Gears of War: Difference between revisions

''Gears of War'' is a tactical [[Third-Person Shooter]] video game developed by [[Epic Games]] and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game uses a [[Take Cover|"stop and pop" approach that heavily emphasizes the use of cover]]. There isn't a jump button and everything is angled towards making the combat as personal and violent as possible (the main gun used has a chainsaw built into the grip, called the [[Chainsaw Good|chainsaw]] [[Bayonet Ya|bayonet]]).

 

 

The player assumes the role of Marcus Fenix, a battle-hardened former war hero. When in cooperative play, the second player takes control of Fenix's best friend and fellow soldier Dominic "Dom" Santiago. Alongside them are fellow soldiers from another squad who they seem to frequently join with: Augustus "Cole Train" Cole and Damon Baird.

{{quote| '''Augustus Cole:''' "Do you ever feel like you're dead, but nobody ever told you?"}}

 

 

With the added benefit of a multiplayer beta to iron out the kinks (including [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|dedicated servers]]), ''Gears of War 3'' ended up the best reviewed of the trilogy with a very bright color palette, crisp visuals and fluid gameplay. A very full game release, it has a very long campaign where you can play with four characters at all times (including a co-op online arcade version), Horde Mode 2.0 (with some [[Tower Defense]]-like strategy), Beast Mode (a reversed Horde Mode where you play as Locust creatures attacking the COG), loads of features to track your gaming history and a single leveling system that works under all modes. The game was also built to be heavily modifiable, with a [[Downloadable Content]] pack called "RAAM's Shadow" containing an entire mini-campaign.

** Flamethrower-equipped Locust carry their unfortunately bullet-vulnerable fuel packs.

** The Locust have yet another developmental oversight, what with their warbeasts having soft, unarmored bellies ripe for crosshair focus.

** The bigger Lambent foes broadcast their soft and soon-to-be bullet-ridden weak spots with glowing tumors, and in the case of the more mutated Drudges, shoot the tentacles.

** The otherwise nigh-invulnerable Armored Kantus is kind enough to pause and heal its fellow Locust with its screams, giving you ample time to stuff its mouth full of lead.

* [[Ax Crazy]]: Anthony's very popular character for multiplayer, likely because of his ''very'' enthusiastic quotes while fighting, practically to the point of this trope. The tendency of many players to use the chainsaw bayonet at every possible opportunity also counts.

* [[Badass]]: Pretty much every plot-important character.

* [[Bad Boss]]: In ''Gears of War 3'', Aaron Griffin is the former CEO of an Imulsion energy corporation, now the leader of a Stranded group taken up residence in the high rise Griffin tower. Within the campaign he talks a lot about keeping his "employees" safe and doesn't like the COG because they tend to bring the Locust war with them. But an in-game collectible carries a note from one of his Stranded members who comments that Griffin ''always'' refers to them as Employees, which many resent because they were obviously not getting health insurance anymore. Plus he largely kept the best stuff for himself (gold plated weapons can be seen in his office) and everyone was afraid of being chosen for the next near-suicidal Imulsion run.

* [[Bald Black Leader Guy]]: Griffin in the third game. Former energy magnate, current ruler of a post-apocalyptic city, always ruthless.

* [[Benevolent Architecture]]: As [[Zero Punctuation|Yahtzee]] stated, chest-high walls are the key to victory in the war.

* [[The Berserker]]

** ''Gears of War 3'' introduces the Lambent Berserker. Everything that is makes the originals tough is there, only it is capable of surviving multiple Hammer of Dawn attacks, has tentacles that gives it a longer reach, will ''jump'' and land like an Imulsion bomb and eventually start leaving Imulsion trails and toxic vapors limiting your movement. All the while still screaming and rushing at you.

** Cole has tendencies toward exhibiting a few traits, but is more in tune to the [[Boisterous Bruiser]].

** Most of the large Lambent in the third game, particularly Lambent Berserkers and Gunkers.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Marcus, though his general attitude is [[The Comically Serious]] and exacerbated with a voice that occasionally sounds like [[Winnie the Pooh|Eeyore]]. Baird plays this trope the straightest. By the third game, it escalates into [[World of Snark]], with ''everyone'' throwing insults and one-liners at each other.

