Anyone here stream gears to their PC to play? I have been debating upgrading to windows 10 for that purpose or just simply getting another copy of gears on PC since my wife usually has the TV.
I'd mostly be doing it to play multiplayer but I don't know exactly how it works/whether it is worth a damn
Random question: wasn't there a multiplayer map in gears where the entire map at intervals became completely engulfed in a sandstorm or something? If so, what was its name and in what gears was it in?
Not sure if I'm misremembering something...
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Random question: wasn't there a multiplayer map in gears where the entire map at intervals became completely engulfed in a sandstorm or something? If so, what was its name and in what gears was it in?
Not sure if I'm misremembering something...
gears 1 had the kryll on that swamp map. i think gears 1 PC had a sandstorm? i do remember something like that but i don't recall the details
I think you might be the only one here who follows esports.
Probably. I drop stuff in here just in case. I really do enjoy watching gears. Especially since i never get the opportunity to play anymore
I think they're pretty dominant in Gears, Halo, and CoD.
The players on their Dota 2 roster are all big names, but I'm not sure how well they're doing as a team overall since I don't follow Dota unless the International is on. Their Overwatch League team is currently middle of that pack, though it's fairly early in the season for that.
comic tomorrow. not sure if i want to pick it up immediately or not tbh. not out of concern for quality, but more that i hate buying individual issues of anything
comic tomorrow. not sure if i want to pick it up immediately or not tbh. not out of concern for quality, but more that i hate buying individual issues of anything
There's a seven page preview up on game informer.. the dialog is.. completely not what I expected.
comic tomorrow. not sure if i want to pick it up immediately or not tbh. not out of concern for quality, but more that i hate buying individual issues of anything
There's a seven page preview up on game informer.. the dialog is.. completely not what I expected.
Is that guy in the first panel skorge? I don't think so but maybe the mask is the issue. Skorge later has his back turned
Wtf is the gun raam has?
I'm a little disappointed they are all in on raam's knife. I get it. That's how he was introduced basically but yo my knowledge this isn't a magic knife or anything.
GOW isn't really a "magic knife" kind of setting--I think.
Putting aside "Any sufficiently advance technology," materiel in the franchise seems to be highly efficient if mundane, when it's unusual at all. "Oh, this tank is a lot more agile than it should be." "This satellite weapon is much more precise than it should be." I don't recall anything that seemed genuinely mystical or magical, with the lone exception of Jack's antigravity propulsion (and that's really not that impressive for a video game). Some of it is markedly less efficient than our 21st century materiel, as with computers, plumping, and so forth.
It's the biological artifacts that go into the crazy, as with the Swarm, though even than, not anymore than with Xenomorphs or the less insane creatures in Rick and Morty.
I'm also not that familiar with the franchise beyond the games. Though I liked the comic included in GOW:UE way more than I expected to.
Raam, a character whose iconic intro features a knife, somehow uses the knife a lot? I... am not surprised. :P
Well neither am I...I said as much. It is still weird to me that it is such a thing.
I didn't mean to imply it was/is magic. But it is strange that they have him using it in what j guess is regular combat. For example
Why is he stabbing a lambent berserker? I get the guy sneaking up, but it is a fucking lambent 'zerker. I guess to show how tough/strong he is I dunno
It isn't a big deal on the whole. In my head it is just "ok I understand he had that scene with a knife once. I doubt that's his primary fighting method/style" although apparently it actually is. I had always thought the scene in gears 1 was so visceral for 2 reasons
1) obviously to shock
2) to show he enjoyed it/truly hated humans enough to take the time to finish someone like that
For #2 while that can carry to this scenario, if it is as dire as being described it seems inefficient. Maybe that's the best attack plan, I dunno. They could have had an equally badass moment by doing a number of other things
That's a lot of words for something super trivial that isn't a huge distraction for me. I'm interested for exactly the reason that was mentioned:
Read the full comic. They totally turned RAAM into a Bro.
The comic is basically about RAAM, as a front line Lieutenant, deciding the war against the Lambent is lost, abandoning his post to try and convince High General Sraak to let him tell the queen of his plan to flee to the surface. Sraak beats the hell out of him, but the Queen was listening in. At first I figured RAAM just isn't big yet (He's dwarfed by Sraak) but Sraak really is that huge; easily twice as tall as the Queen.
At one point Skorge, who is basically RAAM's "Dom" mentions he gave up a cushy position in the priesthood to fight with RAAM, and specifically mentions he gave up "breeding rights" which is weird given what the popular theories about the locust are.
