[We’re nearly at the end of 2008, and it’s time for another guest post. I’m happy as always to hand over to Matt Gardner, editor of the excellent site GameTripper. Among other games, Matt has previously written here about TimeSplitters 2]
As you get older, you become more emotionally vulnerable. You don’t realise it at first, because it slowly sneaks into your consciousness. Once you hit your early-to-mid ’30s, things that never triggered feelings suddenly and consistently catch you out in new ways . TV, films, and gaming become more unpredictable; what you once shrugged off, whether you’ve experienced it before or not, suddenly elicits shock, delight, fear, sadness, or just puts you on the brink of tears for a dozen reasons.
Case in point: Gears of War 2. The second entry in Microsoft’s truly iconic exclusive was the first game that hit my emotions hard, but only on the second playthrough – and just because of the close friend I played it with. At the time, he was way more emotionally intelligent than I was, and quickly made me appreciate the direction taken by this game – and, let’s be honest, many titles at the time – drawing inspiration from the rollercoaster-ride movies that had done it so well for decades.
Make no mistake, Gears of War 2 is The Empire Strikes Back of the franchise – it’s not only the best of the bunch, but it builds on incredible foundations, finely balances the series’ highs and lows, delivers some of its most iconic moments, and ultimately leaves you clamouring for more.
It also transformed Gears 1’s leading characters from “overtly meaty heroes fighting underground monsters” to “overtly meaty heroes with personalities fighting underground monsters”. The painfully thin back stories originally attached to Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird – which, respectively, were “I’m angry”, “my wife’s missing”, “I’m a gobshite LaDainian Tomlinson” and “I’m too sarcastic for my own good” – were allowed to blossom in the same way the game’s expanded mechanics did.
Crucially, it offered the best highs and lows of the franchise as a whole. While playing it through with my friend – a very stoic, strongly constituted guy – I saw my own future. Gears 2 was able to hit those hilariously gruesome high notes, but completely pull the rug out from underneath you, making you react in ways you’d never imagined.
Case in point: the Riftworm scene. This iconic, brutally gory mission saw you, as Marcus, joined by your fellow Delta Squad members as you explored the innards of a multiple-mile-long riftworm tasked with eating the earth from underneath cities to sink them into oblivion – a grade-A arsehole. Carmine, who continued the series’ tradition of being the red-shirted member of Starfleet by inevitably dying first, set you on a vengeful do-or-die path to kill the monster from within.
By golly, it was an experience. After defending yourself from countless nemacytes – parasites that help the riftworm digest literally anything it consumes – you arrived upon its three hearts, which you needed to sever. Naturally, it’s a horrific situation; with every heart cut, more blood flooded the chamber you stood in; take too much time and you drowned in it. You eventually succeeded, only to be ejected out of its freshly dead flank absolutely covered in the red stuff. It’s quite the moment.
The entire sequence is hilarious and surprisingly well-acted. However, as Delta Squad emerged from the hole in its side, my friend comically put his hand to his mouth, heaved the biggest vom noise you’ve ever heard, and dashed for the toilet. He appeared minutes later, brushed it off to bad food he had earlier, and I thought nothing of it.
A few days later, during our next session, we played the mission featuring the most iconic scene from Gears of War 2 – the moment when Dom, who’d been searching for his wife Maria since the first moments of the series, finally discovered her. Emaciated and lobotomised, with no trace of humanity left in her body except for said human body, she stumbled into his arms, and he does the only thing he can – put her out of her misery with a bullet to the head.
It happened. I gasped. Yeah, I was gutted. My friend, who was in a long-term relationship, started bawling. Not even tears in his eyes, unable to stop them from rolling down his cheeks – full-on crying. I put my arm around him to see if he was OK, and he passively reciprocated, but after about 15 seconds, he’d composed himself, apologised, and we continued playing. He didn’t want to talk about it, which I didn’t question – but it opened my eyes.
At the time, I was a single nerd who would take a long time to bag “the one”. When I was finally in that relationship, I replayed Gears of War 2 with a different friend – someone who was my best man when I got married to said “one” – and I felt like I was reliving the emotions my friend did, albeit a little less explosively. All I could think was “I can’t be without my other half, and I’m damned sure I’d be really distraught if she was kidnapped and enslaved by a subterranean race of barbaric dickheads”. Horrific.
Now, as a 36-year-old man, I can’t even face the sad bits in Disney movies. Imagine how hard it is for me to emotionally process Cait Sith’s sacrifice to the Temple of the Ancients, Lee’s death in The Walking Dead, or the utterly awful but no less iconic white phosphorus scene from Spec Ops: The Line. Please god no.
And yet, games only get more emotionally charged with vast improvements in storytelling, writing, and cinematic delivery. I for one am all for it, but please excuse me if I run for an emergency sick in the toilet, or need to cuddle you for a bit to get over the sad part.
Top of the charts for week ending 8 November 2008:
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