Gears of War

[Rhydderch Hael]

***SPOILERS***
The ending practically came out of nowhere. One minute you're beating pavement, rushing to get the ever-important data to end the war, and the next you're on some random train with the Lightmass bomb that hasn't been mentioned since the first Act! It just struck me as disjointed a little. That, and the ending overall seemed... tacky. The whole game acts and plays like a great summer action flick, but the ending was just too over-the-top for my taste. It didn't jive with the rest of the game. Whereas the game flowed beautifully, and everything just "fit", the ending seemed... overdone, not as polished, just didn't fit as nicely as I would have thought it should. Maybe I'm being picky though.

And again! The utter lack of backstory ties in directly with the ending, thus further complicating things. I just wish they had told us at least a little more.

The Single Player Campaign was either cut short or never was the strong focus of the game's development, I'm left to imagine. A filler mission or at least a cutscene indicating that the Lightmass train had just been commandeered by the Locust would have helped a bit. You're right— it was very disjointed. Once the data was recovered (and there's the matter of just why Marcus' father was in possession of such vital information without Command's knowledge), Delta Team suddenly had a train to catch— a train that inexplicably contains both the WMD of human salvation and a swarm of Locust being led by their field general.

That's akin to making a WWII shooter game where your platoon is dropped aboard the USS Indianapolis with the atomic bombs aboard, and finding the ship swarming with Japanese soldiers— with no plot development that justifies this.

Simple cutscene suggestion, Epic: we find COG High Command was actually playing it smart and held the train at the station (because only the heir to the Throne of Morons would actually send the train towards its target without first feeding the neccessary data into the weapon!) but the good ol' Locusts overran the station and captured the train, running up the engine to escape Coalition counterattack and prevent the weapon from being activated. Lieutenant Stroud radios Sergeant Fenix about the situation and Fenix decides to divert his team to a platform ahead of the train in order to intercept it. That's all you need in order to make some sense of what happened.

Great gameplay, unforgettable atmosphere— but the SP story was strung together like some mod a gamer wrote up using a construction set: get this item, then find this location, get another item, and get it to another location.

Definitely seeding for a sequel. One that would feature the Queen, further revelations into Marcus' father's past activities, and just whom Dominic is looking for among the Stranded.