Big takeaways
-Locust are fairly independent if they choose to be
-Invading the surface was RAAM's idea
-There's a glossery of locust ranks in the back, so that's cool.
-Ultimately, the locust seem fairly... normal. I wish they were presented as more alien to the human cultures, instead of just broing out at each other and yelling "Fuck."
Those spoilers...uh...complicate things. Questions that are spoilery I guess?
1) queen as in myrrah or is there a queen that is actually locust?
2) is the theory that locust are mutated humans no longer a thing?
I feel like I'm mixing theories and actual canon and now am just confused.
Queen as in Myrrah; complete in her Gears 3 battle armor rather than he Gears 2 look.
And yeah, the breeding thing seems to contradict the mutated humans theory; or at least the part where they are all previously human; rather than their species diverging at some point.
I'm kinda hoping they do go into the kryll. Why would it be weird in the prequel?
Edit: he could use them in the judgment dlc right? It's been a long time since I played that
The DLC you're thinking of was from Gears 3, Judgment had no story DLC.
That could be true. It has been a while. Point is he was able to use them prior to gears 1, so presumably there will be some explanation during the comic.
So here's a longer review/synopsis now that I can use my right hand again (sidenote: ice sucks)
The book opens with RAAM's battalion, the Bloodied Vangard, being overrun with Lambent while Skorge is inhaling immulsion and getting visions (at least I think that's what's happening) RAAM uses his knife to crack open a Lambent Beserkers skull so that Skorge can machinegun the inside to bits. Interestingly enough, the beserker doesn't blow up on death. Since the outpost is lost, they set some explosives and get their sniper (a "vurl" (sergent) named Jermad to detonate a lambent wretch near it. After telling Jermad to take stock of his battallion, he violates orders and heads to the surface to explain his plan to Skorge (after RAAM blasphemes to Skorge a bit)
RAAM is tired of his battalion getting churned up in a constant, futile war with the Lambent and wants to abandoned the hollow to them and attack the humans on a surface, who he sees as an easier target. Skorge says he'll stand with RAAM no matter what, though he offers an alternative to RAAM's plan of straight up marching his battallion to Uzil (High General) Sraak and killing him so they can talk to the Queen.
Instead, RAAM and Skorge meet with Sraak to negotate, though RAAM quickly start's insulting Sraak by implying he hides in the Palace and has no clue about the frontlines, while Sraak is accusing him of leaving his post. Finally RAAM says he intends to step over Sraak speak to the queen directly, at which point Sraak declares a challenge and proceeds to be the holy shit out of RAAM. Sraak is HUGE by the way.
At first I thought he was in power armor, but then he headbutts RAAM and his head is ginormous compared to RAAM's. He then chokeslams RAAM onto a table and proceedes to beat his face in, then orders him back to the frontlines; Skorge is forces to drag RAAM's heavily bloodied body out of the room. Sraak then consults with the queen (who heard the whole conversation) and makes the case that RAAM has a lot of loyal soldiers under him and could lead a uprising; he only stayed his hand so the Queen could decide his fate; which she says to Sraak 'Do what you must.'
After Skorge and Jermad rib RAAM a bit for getting his face smashed in at a "negotiation", RAAM reveals that he knew the Queen would be listening, which was the whole point of the excursion. Skorge talks about what he gave up to follow RAAM (saying he "owes" RAAM) which highlights how utterly WEIRD the tone of this comic is.
RAAM and Skorge have a real buddy-buddy relationship, which I'm not too keen on. Not only does it feel too much like they're just pasting human relationships onto the Locust, but the fact that both of the Locust leaders from Gears 1 and 2 (i.e. the big fucking badasses) were frontline buddies together is a bit too much for me to take seriously.
Anywho, the comic ends with a Corpser popping up to kill our ... heroes? RAAM declares he saw the attack coming and won't be caught off his guard, but at the bottom of the page it says "NEXT ISSUE: RAAM IS CAUGHT OFF HIS GUARD.
I'm interested to see where this goes, but it is a very weird tone; it's a tone I've seen in other Gears fiction, but it just feels off applied to the Locust.
While I was initially OK with them being Bros that was because I thought it was A) only for the battle scene in the preview and an indicator that there would be some.personality there. While I'll still want to pick this up I'm also apprehensive.
I almost feel like this should've been expected though. I can almost hear someone saying aloud "well how else would they act?"
