL)

 

[Dexiro]

Plus i find it odd that Yahtzee has been so positive to PS3 games lately... i mean first inFamous 2 and then using Resistance 3 as a standard that Gears of War 3 should of been aiming for...

Umm.. He's not being positive towards them because they're on the PS3, he's being positive towards them because they're good games.

Great episode though, I had no intentions of ever playing Gears of War but this summed up my expectations. I'm not a massive fan of FPS games~