Gears of War 3: Did it move you?

[Battenbergcake]

Now Gears of War is far from Shakespearian tragedy but the latest instalment genuinely grabbed me at certain moments and I can appreciate what they?re going for here.

I wanted to know the Escapist?s opinion on those who had played the game through.

I know I was touched when Dom left his cog tag and Pendant at the statute and welled up at later parts.
The use of the Mad World instrumental for me conjured an eerie sense inside me, one that stirred memories of the original Gear?s trail with the ruined city and the statue?s head. Made me think of how far the franchise has come considering it?s really just a Hoorah shoot ?um up.
Least it?s a hoorah shoot ?um up with a bit of heart in it somewhere.

Anyway enough gushing from mopey old me, I want to know if the Gears of War franchise has tugged at your heart strings at all or if I?m just a tad on the soft side here?

 

[dstreet121]

Cole's flashback to his days of Thrashball early in the campaign actually made me feel something, I haven't gotten to that part with Dom yet.

 

[MightyMole]

Yeah, I actually kind of liked the moments like Dom and Cole in the 3rd one. I don't know if they were actually good or not because I actually like the series and so my views on the scenes can be a bit jaded because of this, but I guess that's really all that matters. To be honest though I saw one part from a mile away that I wont disclose because of spoilers. It was pretty obvious from the trailers and such it was bound to happen.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Considering how incomprehensible the plot of the last two games was, I was very impressed with the toned down story that Karen Traviss brought to the game. It wasn't a big blustery over the top fest like 1 or 2, and actually took its time to go through character arcs.

For example

Spoiler

After Dom dies to save Marcus from the Human Lambent, Marcus actually develops some character. Instead of going back to being a death machine shouting one liners, his actions during later cutscenes are more subdued, and you can see that he is going through a tough time.

 

[setting_son]

Can someone tell me if Carmine lives or dies? I've googled it and I just get endless links to news stories about the vote they had. I KNOW there was a vote dammit, I want to know what the outcome was.

(I'm on my mobile phone, trawling the web is painfully slow. So if someone could message me here rather than me spending ages trying to use rural scotland's creaking cellular infrastructure, that'd be much appreciated)

Edit: Thanks for the messages. Greatly appreciated.

 

[Battenbergcake]

Considering how incomprehensible the plot of the last two games was, I was very impressed with the toned down story that Karen Traviss brought to the game. It wasn't a big blustery over the top fest like 1 or 2, and actually took its time to go through character arcs.

For example

Spoiler

After Dom dies to save Marcus from the Human Lambent, Marcus actually develops some character. Instead of going back to being a death machine shouting one liners, his actions during later cutscenes are more subdued, and you can see that he is going through a tough time.

Very much agreed.

Spoiler

Aye, Dom's death really got under my skin since he was always an enteraining presence in the first 2 games, and had some kind of emotional investment in the war.
Aye the game felt like it had alot more depth to it, and i was becoming genuinely interested to see where is was going. Yes very much, call it a wake up call for Marcus because he's been doing nothing but killing things for more than a decade of his life that would turn anyone into a cold emotional machine, soafter Dom dies Marcus is kind of reminded of that sense of loss the squishy humans feel wen something close to them it torn away violently.

 

[AzureRaven]

Can someone tell me if Carmine lives or dies? I've googled it and I just get endless links to news stories about the vote they had. I KNOW there was a vote dammit, I want to know what the outcome was.

(I'm on my mobile phone, trawling the web is painfully slow. So if someone could message me here rather than me spending ages trying to use rural scotland's creaking cellular infrastructure, that'd be much appreciated)

Spoiler

He lives.

I was moved as well at certain parts.

Spoiler

Moreso at Dom's death than Adam's. I mean, the moment they said that we had to go save him I knew he'd die SOMEHOW. I was a little disappointed at that cliche bit.

All in all though, a fantastic game. It was far better than I thought and the multiplayer modes are great. Beast mode is a blaaast.

 

[Battenbergcake]

Can someone tell me if Carmine lives or dies? I've googled it and I just get endless links to news stories about the vote they had. I KNOW there was a vote dammit, I want to know what the outcome was.

(I'm on my mobile phone, trawling the web is painfully slow. So if someone could message me here rather than me spending ages trying to use rural scotland's creaking cellular infrastructure, that'd be much appreciated)

Here you go.

Spoiler

Clayton Carmine lives, and yeah i cheered a little that he survives.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Can someone tell me if Carmine lives or dies? I've googled it and I just get endless links to news stories about the vote they had. I KNOW there was a vote dammit, I want to know what the outcome was.

(I'm on my mobile phone, trawling the web is painfully slow. So if someone could message me here rather than me spending ages trying to use rural scotland's creaking cellular infrastructure, that'd be much appreciated)

Spoiler

He gets shot in the head, but his helmet deflects the bullet.

 

[Silenthillreturnz]

Cant wait to play it D:

 

[Nomanslander]

Spoiler

I'm glad they didn't kill Carmine.

I know Cliffy B. has tried to make it into a Red Shirts or "they killed Kenny" joke. But it's never been funny since it's too reminiscent of the Saving Private Ryan plot and since when has an entire family dying in war been good material for a joke?

You see with the Red Shirts, they're deaths were funny because we knew nothing about them and most of the time it seemed like they just magically appeared out of nowhere to take the bullet instead of Kirk or Spoke. With the Carmine brothers we know enough that they're mostly green and inexperienced, as annoying as they might be, we feel more sorry for them than humored by their death.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Yeah, I actually kind of liked the moments like Dom and Cole in the 3rd one. I don't know if they were actually good or not because I actually like the series and so my views on the scenes can be a bit jaded because of this, but I guess that's really all that matters.