From my own shallow understanding, it was always a very strong uphill battle to make them truly alien (which, despite the initial tones of the series, is incorrect in its own way--because they're not truly alien, so having them subscribe to anthropomorphic constraints--that basically all fictional aliens have anyway--is really forgivable).
So you're left with two obvious options: make them utterly inhuman (and unrelatable and unsympathetic) like stormtroopers (who ironically are human), or make them a foreign equivalent to the Gears and militarized humans in general (which would make them relatable and sympathetic). Going in between the two is hard and requires skill (I don't want to pass judgment on the story without having read it though).
Of course, some laziness could definitely be a cause of making them really like the Gears in their behavior.
From my own shallow understanding, it was always a very strong uphill battle to make them truly alien (which, despite the initial tones of the series, is incorrect in its own way--because they're not truly alien, so having them subscribe to anthropomorphic constraints--that basically all fictional aliens have anyway--is really forgivable).
So you're left with two obvious options: make them utterly inhuman (and unrelatable and unsympathetic) like stormtroopers (who ironically are human), or make them a foreign equivalent to the Gears and militarized humans in general (which would make them relatable and sympathetic). Going in between the two is hard and requires skill (I don't want to pass judgment on the story without having read it though).
Of course, some laziness could definitely be a cause of making them really like the Gears in their behavior.
Yup. The confusion over their origin only compounds the issue. I wonder if that will get ironed out in this story or if it just be a muddy mess.
From my own shallow understanding, it was always a very strong uphill battle to make them truly alien (which, despite the initial tones of the series, is incorrect in its own way--because they're not truly alien, so having them subscribe to anthropomorphic constraints--that basically all fictional aliens have anyway--is really forgivable).
So you're left with two obvious options: make them utterly inhuman (and unrelatable and unsympathetic) like stormtroopers (who ironically are human), or make them a foreign equivalent to the Gears and militarized humans in general (which would make them relatable and sympathetic). Going in between the two is hard and requires skill (I don't want to pass judgment on the story without having read it though).
Of course, some laziness could definitely be a cause of making them really like the Gears in their behavior.
Yup. The confusion over their origin only compounds the issue. I wonder if that will get ironed out in this story or if it just be a muddy mess.
I'm grateful to hear they kind of avoided a trap that a lot of western action/adventure properties fall--though not all of them, Star Wars is particularly guilty of this (or maybe it's jus the fact that we're all media bombed by it on an annual basis now)--there's a tendency that the multitude of antagonists are completely unrelateable and unsympathetic by design. The bad guy cannon fodder cannot be shown behaving off duty, or having particular quirks, or humanizing qualities/flaws (unless they're going to switch sides) even though there's no reason why they necessarily wouldn't (even if they should have very different kinds of qualities and flaws than your average small-truck-sized Gear).
Unfortunately, it sounds like the way they manifested this is...by having them behave basically like Gears, but with an obvious biological/visual/political distinction (and translated dialogue). The opposite though, is worse, with completely inhuman cannon fodder who basically act like statues until they're shot up the emergence holes. This is, ironically, how the COG sees Locusts, of course, having absolutely no idea of their origins (at least initially?)--remember Baird's freaked-out observations about the Locust actually having culture, back when the COG basically saw them as walking, shouting gun platforms as the series expanded on them in GOW2.
To be, the Locust are kind of like the Zentradi of the Macross franchise--except even less alien (since the Zentradi and Meltradi diverge from humans tens of thousands of years earlier, at least, whereas for the Locust it happened in a matter of a few generations). Importantly, they do have a culture (a much more utilitarian, militarized culture than their UN Spacy enemies, to the point where they think they don't...and that's cultural in its own right). They're not aliens, but pretending to be aliens...or something. I guess I should really read this comic.
While I agree that the Locust were basically the most inoffensive enemies possible (Hey, they're all 100% kid-murdering evil, they have no kids, no elderly and the females are actually enormous rage monsters: have fun shooting them without having to engage a single brain cell!) I don't think this was a good way of fixing that.
And I disagree that they can't be "alien" even though they share human origins. Firstly, they're mutated via immulsion, so their brain chemistry won't necessarily line up with humanities; secondly, if you dropped a set of humans underground for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, with little to no contact with the surface; they'd probably appear extremely alien. (Also, the Swarm already appear WAY more alien than the Locust, what with the hive mind and life cycle mutations; and they're literally made up of dissolved humans)
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
While I agree that the Locust were basically the least inoffensive enemies possible (Hey, they're all 100% kid-murdering evil, they have no kids, no elderly and the females are actually enormous rage monsters: have fun shooting them without having to engage a single brain cell!) I don't think this was a good way of fixing that.
