Gears of War 2 and Mass Effect 2-A Collision of Tactics

High quality video games do deserve respect. They are sleek in design, usually demand replay just because they are so dense with context and visual aura, and also, they speak to us with their very human and reliable stories.

Thousands of hours...thousands of faces...and all of them intending a supremely exceptional product for their consumers and as well their own sense of accomplishment. Within in recent years, like most discerning X-box 360 gamers, two franchises have stood out, and both have robbed more hours of my life then I would like to admit.

Gears of War and Mass Effect...two of the greatest video games within the last five years, their sequels by default included...I won't bore you with all my reasons. You already know something good when you find it and sharing your love about it is only redundant. But okay, I love them for their stories and characters. I am a sucker for a great story and human drama.

But it is significant and important to say that they are two very different games...one is hardcore third person shooter (Gears) with elaborate cut scenes inside a science fiction back drop, though the plot feels more like a heavy war story than a science fiction epic since there is more concentration on a degenerative beauty. Mass Effect is a hard science fiction epic role playing game. It has conversational options in a role playing epic that are unlike any other RP on the market. You have multiple options when dealing with characters and your decisions have consequences that are far reaching. This takes up probably fifty percent of your game play since you must often speak to individuals to move game play forward. The other fifty percent, not of course including default lavish cut scenes, is primarily third person combat that involves shooting enemies and utilizing a skill wheel to unleash biotic powers on your foes.

Now, if I were to go into the differences between Mass Effect 1 and 2 and vice versa for Gears I think I would be here all day, but suffice to say, Mass Effect was more primarily focused as a strict RP construct. Combat was more a necessary evil that gave you a chance to change up things versus an integral part of gameplay. Its sequel is far more focused on combat or at the very least, the average player would admit, there is more combat. It is sleek. Yes. It is functional. Yes. Makes sense for the story...YES. Okay, but I have a few complaints as an avid Gears of War 2 player...Bioware, you have messed up a bit. YOU CAN NOT PLEASE EVERYONE.

Gears of War 2 is a phenomenal shooter and I am still able to play every night online and make a lifestyle out of blowing up Locust with Boom Shot, but when I popped in Mass Effect 2 this past week...for shame! Mass Effect 2 shares the following combat characteristics with Gears of War 2:

1. There is roadie running...although you can't maintain it as long in Mass Effect 2 as Gears 2.

2. You can vault over square structures in similar GOW 2 fashion in ME 2.

3. For shame Bioware, Mass Effect 2 now has cool down cartridges for the weapons!! In the original Mass Effect, weaponry had no limit on how much shooting there could be produced. There was simply cool down, like in HALO for the Covenant's energy pistol. But it was also explained in detail in Mass Effect's codex as a viable method for an energy weapon. Now, I have to worry about collecting ammo!! It was an RP game! NOT a SHOOTER!

4. You lean around corners for better shots on opponents. Sound familiar?

Now anyone who has played both these games probably noticed these similarities and maybe there have been no complaints...but here is my problem.

Mass Effect was an RP game that although it needed some tweaking didn't deserve this type of blatant pandering to consumerism over haul. Oh wow! Gears of War 2 is so popular and made so much money! Hey, let's put that in Mass Effect 2, it is a perfect fit. WRONG!

I don't want the same game playability in the shell of another game. You aren't fooling me and you are wasting my money. Granted I get a new story in Mass Effect 2, new environments, and characters, but I will be spending the majority of my time getting past obstacles in a shooter similar to GOW 2.

Well, at least Mass Effect 2 has nifty hacking mini games. Those are bullet proof.

This is my rifle. This is my "shot"gun. This is for fighting. This is for fun...

"How can you like all these guns and this horrible violence?" I am often asked by the casual onlooker as I play a first person shooter.

I am not going to explain first person shooters to someone who doesn't know what they are...it is to be experienced, not explained. But I will tell you, there is nothing I love more than my shotgun in a first person shooter game. It is always my favorite weapon and I even resist the need to say it is my favorite weapon often to my own demise.