Speaking as someone who has been lukewarm to the series in terms of it's gameplay. And liked it's focus on coop during the campaigns... I've always been the person who disliked/hated everything else about it. And amongst the top the things I absolutely dislike about the series, are it's characters.

For the sake of a not-so-important spoiler, I'll tag it as one anyway.

Spoiler

I've already said many times before how Cole is probably the one character I personally consider to the most terrible and embarrassing character I have ever seen in recent games. (Speaking mostly of his character in Gears of War 2) Although he is less unbearable than he was in Gears 2. I still thought of Cole as mostly embarrassing to be around in my experience playing with him.

Yet I, surprisingly, was quite moved when he thought back to his sports experience. Even when he ran into the old cardboard cutout of himself, he looked significantly younger and cleaner. And now he just looks beaten and worn. He said something like "Have you guys ever felt like you've been dead this entire time?" or something like that, I forgot. It was a strangely solemn and serious thing for Cole, out of all people, to say.

And his flashback was quite moving. Although I felt it wasn't "intended" to come off this way, I thought that Cole was actually trapped in a brief uncontrollable delusion. Cole might've just chosen to flashback to his glory days after entering the locker room and wanted to have some fun with the locust. But for some reason, I thought that Cole really believed he was back playing thrashball.

I probably mistook what was going on, but this is the way I thought it seemed. This is about as far as I got in the game last night and will continue the campaign later today.

 

[Battenbergcake]

Yeah, I actually kind of liked the moments like Dom and Cole in the 3rd one. I don't know if they were actually good or not because I actually like the series and so my views on the scenes can be a bit jaded because of this, but I guess that's really all that matters.

Speaking as someone who has been lukewarm to the series in terms of it's gameplay. And liked it's focus on coop during the campaigns... I've always been the person who disliked/hated everything else about it. And amongst the top the things I absolutely dislike about the series, are it's characters.

For the sake of a not-so-important spoiler, I'll tag it as one anyway.

Spoiler

I've already said many times before how Cole is probably the one character I personally consider to the most terrible and embarrassing character I have ever seen in recent games. (Speaking mostly of his character in Gears of War 2) Although he is less unbearable than he was in Gears 2. I still thought of Cole as mostly embarrassing to be around in my experience playing with him.

Yet I, surprisingly, was quite moved when he thought back to his sports experience. Even when he ran into the old cardboard cutout of himself, he looked significantly younger and cleaner. And now he just looks beaten and worn. He said something like "Have you guys ever felt like you've been dead this entire time?" or something like that, I forgot. It was a strangely solemn and serious thing for Cole, out of all people, to say.

And his flashback was quite moving. Although I felt it wasn't "intended" to come off this way, I thought that Cole was actually trapped in a brief uncontrollable delusion. Cole might've just chosen to flashback to his glory days after entering the locker room and wanted to have some fun with the locust. But for some reason, I thought that Cole really believed he was back playing thrashball.

I probably mistook what was going on, but this is the way I thought it seemed. This is about as far as I got in the game last night and will continue the campaign later today.

Just goes to show what a little time devoted to a story can do for a game's characters and for the player's investment in the story.
I'll agree Cole for the most part is an over blown stereotype but as you said his little character arc does wonders for the player.
Also am i the only one who want's some Thrashies?

 

[Fujor]

im not a fan of the gears series. game play too repetitive, characters pretty poor, story being mainly gibberish.

Gears 3 goes some way to solving this. Dom has been redeemed from the absolute mess of Gears 2. Cole goes from being solid to pretty spectacular in the game. and the story.... still garbage really but works quite well.

gameplay is still average, repetitive and you could easily trim 2-3 hours from this game, it's been stretched far too thin in places.

multiplayer feels improved.

 

[go-10]

Wait wait wait didnt the game just come out yesterday? Your telling me you finished the game in only one day? Holy shit man wtf.

seriously you haven't beaten it -___- WTF is wrong with you GoW isn't known for being particularly long or difficult. You must have never played the other 2 have you?

as for the topic, the story was good for what it was but I wish it didn't concentrate so much on the past. Still unlike most people I liked the ending it was worthy of a great series.

 

[L3W15 M]

Yes it did. More so than games have recently. I think its because for 2 games we just saw these badass locust hating killers. Then all of a sudden we have to see they miss who they were. they hate what they do. It has an effect I didn't expect.

 

[SundayRoast]

It moved me literally.
I had to go to town by bus to get two copies of the game for the game store I'm currently working for.

 

[Issurru]

Wait wait wait didnt the game just come out yesterday? Your telling me you finished the game in only one day? Holy shit man wtf.

I like me some gears, I got it early by a few days but finished it in one sitting, much like a buddy of mine platinum-ed Killzone 3 in a day or two and bought Re4 HD and beat it in what seemed like only a few hours.

OT

Spoiler: Read at your own risk, for I shall spoil what I thought was a huge moment (to me at least)

When Dom died, Holy fucking shit, I somewhat saw it coming when he left his tag at the cemetery but I just went "meh, they want to tug at my heart. Nothing's gonna happen" Then BOOM fucking everyone is against the 4 of them and everyone is out of ammo and Dom sacrifices himself blowing up the fuel station they were at. When he jumped inside and asked if Marcus was going to jump I was like. No, no you are not going to be a hero Dom. Don't you dare. Then Mad World started to play and when he said that he was going to be with Maria again I almost started bawling like a 3 year old girl. Only reason I could hold anything back is because i'm pretty emotionally dead.

I have that scene STILL playing in my head, and I STILL want to cry like a 3 year old girl. God damn you Epic, you slammed my mind with a sack of bricks. I didn't see that one coming at all