Gears of War: Judgment Takes You Back to the Beginning

For me it depends what they do with the multiplayer. The single player looks like just more gears.

@SoothsayerGB said:

Wonder if CliffyB is trying to distance himself from the franchise so that he can't be blamed, if this game goes over sour.

CliffyB is distancing himself from the whole industry, that dude is on a well deserved break from videogame making in general.

This looks cool. I'll be picking it up.

Is it just me or did the COGs get... less chunky? Maybe I just haven't played a Gears game in a long time.

@Zamir said:

I don't often think the Bombsquad are way off point, but man, Baird was awesome. He was the ONLY enjoyable character in the first game because he had to deal with Marcus', Dom's, and Cole's macho bullshit. Then over the course of 2 and 3 I quite enjoyed his smarmy and sarcastic commentary as the inverse to everyone's introspective moments. He's STILL my favorite Gears character.

I'd be interested if it was on PC, not interested in consoles.

I loved the first game on PC, controls so much better with keyboard and mouse and looks better + I loved making maps for it.

Gears of War: Black Ops

@Branthog: Exercise a little discipline and calm down. I, for one, am excited to play another Gears of War addition and I shouldn't be made to feel like I have to wait a decade to do so. If you don't want to support GoW:J, just ignore it and play what you want. This sort of negativity is childish.

@Branthog: In short, businesses only exist if they are making money. Franchises make money and thus are good for business, but can also be bad for creativity.

Beat this franchise to death, Microsoft!!!

This all just seems silly.

I would be more interested in a Gears sequel rather than a prequel. I'd much rather hear more about the totally-unexplained relationship between the queen and marcus' dad.

@Branthog said:

@ck1nd said:

@Branthog: Exercise a little discipline and calm down. I, for one, am excited to play another Gears of War addition and I shouldn't be made to feel like I have to wait a decade to do so. If you don't want to support GoW:J, just ignore it and play what you want. This sort of negativity is childish.

Suggesting the age-old house frau platitude toward kindergarten children throughout the ages to not say anything if you can't say anything nice is what's childish. How meaningless it would be if the entire point of being an enthusiast of things and discussing them online was only to blow smoke up their ass, without any critical or negative points?

It's an entirely relevant point of critical complaint to be fed-up with everything becoming a franchise and then that franchise being milked to shit in very blatant and shameless iterations, until people stop buying into it. Where it takes discipline is in saying "we've told our story, now it's time to move on to something else". If the story has been told, it's time to do something else. If the mechanics of the series are fun and enjoyable, apply them to another story. Life is too short to just keep putting out, say, Star Wars for a living.

Gears was done with the third game. They told their story. Time to move on. Unless you're just cynically milking the stupid audience of gamers that will constantly throw you money, until you've finally worn your baby down to something that is a xerox of a xerox of a xerox and everyone has finally become tired of it. And then doesn't remember your series as the awesome game with a great story to tell, but that exhausted piece of shit with no integrity. Assassin's Creed has done the same thing, though differently. They were set for a trilogy. A story to tell and be completed in three games. Instead, it has been five and is looking to be more (and annually, a that) and they've played around with the numbering so as to still claim it is "a trilogy". Same goes for Halo, which told its story at least a game ago.

The same goes for television. Babylon 5 had a five year story arc and the whole story was known from day-one. RIght down to knowing what the final scene of the final episode of the final season would look like. And they stuck to it. Counter that with, say, Sons of Anarchy. A show that was great and could have had a succinct story to tell within a few seasons, but meandered back and forth and globe-trotted needlessly. Then should have come to a great close in the fifth season, a couple weeks ago. Instead -- like so many shows and video games -- it has been renewed for a sixth season and probably (as I understand it) a seventh. It is making money, so let's just keep milking the ever-loving shit out of it until people stop watching and don't give a fuck about it.

Once you've told your story, move on. Spitting out a half dozen games beyond that (a very Lucas thing to do, of course) is a very cynical and lazy thing to do. It says "we want the money too much to kill our darling and we're too lazy to risk doing something new and since gamers are too stupid to demand something new and creative, we'll just keep putting out this same line until the diminishing returns have made it unprofitable".

And while game development isn't necessarily a zero-sum game, it does have certain built-in limitations for investment production. No wonder Cliffy moved the fuck on from Gears. He's probably exhausted from the same constant bullshit. Same with the guy from Assassin's Creed. And the Bioware guys. The companies (and publisher) want to keep milking those tits while the creative minds behind them have spent their wad on that topic and are ready to do something more. But publishers are shying ever-more away from the risk of development new content and (even have publicly stated) are just going to keep spitting out existing "IP". Fucking cynical. (And that's going to hurt, in the long run, when their garden goes bare, because they have been focusing on the fruit they've already picked at the cost of maintaining and fertilizing their garden so they'll have something to eat after the fruit has rotted).

They're fucking cynical.

This applies to all franchises, including the ones I like (which would include Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, and so on).

On the other hand, take your own advice -- if you don't like my negative critique of a game or industry, just ignore it and read other comments. Or . . . actually . . . don't. Because it's entirely reasonable and valid for people to express contradicting viewpoints and criticism, both negative and positive. Both in judgement of the cynical money-grabbing of running franchises into the ground as long as you can and in supporting them. Because, you know, this isn't kindergarten.

*shrug*

Well said, but I'm doubtful that it'll gain much traction. I've never been around a larger group of people who have shown more disdain and ridicule towards discriminating tastes than I have in this community. I know the general sentiment extends beyond GB, but it's still no less irritating running into these people who couldn't be more content not giving a damn, meanwhile they're just as complicit in driving down the quality, it's just that they're too stupid to realize.

Must be nice to live in a world where everything is an anecdote to your meaningless, bumbling existence... Meanwhile, the rest of us our breaking our goddamn backs over here.