** Its highly, highly implied she was ''going to do it anyway''.

* [[Death From Above]]:

{{quote| '''Valera''': Thanks for the assist.<br />

'''Barrick''': You know me, Val... I'm always watching your ass. }}

* [[Driven to Suicide]]: {{spoiler|Tai Kaliso was captured by the Locust in ''Gears of War 2''. When he's found, we see him covered in large cuts and wounds. Marcus hands him a shotgun to arm himself so they can move on, but Tai shoots himself in the head with it}}. [[Gory Discretion Shot|The damage is not seen]].

* [[Dynamic Entry]]: In the first two games locust can enter the game space via Emergence Holes, stable channels to their tunnel network. However in the third game, they do away with that and practically explode out of the ground. There is an award for taking out a locust while it's airborne.

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: {{spoiler|In ''Gears of War 3,'' despite Marcus' cynicism at the end of the game, Anya heartwarmingly tells him mankind has earned its tomorrow}}.

* [[Easter Egg]]: There are a bunch of silly gags that can be found, such as a toaster ("Who wants toast!"), a cowboy hat wearing Corpser and a giant Lambent chicken!

* [[Five-Token Band]]: It's actually pretty well done to where it doesn't seem like marking off a checklist. Cole, Franklin, Jace and Griffin are all black, Dom and Maria are Hispanic, Tai is Samoan, Kim is Asian, and Sam is [[Ambiguously Brown]]. The majority of other characters wear helmets.

* [[Finishing Move]]: Characters who've lost their [[Hit Points]] will often be incapacitated instead of killed, allowing for a stress relieving curb stomp. The second game introduced unique finishers with individual weapons. The third [[Up to Eleven|takes it up to eleven]] where you can ''continue'' them to gain more experience as well as giving each weapon an unlockable special execution.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: {{spoiler|In ''Gears of War 3'', a shot of Adam from behind in his lab zooms out and lingers on a vial of Imulsion and a syringe behind him before the game returns to Delta Squad. Adam states later he had to inject himself with Imulsion in the creation of his superweapon, and knows fully well that activating it will kill him}}.

* [[For Massive Damage]]: The Lambent have glowing tumor-like growths of Imulsion in their chests or stomachs that serve as targets to quickly kill them. Shooting Drudges in their growths is the only way to take one down without it metamorphing into a nastier variant after taking enough damage.

* [[Hand Cannon]]: The Boltok revolver is obviously high-caliber (it can ''blow off limbs!''), and the Gorgon SMG is basically a fun-size one-handed automatic rifle, but surprisingly the champion of this trope in this series is the humble Snub pistol, which is chambered for .50cal and possesses both a high rate of fire and a 12-round magazine. No wonder it can decapitate armoured Boomers and Therons.

* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: In ''Gears of War 3'', Myrrah calls out on humanity being a bunch of genocidal monsters, just like how they view the Locust. It almost sounds [[Hypocrite|hypocritical]], considering Emergence Day, {{spoiler|until you realize Myrrah had no choice because of the Lambent}}.

* [[Helmets Are Hardly Heroic]]: The easiest way to see if someone is going to die? He wears a helmet. {{spoiler|Except Clayton Carmine. His helmet actually ''saves'' him from friendly fire.}}

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: Sadly, ''Gears of War 3'' has {{spoiler|''Dom''}} of all people pulling one of these at the end of {{spoiler|Act 3 to save Marcus, Anya, Sam, Dizzy and Jace from the never ending hordes of [[The Virus|Lambent]]. Adam Fenix dies not long after reuniting with his son by using himself as a test subject in his quest to eliminate Imulsion, then activating a world-affecting bomb that he knows will kill him as well as all Lambent and Locust}}.

** [[Saints Row|Manuel Orejuela]] is Dominic Santiago.

** [[Notable Commercial Campaigns|Terry Tate, Office Linebacker]] is The Cole Train.

** [[Ultimate Avengers|Dr. Betty Ross]] is Anya Strond.

** [[Resident Evil|Osmund Saddler]] plays the Carmine brothers.

* [[Just Before the End]]: The "RAAM's Shadow" DLC to ''Gears of War 3'' takes place before the first game, early in the Human-Locust War. Though it chronologically takes place after the Hammer of Dawn strikes that destroyed much of Sera (Barrick refers to his old Stranded camp in past-tense; Stranded camps didn't exist before this event), Ilima City's mostly undamaged, the government is still functional, the military well-equipped, and there are active attempts to evacuate civilians wherever possible.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: '''''And how''''' in the second game, particularly {{spoiler|Tai and Maria}}. It gets worse in ''Gears of War 3'' with {{spoiler|Dom's death}}.

