It seemed to me that both Tai's suicide and Maria's mercy killing were intended to make the player feel something for the characters but it had zero effect on me personally.  Unlike GTA IV where, most likely because it was the players choice, the dramatic scenes did not seem to carry much weight.  The Games whole tone (except for the parts just mentioned) is very light hearted in nature, so when you have The Cole Train tagging fools with grenades in Slow-Mo it kinda diffuses any and all seriousness.  Did any of you find that these moments worked for them?

It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

I thought  it was very well done but you have to have an attachment to the characters in the first place. 

yeh there wasnt much to it. I felt nothing.

Like watching a michael bay film, horribly cliched and phony emotion,  though im pretty sure thats the intention. I guess it adds a small amount of spice to the story? which is something the first game definitely lacked. Not winning any awards with story telling thats for sure, which is fine since the focus is on the gameplay anyway.

I think it was also totally out of place and because of how they mold the characters, and what the rest of the game world is like, it just seemed like it was trying to make people feel something in them, that I know most didn't. I almost felt like laughing at said parts, it did nothing for me.

I never saw the suicide of Tia coming, never expected it. And as for Maria, I think they did a good job for making me feel bad for Dom, but after that cut scene there wasn't much more of Dom being upset, but I guess that will be Dom's whole thing in the next one.

I laughed fairly hard at those 2 parts to be honest.

"I laughed fairly hard at those 2 parts to be honest."

Well not ot be the bitch of the group but i shed one friggin man tear for Dom and maria, that part was just deep man. Dude spends the past 14 years searching for his wife, only to find her, see her in that crack head state, then blow her brains out.
Hell it was the only reason he kept going.

But Tai eating a shotgun just made me loose any sort of respect i had for him. I thought he was going to be a big samoan bad ass but he ended up shooting him self.  I just have a thing when it comes to suicide, so thats just me.

My main question is what happened to Dizzy? Did he get captured? I like to believe he escaped and is somewhere selling propane and propane bi-products to the stranded.

Tai should have died in the derrik explosion.  It was so retarded "LOL Tai is sooo invincible!!!"  *5 minutes of torture later* "OMG SUICIDE"  For being indestructible he sure does break pretty fast.

posted this in the other SPOILERS thread:

The fact is, you're just not invested enough in the relationship to care.  They just dump it in there like the whole Tai thing they went over in the bombcast, it was just totally unnecessary. I'm sorry but hearing a couple quotes and seeing a picture doesn't do jack for me. They needed to either have her in Gears 1 or extend the intro to have any sort of impact. Plus it was just way too obvious what was going to happen."

Dude, they fucked Tai up.  Real bad for sure. By the way he did himself there it was obvious that there was some locust penetrations he would never be able to cleanse from his poor tortured soul. Also, they need to kill a main character in every game to make room for Baird.

Those of you saying that these parts were "comical" are fucked in the head. Did you not see all of the fucked up emotional shit that served as a build up to these important parts? Obviously you have no knowledge of how a story progresses and uses emotional tactics and proper character development to build emotion, suspense, and in this case horror.

Talk about the story going right the fuck over your head.

"It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

"

"keyhunter said:

"It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

"

Keep in mind that there are points in the game where you are rolling with a five-man squad.

Still, I don't miss Tai. His faux mysticism got on my nerves almost immediately.

"

I thought these parts served a great purpose personally. In the first Gears it was just shoot monsters, they're bad. But these scenes served up more motivation for me. Of course the game's tone is going to shift, just like movies or any other medium. I'm glad that Coal Train is in there for some comic relief, it makes the game far less dreary to go through and no shift in tone seemed too abrupt to me. Everything flowed together quite well and while the game doesn't quite have the story of a Metal Gears this was a huge step in the right direction. I enjoyed the story and these more emotional scenes

They weren't amazing but you have to give them credit for adding a little drama to the game. I did find the Maria part a little sad.

"Those of you saying that these parts were "comical" are fucked in the head. Did you not see all of the fucked up emotional shit that served as a build up to these important parts? Obviously you have no knowledge of how a story progresses and uses emotional tactics and proper character development to build emotion, suspense, and in this case horror.

Talk about the story going right the fuck over your head."

