Gears of War/Trivia


 * Ascended Fanon: According to Word of God, Ice T jokingly asked Cliff Bleszinski over the phone why he wasn't in Gears of War 3, when Michael B. Jordan was cast to voice Jace. Cliff later met with Ice T personally and said Epic Games could make that into a reality, thus was born Griffin.
 * Banned In Germany: The violence alone might have been enough, but the fact they built the COG's look and much of its ethos on the Third Reich must have cinched it. Averted with Gears of War 3; And The German Fandom Rejoiced.
 * Executive Meddling: Microsoft pushing the release date of Gears of War 3 back five whole months from April 2011 to September 2011.
 * Arguably a positive example of meddling from higherups: Epic Games may not have done a multi-player beta if this had been released as scheduled and they themselves seemed happy about a chance to polish everything to a spit shine.
 * Game Engine: This is the first Unreal Engine 3 game to be released, oddly enough NOT being an Unreal title or a PC game (initially) like the debut games for earlier engine versions. Early Unreal Engine 3 tech demos from 2004 even used Gears Of War assets rather than Unreal ones. Gears of War was made largely as a demo for the engine, with each succeeding game further enhancing it's capabilities. It's worked well, as several very popular games have been made with the engine.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!:
 * Dee Bradley Baker is the voice of RAAM, also the voice of Olmec from Legends of the Hidden Temple, as well as the voice of The Gravemind and Viewtiful Joe.
 * John Dimaggio voices Marcus, also known as Bender and the Scotsman.
 * Queen Myrrah is voiced by Carolyn Seymour, or Dr. Chakwas from Mass Effect.
 * Commander Shepard appears as a leader of the Stranded within a warehouse in Hanover.
 * Where the fuck is Wallace!? In Gears of War 3 as Jace.
 * In Gears 3 Multi-player, anything is possible when your Gear smells like COG Gear and not a Locust. We're riding a Brumak.
 * Jace Stratton is voiced by Michael B. Jordan, also known as East Dillon Lions quarterback Vince Howard.
 * Agustus 'Cole Train' Cole is voiced by Lester Speight who we know best for Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.
 * Samantha 'Sam' Bryne is voice by Claudia Black.
 * Ice T lends his voice in Gears 3 as the COG-hating Griffin.
 * Dwight Schultz takes over the role of Chairman Prescott in Gears of War 3.
 * For the DLC, RAAM's Shadow, Barrick is Rick Wasserman, better known as Thor
 * Valera is Laura Bailey, using a European version of her Lust voice.
 * In the Japanese version of the games:
 * Marcus Fenix is Gosukugi
 * Victor Hoffman is Seymour "Big" Cheese/Kitsunezuka Ko'on-no-Kami
 * Anya Stroud is Scarlet Miroku in the first game and replaced by Rin Sawamura.
 * Maria Santiago is Risty, Marida Cruz and Matsu.
 * Richard Prescott is the other Seth.
 * Mythology Gag: Clayton Carmine is a big one to his decreased younger brother Anthony. In Gears of War, Anthony was killed by sniper fire after standing up to display his issue with his Lancer assault rifle jamming constantly as he reloaded it. To list how Clayton's design references it, "Practice reloading" and "Keep your head down" are written on his armor. If that wasn't enough, a mark on his helmet implies he was shot in the head but survived anyway.
 * Clayton honors the memory of the two fallen Carmine brothers with a memorial tattoo on his arm of their helmets.
 * Gears of War 3 is filled with these.
 * The tier 4 medal for interacting with objects during the campaign (i.e. hitting buttons) references Lieutenant Minh Young Kim's oft-repeated line in the first game of "I'll open the door; I've got the code."
 * A player using Dominic Santiago will sometimes hear him repeat one of his earliest lines from Gears of War, "This is gonna be awesome!"
 * After killing a COG character, Queen Myrrah will sometimes reference a line from the Gears of War 2 opening cinematic, "You brought this upon yourselves!"
 * Early in the first game, after first meeting Augustus Cole, Dom and Marcus talk about when they saw him play. Marcus will quip "I remember you owe me 20 bucks" to which Dom replies "Yeah? See me after the war." One of the first collectibles in the campaign is a 20-dollar bill on Marcus' desk with a note from Dom.
 * If you can manage to get through a round of Gridlock without anyone destroying one of the ash people, the next round will begin with an instrumental version of Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World", the same song used for the Gears of War commercial..
 * "Who wants toast?!" makes a comeback in Gears of War 3 as one of Marcus' one-liners when throwing an incendiary grenade.
 * Gears of War 2 has no shortage of them either, even though it only has one game to Call Back to. "This is the part where he tells you he'll take it under advisement." and "Hey, Colonel, I guess we ARE the support, huh?!" come to mind. Also, the entire time you're with Benjamin Carmine in the Hollow, Dom doesn't stop making stealthy quips about Anthony, even crossing over into Dude, Not Funny territory.
 * The Other Darrin: Jace had a few lines in Gears of War 2 (with a borderline Aussie accent) before the graphic novels turned him into an Ascended Extra and not just a generic Gear in a helmet.
 * Drake was originally signed on to voice him in Gears of War 3 before scheduling conflicts came up to prevent it.
 * And he also gets a new voice actor for his younger self in "RAAM's Shadow".
 * What Could Have Been:
 * The series staple, the Lancer/Chainsaw Bayonet, was on the edge of whether it was going to be actually included in the game. It wasn't until they devised the design of it being integrated into the grip that they devised a semi-plausible chainsaw mounted assault rifle.
 * Somewhere, a group of Gnasher-only "Stop Having Fun!" Guys are cursing their rotten luck.
 * In hindsight, knocking the Corpser into Imulsion probably wasn't the greatest idea. Good thing the Lightmass Bomb took care of it.
 * Franklin Tsoko was going to show up in Gears of War 2 as a captive of the Locust, but that section of the game was cut but appeared in the "Road to Ruin" DLC.