* [[Kill Sat]]: Now in convenient tactical-usage size, the Hammer of Dawn.

* [[Large and In Charge]]: The Locust leaders are much taller than their counterparts. RAAM, a Theron, is even bigger than a ''Boomer''. Even Myrrah is fairly tall for a (apparently) human woman.

* [[More Dakka]]: ''Gears Of War 2'' has a man-portable Mulcher minigun. To help realism slightly, it requires you to set it down to fire it with anything that vaguely resembles accuracy, and you are unable to sprint, roll or mount over cover with it.

* [[Muscles Are Meaningless]]: The average male COG and Locust Drone has chest and arm girth that would put most Olympian power lifters to shame. This, of course, offers them no advantage over the normally proportioned (ie. literally ''half'' their size) female gears in terms of hand-to-hand combat or in carrying heavy weaponry from the hip (or their armor, for the matter). Emphasized at the end of ''Gears of War 3'' when {{spoiler|Anya and Marcus sit next to each other and hold hands, and you see how much bigger Marcus is compared to her}}.

* [[Necessary Drawback]]: The Hammer of Dawn is easily a [[Game Breaker]] if there wasn't a few things holding it back. The target has to be outdoors and not under cover so that "[[Hand Wave|the satellites can be aligned]]". In multiplayer, there's a limit to how long you can use it.

* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: The "Ashes to Ashes" trailer. Features the group fighting in Char. {{spoiler|Dom never made it there in the game.}}

** This is mitigated somewhat in ''Gears of War 3'' with the addition of Arcade Mode, in which you respawn on a 30-second timer in co-op (even on Insane; you don't get a game over unless everyone's dead). You still earn every campaign achievement and reward while playing Arcade, too.

* [[No Blood for Phlebotinum]]: All the bloody conflict has been because of the wonder-fuel Imulsion {{spoiler|which turns out to be an living, mutating parasite! The series ends with all Imulsion being destroyed.}}

* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: If you "down but not out" a Locust Drone, you can wait for his buddies to run out of cover to rescue him and shoot THEM as they rush in.

* [[Noob Cave]]: "Casual" multiplayer for ''Gears of War 3'' is just straight-up Team Deathmatch. Notably, those who have earned certain achievements in the first two games or participated in the beta on their profile are locked out of "casual" and are forced into "standard" multiplayer. Somewhat justified by Epic Games, as they cite ''Gears of War 3'' being the most accessible title, thus giving newcomers to the series a place to practice before joining the "big leagues".

* [[One-Hit Kill]]:

** In the first game, the Torque Bow kills anything any all difficulties that isn't a boss in one hit, including you. It even works on Boomers, who can take multiple rounds from the Boomshot or 3 full magazines of assault rifle fire. [[Nerf]]ed in the sequels, where it's no longer this trope. The third game does still allow single kills with it on Boomer-class Locust, but only with [[Boom! Headshot!|headshots]].

** In multiplayer, Boomshots, One Shots, Torque Bows, Mortars and Frag and Incendiary Grenades will [[One-Hit Kill]] if impacting close enough to a player. [[Boom! Headshot!]] is a guaranteed kill with the Longshot sniper rifle.

* [[One-Man Army]]:

* [[Pardon My Klingon]]: "Suck my blithe!"

* [[Personal Space Invader]]: Lots, though [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the fact this is a cover-based game. Since you're supposed to hide from your enemies, ones that just run up and melee you will be considerable threats. The first game has Wretches, [[Goddamn Bats|Kryll]] and Grenadiers. The sequel removes the Kryll, but adds Maulers, Butchers, Tickers, Sires, Beast Riders on Bloodmounts, [[Incendiary Exponent|anything with a flamethrower]]...yeah. Also, low-level Locust will randomly charge and melee you. This can range from irritating (when they have a Boltok pistol) to terrifying (when they have a Lancer). The third game adds Lambent Polyps to the mix.

* [[Plot Hole]]: In ''1'', the Kryll will eat anything, Locust or Man, that falls into darkness. RAAM is the only one able to walk among them, and his ability to do this is never explained. In "RAAM's Shadow" for ''3'', even normal Locust can avoid the Kryll and RAAM's lieutenants can control them as he does.