My infatuation with virtual guns started in 1998. Before this time I had only played Star Wars Dark Forces at my new college computers at Roosevelt University while I was going to music school. (Thank you Direct Loans! and U.S. Dept. of Education.) I met my new boyfriend Michael who was into these weird three dimensional graphical games on his computer. He was in complete glee while pulverizing ungodly monsters into a bloody massive pulp. I would learn it was called "gibbage."

What's a gib? Originally it came from giblet, the undesirable bits of turkey stuck in the frozen uncooked carcass (neck, collar, blood bladder, etc.) that we all must clean out for mother around Christmas if she is especially miffed a you. I am told this was officially covered by Blues News, by my now fiance Michael (Damn him for introducing me to this carnage!) A gib refers to a disgusting explosion of flesh that you create before your eyes instantly while aiming your weapon at a target. A target could be human or non-human in a video game. I prefer my targets deserve their fate, but I must admit, if you give me a smooth enough shotgun with a sleek reload, emptying its cartridge becomes my only goal.

But outside of the gross factor and all that unique malformed travesty that scares the crap out of most normally sane people at first sight, I was able to see past the veil of death and gore in a FPS like Quake. Don't get me wrong. I was seriously worried about Michael when I saw him playing a Quake Mod back in 1998. It is so violent. It is so horrible. How can you watch this for hours? You must be desensitized to this horror. You need therapy.

Well, I was right. Maybe Michael needed therapy, but he already had his therapy. Quake was his therapy of choice. He saw Dr. BFG. Anything that got in your way, any obstacle, any nuisance, destroyed, blown up, incinerated, electrocuted, spliced, diced, crushed, compressed, dissected, and then gibbed.

And my gib is not your gib, you can not take that gib from anyone.

You click the mouse, just right, right time, correct angle, physics engine working its numbers, and you land this perfect shot and you think, "I can't possibly feel more happy than this...even if I had drugs. I am powerful. I am one with a machine. I am a sharp shooter."

But once you go online and you realize that anyone can learn it with enough practice, you feel a bit more humble. But yet, I kept playing and I didn't want to stop. How could I compromise my peaceful ethics against this violence?

I was always the one bullied in high school. The sensitive one who thought about the ramifications of insensitivity.I don't believe in domestic violence against anyone. War is the last thing I would ever want for anyone. War is cruel and awful in a way only the history books may hint at, but yet I embraced something so contrary to my own nature.

I thought of goddesses in history. Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Creation and Destruction--perhaps these games were hinting at the duality of everyone's nature. I had a little Kali in me that needed to channel some aggression and well, I had found my focus. We all have anger and pain we learn to work through and let go and this was just another way to let go. Probably not the always the best way to let go of some hostility, but damn fun all the same.

It isn't for everyone and it isn't for the innocent nor the ignorant. Guns in games are not real guns and they don't work the same. They may look the same and sound the same, but the reality of violence is not fun.

But my shotgun...when its scarlet blast is allowed to decimate all that would stand in my path, there is a surge of adrenaline. I feel the warrior in me.

I recently found out in Gears of War 2 that a blind shot with a shotgun is incredibly powerful and in multiplayer Horde online, an absolute must at higher wave levels. I had abandoned my shotgun love during single player gameplay more out of a fear of nepotism.

I always like the shotgun. It is handy for danger with close encounters, just like Hicks said in Aliens. Hug the gun. Oh, happiness is a warm gun, like the peaceful Beatles said. Kids with Guns, favorite song from Demon Days on Gorillaz soundtrack.

Dear God! I will have kids one day. How can I support guns? How archaic! How horrendous!
What legacy do I leave behind as a gamer by supporting first person shooters?

Wait a second, my grandma had a shot gun. Didn't she use that to survive in a harsh wilderness against raiders out in the boonies and hunt for dinner?

Just when I thought my love of the shotgun was simple.