Gears of War

Gears of War Coop

/ James Fadeley / Leave a comment

My new roommate and I are taking some time to get used to one another. After two years of living with a woman whose tastes often run counter to mine, it’s nice to have a roommate you can hang out with.

It has been a lot of changes very quickly. We still need to get some living room furnishings. I gave permission for him to get a dog, and we’ve been working together to keep her happy, fed and walked. I’m also not sure how cleaning is going to go down, as we’ve no formal arrangement but sporadically look after the dishes and vacuuming. The bills and rent are paid, so at least the financials are alright.

One thing that I believe has helped smooth the transition out is our ability to play Gears of War together in coop.

I know. Strange right?

Working as a team really smooths out the hiccups in our communication and really helps us to get to know one another. Since I’m a veteran of the game, I do my best to inform him of what’s coming out and lay out general strategies to deal with the problems ahead.

GoW is very much about teamwork. Even in single player, the game never lets you fly without a wingman at all times. It’s not good enough to lay down suppressive firepower and watch your wingman’s back—the game tests you on many levels of teamwork. One man drives, the other shoots. One goes for the light, the other has to trust his ally to guide him through the darkness lest he become Kryll bait. One player goes down, the other can revive him.

This is what great gaming is about. Not matter how fun it is single player, adding a trusted friend almost always magnifies the good times. It feels good to succeed, it feels better when both you and your buddy beat the stage. And this is a feeling that happens best when playing together in proximity to one another. Pong, the very first video game, was intended to be for dating. It was meant to enhance human social contact, not dwindle it. Even crappy games, like Brute Force, can be ridiculous fun with friends to laugh with you through it.

These kind of good times are why consoles shouldn’t go away. Sometimes, nothing beat a night like a six pack of beer, maybe some pizza, comfortable seating, a dog to pet and a bud or three to play a great game with.

The Scoreboard

/ James Fadeley / Leave a comment

My first draft for our anthology is complete, but I have to craft a new draft and make several improvements. It will be an arduous process, but will be more a matter of extending than rewriting. Only one scene (to my knowledge) requires tremendous effort. I also have a few drafts to review.

Aside from this, I have two more stories to work on, both for Cruentus Libri. One is for the surgical anthology, while the other is an extensive rewrite for the War is Hell anth.

In truth, I cannot wait to be free of the Bolthole anthology. Although rewarding and I’m learning a lot, I’m also spending time chasing other writers down, bogged with edits and taking on a horde of other responsibilities that I’ve taken for granted. I have increased respect for the role of editor and publisher.

I’ve been thinking about a certain detail when it comes to awesome action and adventure movies. A little detail I call NITMA, or “Necessity is the mother of awesome.”

See, what I love and can’t get enough of in games and books and movies are these one-of-a-kind situations. I’m not talking about something as grand as, “Save the world” but wild moments you don’t do again.

For example, in the original Metal Gear Solid, there was the torture scene and the rappelling game. Gears of War had an interesting segment where you looked for light sources in order to ward off the bat like creatures that ate your flesh. In Dead Space 2 when Isaac launches himself towards the Sprawl and you have to guide him through space. Or in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past where you had to try and figure your way around the other world, despite being changed into a rabbit and cannot defend yourself.

When you think about that formula, is it any wonder how the Avengers did so well? You have several fleshed out heroes, each of which had their own movie. And the sheer impact of what was happening forced them to work together. So unorthodox, so out of the ordinary from the usual super hero stuff, it’s no wonder it took third place on the highest grossing movie list.

What makes these moments so amazing and huge is the fact that they cannot be easily reproduced. That your character was so desperate that they were forced to do something unexpected and dangerous and you get to control them through it. I don’t want to watch a cut scene where my characters straddles a bomb on its way down! I want to actively guide the bomb! Just like in Dr. Strangelove.

I suddenly realize that this was kind of what made games like Final Fantasy XI so popular years after. Events. Events with friends. We stuck together through rough Burning Circle Notorious Monsters and garrison events. We hung together during the invasion of Aht Urghan. There was so much end game stuff, it’s no wonder people clung to the game years after its release.

Unforgettable events are where it’s at. That’s the wild ride we should be looking to build in our movies, games and books.