* [[Powered Armor]]: Theorized to be the reason Gears can do all the acrobatics the game allows them, but it has yet to be stated.

* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]:

** In spades with ''Gears of War 3''; {{spoiler|sure, the Locust and Lambent are finally gone, but the vast majority of humanity is dead, their cities destroyed and ruined and their primary source of energy used to build them up in the first place no longer exists because it was mutating beyond its control. The future is going to be very, very hard, but at least there IS a future for humanity}}.

* [[Rated "M" for Manly]]:

** Everyone is absolutely enormous, and spouts [[One-Liner|OneLiners]] without irony. They have ''chainsaw machine guns''. If you hit a button at the right time, they can reload their gun '''hard''' and make the bullets come out stronger. This game will make a man out of you, even if you're a woman.

** A cutscene in ''Gears of War 2'' has Cole and Marcus reuniting and bumping their chainsaw-equipped machine guns together. A manlier greeting has never been seen, before or since.

* [[Real Is Brown]]: The original ''Gears of War'' was practically the [[Trope Codifier]]; nearly everything was a shade of brown and it felt like a straight [[Color Wash]], making it almost impossible to tell your side from the enemy. The sequels improve on it significantly, with ''Gears of War 2'' making the lights on the armor more vibrant and the colors of the two sides more distinct (blue for COG, red for Locust). Since it's winter, there's a lot of snow on the surface, and down in the Hollow, glowing flora luminates the dark caverns. ''Gears of War 3'' completely averts it with colorful environments and brighter colors. Justified because it's summertime at the onset of the game.

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]:

** Chainsaw bayonets?! Are you serious?! They actually make sense given how much armor almost everyone wears. A normal bayonet is only useful against unarmored targets.

** Numerous points in the second game have Delta Squad being forced into using this trope.

{{quote| '''Fenix''': Control! We've hijacked a Brumak and we're-<br />

* [[Retcon]]: The second game switched the names of the Grenadier and Grenadier Elite. The third game gave the Beast Rider a Drone body type instead of a Grenadier body type (although the Grenadier variants still show up in Horde). Myrrah also now has a Caucasian skin tone instead of being grey like she was in the second game.

* [[Revolvers Are Just Better]]: While the Boltok pistol (which is obviously a revolver) used to have a slower firing rate and more damage compared to the standard Snub pistol, achieving its active reload allows it to fire faster. It even makes for an impromptu sniper rifle in a pinch, due to all pistols having a zoom-in function.

* [[Ring Out Boss]]: The Corpser in the first game has to be knocked into the Imulsion by the recoil from your attacks.

* [[Roar Before Beating]]: Wretches and [[The Berserker|Berserkers]].

** The nature of the Kryll turns the game into a [[Homage]] of ''[[Pitch Black]]'' for part of the Act 2 of the first game.

** There's an achievement for killing 10000 and 100000 enemies in the first two games, respectively, called "Seriously!?", alluding to one of [[John Dimaggio|Marcus's]] [[Kim Possible|other roles]].

** In ''Gears of War 3'', the medal for 500 MVP awards is [[Brutal Legend]].

** The "Architect" medal has a picture of the skull from the Crimson Omen wearing a white suit, like the Architect from ''[[The Matrix]]''.

* [[Shrug of God]]: As explained by David Nashty and Karen Traviss, the writers actually ''did'' have a confirmed backstory for Myrrah, New Hope, and the Sires. However, Epic went to the effort of deleting the Q&A post by Nashty revealing this backstory, leaving its "canon" status up in the air (see the Discussion section for details).

* [[Sigil Spam]]: The Crimson Omen. ''Gears of War 1'' and ''3'' both use it as a marker inexplicitly to let you know a COG Tag is nearby. The other collectibles in ''3'' don't get them, unfortunately, and in ''2'' the COG Tags don't even get them.

** The Carmine family name, via the introduction of Clayton in ''Gears of War 3''.

** JACK gets upgraded to be helpful in combat late in the third game.

* [[True Companions]]: This is ''[[Band of Brothers]]: The Game''. In fact, the tagline for ''Gears of War 3'' is "Brothers to '''The End'''". In the [[Expanded Universe]], the enitre COG army is pretty much this both before and after Emergence Day. If you are a Gear, you know you can always count on every single other Gear to have your back, no matter what, even if they don't like you. Since the army is so small after Emergence Day, a large majority of Gears know every other Gear still alive.