And I disagree that they can't be "alien" even though they share human origins. Firstly, they're mutated via immulsion, so their brain chemistry won't necessarily line up with humanities; secondly, if you dropped a set of humans underground for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, with little to no contact with the surface; they'd probably appear extremely alien. (Also, the Swarm already appear WAY more alien than the Locust, what with the hive mind and life cycle mutations; and they're literally made up of dissolved humans)
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
Well some of the stuff in your spoiler:
Is it even clear at this point the origin of the locust and the longevity of the species? I agree given all the things about the locust that they easily could've done just about anything else...if they had the writers to do it. Presumably there a directive to make Raam sympathetic and I could see someone just saying fine fuck it, they are Marcus/Dom all over again.
Does immulsion cause sterility? I feel like I was led to believe locust were made and not breed but I guess not.
While I agree that the Locust were basically the least inoffensive enemies possible (Hey, they're all 100% kid-murdering evil, they have no kids, no elderly and the females are actually enormous rage monsters: have fun shooting them without having to engage a single brain cell!) I don't think this was a good way of fixing that.
And I disagree that they can't be "alien" even though they share human origins. Firstly, they're mutated via immulsion, so their brain chemistry won't necessarily line up with humanities; secondly, if you dropped a set of humans underground for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, with little to no contact with the surface; they'd probably appear extremely alien. (Also, the Swarm already appear WAY more alien than the Locust, what with the hive mind and life cycle mutations; and they're literally made up of dissolved humans)
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
Well some of the stuff in your spoiler:
Is it even clear at this point the origin of the locust and the longevity of the species? I agree given all the things about the locust that they easily could've done just about anything else...if they had the writers to do it. Presumably there a directive to make Raam sympathetic and I could see someone just saying fine fuck it, they are Marcus/Dom all over again.
Does immulsion cause sterility? I feel like I was led to believe locust were made and not breed but I guess not.
Immulsion causing sterility in human test subjects is one of the things used to support the actively mutated humans theory. (I.e. that every Locust used to be human before being converted, and they all originate with COG experiments) I hate that theory because it make no sense in regards to locust numbers and the age of their arcitecture. I'd rather they share a common ancestor and the COG experiments lead to triggering the full immulsion bloom and the Queen.
While I agree that the Locust were basically the least inoffensive enemies possible (Hey, they're all 100% kid-murdering evil, they have no kids, no elderly and the females are actually enormous rage monsters: have fun shooting them without having to engage a single brain cell!) I don't think this was a good way of fixing that.
And I disagree that they can't be "alien" even though they share human origins. Firstly, they're mutated via immulsion, so their brain chemistry won't necessarily line up with humanities; secondly, if you dropped a set of humans underground for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, with little to no contact with the surface; they'd probably appear extremely alien. (Also, the Swarm already appear WAY more alien than the Locust, what with the hive mind and life cycle mutations; and they're literally made up of dissolved humans)
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
Well some of the stuff in your spoiler:
Is it even clear at this point the origin of the locust and the longevity of the species? I agree given all the things about the locust that they easily could've done just about anything else...if they had the writers to do it. Presumably there a directive to make Raam sympathetic and I could see someone just saying fine fuck it, they are Marcus/Dom all over again.
Does immulsion cause sterility? I feel like I was led to believe locust were made and not breed but I guess not.
Immulsion causing sterility in human test subjects is one of the things used to support the actively mutated humans theory. (I.e. that every Locust used to be human before being converted, and they all originate with COG experiments) I hate that theory because it make no sense in regards to locust numbers and the age of their arcitecture. I'd rather they share a common ancestor and the COG experiments lead to triggering the full immulsion bloom and the Queen.
Ok so I didn't imagine that, there was a theory floating around about that. I agree with you that it makes things incredibly weird. It almost seems like they want this ambiguity to.make it seem cool and mysterious. Honestly it is kinda irksome that there isn't a clear-cut answer.
While I agree that the Locust were basically the most inoffensive enemies possible (Hey, they're all 100% kid-murdering evil, they have no kids, no elderly and the females are actually enormous rage monsters: have fun shooting them without having to engage a single brain cell!) I don't think this was a good way of fixing that.