I agree. While they really didn't bother me or seem that out of place, they didn't really cause any feelings besides "Wow, that was fucked up". I think instead of those parts making me sad, it just made me hate the Locust more. Tai and Maria were two characters we knew little to nothing about. Both were pretty much introduced in Act 1 (though Maria was kind of mentioned in the first Gears of War). This allowed you only a couple hours of play time to became acquainted with the characters, which just isn't enough for me to care when they die. Even less so with Maria because you never actually see her. Just Dom throwing a fit because he can't find her and then that picture he is constantly looking at.

I don't know if I bought the Maria narrative.  I do think the euthanasia moment is really chilling, and I did find myself a little shocked and pained by it, I also think the subplot only plays a strange, intermittent role in the story up until that point.  Only on seemingly unprovoked occasions does Dom reflect on his separation from his wife, while most of the time, he's too busy killing grubs to really care. 

It does seem disjointed, but the big reveal is effective. 

Also, I don't think we are supposed to empathize with Tai at all, and so it's a bit unfair to say that that is included in the narrative for the purposes of teasing out sadness from the gamer.  The point there, as I read it, was to demonstrate just how fucked the conflict has become.  Tai is repeatedly referenced as a sort of juggernaut, so when his death comes from a self-reflexive desire, the action shows that, not only do the Locust forces have the ability to destroy the minds of their captives, but it elevates the stakes of the other plots in the story.

EDIT: My grammar is fucked tonight. 

"Those of you saying that these parts were "comical" are fucked in the head. Did you not see all of the fucked up emotional shit that served as a build up to these important parts? Obviously you have no knowledge of how a story progresses and uses emotional tactics and proper character development to build emotion, suspense, and in this case horror.

Talk about the story going right the fuck over your head."

The Tai stuff was completely needless. Like others have said, he's a badass one moment, roughly half an hour later and he's fucked up. It just doesn't make sense. The stuff with Dom was heartbreaking though. He's been searching for all those years, then he finds her and when it shows her coming out of that cage thing all nice, while part of me thought it was too good to be true, the rest of me was increadibly happy for him, then when it cut to when she was really like, it was crushing.

"It seemed to me that both Tai's suicide and Maria's mercy killing were intended to make the player feel something for the characters but it had zero effect on me personally.  Unlike GTA IV where, most likely because it was the players choice, the dramatic scenes did not seem to carry much weight.  The Games whole tone (except for the parts just mentioned) is very light hearted in nature, so when you have The Cole Train tagging fools with grenades in Slow-Mo it kinda diffuses any and all seriousness.  Did any of you find that these moments worked for them?"

Damn, for those of you saying that these scenes made you emotional go play the Darkness and tell me how you feel after that.

"keyhunter said:

"It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

"

Keep in mind that there are points in the game where you are rolling with a five-man squad.

Still, I don't miss Tai. His faux mysticism got on my nerves almost immediately.

"

You must be Asian because you certainly bring up the whole "omg stop killing the Asian soldiers" thing every possible chance you get.

I was actually saddened by the mercy killing scene. Pretty much the only scene where I felt anything as most of the time Dom's acting was horrendous.

Through that whole scene of Dom's wife I was like... "Is he gonna do it?", "Oh he's gonna do it."* Sees pistol. "Damn, he's gonna do it". ......later.........."That's kinda fucked up".

Yeah, but I really didn't care for Tai that much. He seemed too serious for this game. Gears needs crazy over the top characters.

Games like The Darkness, Half-Life ep. 2, Bioshock, and Fallout 3 and many more focus on story first. so those actually got to me. Gears 2 story was all over the place in my opinion. If epic planned ahead and put more story seeds in the first game it wouldn't feel as forced as it does here. Hell, the company that does the commercials for this game (the mad world trailer, and the new one) had more feeling in them than I got from both games.

That said, did anyone miss the scares from the first game? I was hoping for more from the bezerkers, those sections were cool and made BOTH me and my friend panic in co-op. hoping RE5 will capure that feeling again because gears 2 dropped the ball. though that my opinion I could be wrong...

All over the place? I'd call it diverse and exciting.

I am sorta bummed the Berserkers didn't show up at all.  I mean, c'mon.  They were part of the experience, that first time. 

