Continuing the theme of senseless violence perpertrated by two equally guilty parties without any particularly good reason, I'm now going to bringten the mood somewhat by discussing my favourite computer game (for lack of anything better to do) - Gears of War, or more specifically, Gears of War 2.
The GoW franchise has struck a particular chord with me. Not because of the needless amounts of well animated senseless violence, but for the political undertones it carries with it. Alright, I'll bite, it is exactly for the needless amounts of well animated senseless violence, since there is not really any other way to enjoy this game - as I will discuss - but it does have a certain amount of parallels with the not-as-sucessfully-marketed "Global War on Terror", which has yet to become a computer game. Fortunately.
Gears of War is set on the planet of Sera in the presumably distant future. For no particular reason, mankind (whom we shall now refer to as 'America') was attacked for no good reason, without warning, in a cataclysmic event called Emergence Day (which we shall now refer to as 9/11) by hordes of religiously motivated, souless monsters (Terrorists et all) with nothing better to do than destroy America - sorry, I mean mankind - because, well, they're the baddies. Anyway, after 9/11, mankind responds by using orbital space lasers to destroy most of the world because if you've got orbital space cannons, you might as well.
This didn't really work as well as planned, because these guys - called 'the Locust' but simply resembling rather muscular albinos like that guy from the Da Vinci Code - are fanatically driven and live in caves not unlike the Taliban. All out global carnage ensues in which mankind's very survival is threatened by the ability of the terrorists to strike anywhere in the world due to their extensive tunnel network, and to target civilians indiscriminately and attack hospitals and stuff. Humanity, united under one colossal dickhead called Prescott (or Bush, I forget) and his 'Coalition of Ordered Governments' (CoG in game. 'Coalitions of the Willing' in real life) launches its desperate counterattack (the War on Terror) called by drilling into the Locust tunnels and taking the fight to them deep underground amongst giant pools of a substance called 'Immulsion', which is not paint as we first suspected, but extremely valuable and expensive fuel. Oil, if you like.
So yeah...
Apart from the fact that Gears of War reminds me a little too much of the very real carnage that's been unfolding for ten years, the game is fairly like any other game. You command a seemingly superhuman Space Marine with a huge gun (complete with - and this cannot be stressed enough - a chainsaw) as he destroys hordes of inhuman monsters who worship something stupid and alien. Like a giant worm, or something. And they want to exterminate mankind. If this sounds a bit like Halo, it is and it isn't. You can't jump in Gears of War 2, which makes it very different because you actually have to play a duck-and-cover game, rather than Halo which is more of a Sci-Fi freerunning game like Mirror's Edge but with more shooting. But I digress.
Plotwise, Gears of War has all the plot of a generic action film. Plot is something that occasionaly serves as a further excuse to kill larger groups of enemies and go to different locations to do so. The basic plot was summarized above, but there are a few of important distinctions from the War on Terror. Not least, the participants have no discernable personality, instead relying on huge muscles and a variety of different swearwords to get them by, which kind of makes them hard to sympathise with.
Sure, some can argue that Cole has a personality insofar as he constantly refers to being an American football player, and Dom whines a lot about his wife until he slugs her in the head with a large caliber handgun, but generally its impossible to have a lot of sympathy for the Gears, especially the ones that turn up and die. Like the Carmine brothers, or that super-hard-space-Buddhist that disappears for fifteen real-time minutes and emerges as a broken man who immediately commits suicide at the first given opportunity. You know, that one with the funny name who you struggle to remember because he was such a massive disappointment. Yeah, him.
Other important distinctions from the WoT involve being swallowed by a giant worm that is worshipped as a god, then ramming a chainsaw into each of its three hearts before hacking your way out in a river of gore. Later in the game, you steal a dinosaur that is covered in guns and when it mutates into a tentacled horror, you use it as a giant bomb to destroy a city. This is after you have fought the Predator in a tense chainsaw duel. Also the goodies have the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but then again I don't suppose that is too different from the War on Terror.
Gameplay wise, GoW is a non-stop action fest. What it lacks in credible plot, character development, originality and political neutrality it makes up for in spades of violence. Without any real interesting dialogue to get in the way, and the plot largely revolving around a huge gun strapped to some humourless organ-sack, the game can begin in earnest. From turning the X-box on to engaging 'Horde mode' takes approximately 140 seconds, after which you can begin to messily dismember things with a chainsaw, stick grenades to people, burn hairless monkeys with a flamethrower, gas enemy religious leaders and make heads explode like an overripe watermelon. The weather and lighting is generally fair, with the slight chance of dourpours of limbs occassionally, depending on how you chose to annihilate the enemy, and you might find your field of fire impaired somewhat by mounds of corpses that helpfully disappear after about a minute, allowing you to keep on killing.
The controls are easy to grasp. Right back is fire, left back is aim (sometimes optional). Right trigger will reload your gun, left trigger will do nothing. X will open doors and pull levers and stuff, and Y will focus on interesting things occasionally. A will get you stuck to cover like Iron Man fighting in a field of magnets, which is pretty important. It also makes you run and roll. X, Y, and B will all dismember wounded enemies - stamping on their head, using the rifle as a golf club and punching them apart. B, importantly, lets you utilize the chainsaw to make arms and stuff come off.
All in all, Gears of War is a fantastic game if all you want to do is switch off and kill stuff really messily. Casual mode is exactly that - running around with almost impunity and killing as you go - whereas any other difficulty setting will beat your ass harder than the oft missed corporal punishment. But with up to five players, that's cool. Online play is as it should be - a veritable nightmare in which unseen enemies turn you into dog food while you plead for them to be kinder to the newbie. But unfortunately, there is no mercy, and with a maximum respawn wait of only about 10 seconds, the war continues with unabated enthusiasm.
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