* [[Uncle Tomfoolery]]: ''ALL ABOARD THE COLE TRAIN, BABY!''. Cole is the [[Expy]] of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, except with a very big gun. Aside from the flamboyant, boisterous actions of Cole (the "Cole Train" multiplayer skin in ''Gears of War 3'' being the prime example), all other blacks, such as Jace, are written very 21st century.

* [[Vehicular Assault]]: Although they're technically more of a mount, all the {{spoiler|non-Lambent}} Brumak fights go this way. Likewise on the various occasions that Delta has to fight Reavers on foot.

* [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: {{spoiler|Azura}} in the third game.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Towards the end of ''Gears of War 3'', Queen Myrrah loses a lot of her previously cool and composed demeanor and becomes increasingly rabid and hysterical... fairly understandable, considering she's facing the complete annihilation of her species.

* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: Baird and Cole. Baird and Marcus too, prevalent throughout the first game, and while toned down in the second and third it's still there.

* [[Walk It Off]]

* [[Weaponized Animal]]: Most of the Locust "vehicles" and some of the weapons are actully enslaved creatures from the Hollow.

* [[We Will Meet Again]]: Griffin vows revenge against Marcus towards the end of ''Gears of War 3'' before pulling a [[Villain Exit Stage Left]]. Somewhat odd, given that this is the last game in the trilogy.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: In hindsight, knocking the Corpser into Imulsion probably wasn't the greatest idea. Good thing the Lightmass Bomb took care of it.

** Don't buy the third game if you expect any sort of explanation for the {{spoiler|Sires}}.

** {{spoiler|The strangeness of the queen, looking much like a human unlike the rest of the Locust, and even surviving the anti-Imulsion and Locust superweapon, is noted by Baird before it happens, and it is never explained}}.

* [[Wolfpack Boss]]: The Armoured Kanti in Gears of War 3.

* [[Womb Level]]: The Rift Worm in the second game.

* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Berserkers; you'd better hit them HARD or else they'll rip you to shreds. In the third game, the Locust and Lambent have no qualms about shooting, downing and executing female Gears.

* [[Would Hurt a Child]]: In the expansion ''RAAM's Shadow'' for ''Gears of War 3'', a small child gets put into an evacuation transport only to be pulled underground by a Corpser the second the transport pulls away.

** After E-Day and the Hammer of Dawn counterattack, all civilization outside of the COG except for two instances devolved into gangs of Stranded fighting each other over territory and supplies. Rape, murder, and other crimes are the normal behavior among a lot of Stranded tribes, and are often regarded as worse than the Locust by the COG because they have the capicity to be civilized, but aren't. On the other hand, there are also plenty of Stranded who are not complete bastards, and simply can't bring themselves to join the COG because of the Hammer strike and just want to be left alone.

** Also counting the Hammer strikes themselves, the COG breeding farms, and what the Indies did to Tai's home village, this trope is hammered home many times.

* [[Killed Off for Real]]: {{spoiler|Helena Stroud, Rory Andresen, Bai Tak, Carlos Santiago}}

* [[Ludicrous Gibs]]: Whats happens to {{spoiler|Helena Stroud}} and {{spoiler|Carlos Santiago}}.

* [[Machete Mayhem]]: The Pesanga scouts are fond of this.

* [[Professional Butt-Kisser]]: Major Aleksander Reid will do anything to get in Chairman Richard Prescotts good graces.

* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Bernie went on one against her rapists. She got real good with using her knife during it.

* [[Skeleton Government]]: Basically all that is left of the government 15 years after E-Day is Prescott.

* [[We Could Have Avoided All This]]: At one point Queen Myrrah remarks that the Locust could have cooperated with the Humans to save both species, but decided to go to total war instead because supposedly [[Humans Are Bastards]] who "only understand dominance and ownership". Not to mention violent to an extreme. Then again, if you first encountered the Seran humans after 100 years of war (and untold years before hand of unrest) which included nukes and kill sats on their own species, you might be a little wary of approaching them as a completely different species altogether.

* [[You Say Tomato]]: Bernie is questioned about her accent several times, mostly about saying "arse" instead of "ass".