"Well not ot be the bitch of the group but i shed one friggin man tear for Dom and maria, that part was just deep man. Dude spends the past 14 years searching for his wife, only to find her, see her in that crack head state, then blow her brains out.
Hell it was the only reason he kept going.

But Tai eating a shotgun just made me loose any sort of respect i had for him. I thought he was going to be a big samoan bad ass but he ended up shooting him self.  I just have a thing when it comes to suicide, so thats just me.

I didnt care when tai died. He was annoying. They tried to make him all spiritual but spiritual people dont have huge muscles and guns.

Tai's suicide pissed me off, and Maria made me sad.  :(

I thought they were really powerful moments actually. Tai killing himself was pretty crazy because Marcus said he was tough to kill, and the fact that the Locust were able to torture him so much that he took his own life is pretty intense. Also, with Maria (Dom's wife) I thought it helped add to the storyline because we got to see some heart in the franchise that we didn't get to see with the first title.

They're probably the two most memorable and impacting scenes in Gears 2 for me.

I felt more sorry for Tai than for Maria

I thought they were great, the campaign was awesome

"keyhunter said:

"It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

"

Keep in mind that there are points in the game where you are rolling with a five-man squad.

Still, I don't miss Tai. His faux mysticism got on my nerves almost immediately.

"

"Tai's suicide pissed me off, and Maria made me sad.  :("

"Jeff said:

"keyhunter said:

"It served its purpose. It had some pretty decent closure so we don't have to listen to Dom bitch about his wife anymore. And Tai's death wasn't "Drama" it was to make sure Baird could join the 4 man squad.

"

Keep in mind that there are points in the game where you are rolling with a five-man squad.

Still, I don't miss Tai. His faux mysticism got on my nerves almost immediately.

"

Me too but I do miss Dizzy. "YEEHAWW!" "

What exactly happened to Tai and Maria?  They were being milked or something?

"I thought  it was very well done but you have to have an attachment to the characters in the first place. "

I thought the Maria death scene was very beautifully done. I imagine that's one moment in gaming that I may never forget. I was totally touched. I thought the whole execution of it was rather brilliant and powerful. You got Marcus interrupting the moment, and you're wondering why he would interrupt such a romantic scene. He does it again and then the game starts to reveal the truth to you, and suddenly it all makes sense. I loved it. I don't think it seemed forced at all. Then afterwards, it effectively put me into a Tony Montana-like rage where I wanted to kill every last locust I could find.

As for Tai, I have no complaints with it. I thought he was pretty rad, so I was a little bummed about it, but I thought seeing one of the toughest Gears resort to that definitely had an impact on the game's story and just how terrible the Locust are.

I guess it depends on what type of person you are.

If you're just playing the campaign for achievements or to shoot locust all of the time, then I guess those scenes wouldn't have any effect on you.

If, however, you actually enjoy things I like to call story and plot, then maybe you would enjoy those particular scenes.

Seriously, I thought they were pretty well done for a video game.  Maybe it's because I played straight through the campaign, so it had more of an building emotional effect, but I thought those scenes were pretty dec. for a video game.

I thought the Maria cutscene was well done. With Dom seeing her as he remembered her and then seeing her as she really was. Although him crying and holding the gun to her, hearing the gunshot as Marcus walked off was a huge cliche. Also he bounced back from that experience fairly quickly. More yelling and insanity in attacking the enemy would have been nice. Tai was such a small insignificant character after all the hype and I also felt no connection to him. His mysticism was a pain in the arse as someone else said. He was not as bad arse as he should have been

I wouldn't go as far as to call it comical, but the scenes definitely did not hit as well as they probably were hoping they would. I did feel a twinge of sadness when I realize a mercy kill on Dom's wife would be coming but the atmosphere of Gears has never really allowed for much emotional weight. We're talking about a game with chainsaw duels, "ten shitloads" of locust, a dual chainsaw wielding predator, an over the top black soldier/sports star, "A GIANT WORM!", and the comical death speech and killing off of yet another Carmine leading me to believe this will become tradition as much as the threesomes are in God of War thanks to the convenient "four brothers." Excuse me if I was unable to set my mind to "take this game serious" during those few and far between moments.