And I disagree that they can't be "alien" even though they share human origins. Firstly, they're mutated via immulsion, so their brain chemistry won't necessarily line up with humanities; secondly, if you dropped a set of humans underground for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, with little to no contact with the surface; they'd probably appear extremely alien. (Also, the Swarm already appear WAY more alien than the Locust, what with the hive mind and life cycle mutations; and they're literally made up of dissolved humans)
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
I should say, when I mean "alien"....
I mean that in the sense of non-anthropomorphic. The more extreme version of that would be an alien that, for example, isn't a hominid that interacts with the physical world the way everything we see in the game does. Maybe their cultural artifacts are completely mental, or maybe even more disparately, they exist partially in a different physical dimension. Basically, the problem pointed to in Crichton's Sphere--that all aliens are physical beings with a comparable number of limbs, who consume food, who are born, live, and die, etc. Something that breaks this trend is generally really rare in video games, so it's not entirely fair to expect GOW, an cover-based shooter franchise, to break from that in a normal wartime setting, even before considering that the Locust are descended from deeply mutated humans....I guess. Though the fact that they are humanoid, have body symmetry, bipedal, etc., puts them behind something like a Xenomorph or Jabba the Hutt or something.
Though I'm torn who is more alien (or more accurately, less human)--the Swarm or Locust. I thought the Swarm were resurrected Locusts, not converted humans, but maybe I missed an obvious detail in GOW4. The Locust also seemed to have non-hominid lifeforms, just like the Swarm do (beasts of burden, etc.)
On the other hand, no tentacles. So that's a thing. I really don't know enough about the Swarm to say that with any certainty, and I assumed the Locust had some sort of larval metamorphosis as well, like the Swarm. On the other hand, if they don't, yeah, that would certainly suggest the Swarm are more different.
Re: thread title. I'm kinda torn whether locust using human phrases is good or not. It came up in the transformers comics where they used to use transformer specific phrases and terms. Instead of hell it was "the pit" or they used slag, or scrap, or other stuff like that. Now they tend to just say what a person would say. A little something is lost, but if a locust had this absurd phrase for telling someone to go fuck themselves it may be even weirder.
I just think it's funny they're running around yelling 'fuck' all over the place.
There IS a glossery of Locust terms (including ranks) in the back, so they're perfectly fine swapping out those. That said, Gears probably isn't a good fit for faux swear words like frell, frack or scrap.
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I'd mostly be doing it to play multiplayer but I don't know exactly how it works/whether it is worth a damn
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Not sure if I'm misremembering something...
gears 1 had the kryll on that swamp map. i think gears 1 PC had a sandstorm? i do remember something like that but i don't recall the details
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that was the one with the digger in the bunker right?
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Yup.
Also yep.
Anywho, Rise of RAAM #1 is out tomorrow. First new piece of Gears story in over a year.
EDIT: Oh wait, that's next week. Dammit.
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Probably. I drop stuff in here just in case. I really do enjoy watching gears. Especially since i never get the opportunity to play anymore
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I think they're pretty dominant in Gears, Halo, and CoD.
The players on their Dota 2 roster are all big names, but I'm not sure how well they're doing as a team overall since I don't follow Dota unless the International is on. Their Overwatch League team is currently middle of that pack, though it's fairly early in the season for that.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
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The Overwatch coverage has been as inescapable as esports has ever been...but yes, generally speaking.
There's a seven page preview up on game informer.. the dialog is.. completely not what I expected.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2018/01/23/sneak-peek-at-the-gears-of-war-comic-that-explores-raams-origins.aspx
That has me intrigued.
Spoilers
Wtf is the gun raam has?
I'm a little disappointed they are all in on raam's knife. I get it. That's how he was introduced basically but yo my knowledge this isn't a magic knife or anything.
It's just a knife
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Putting aside "Any sufficiently advance technology," materiel in the franchise seems to be highly efficient if mundane, when it's unusual at all. "Oh, this tank is a lot more agile than it should be." "This satellite weapon is much more precise than it should be." I don't recall anything that seemed genuinely mystical or magical, with the lone exception of Jack's antigravity propulsion (and that's really not that impressive for a video game). Some of it is markedly less efficient than our 21st century materiel, as with computers, plumping, and so forth.
It's the biological artifacts that go into the crazy, as with the Swarm, though even than, not anymore than with Xenomorphs or the less insane creatures in Rick and Morty.
I'm also not that familiar with the franchise beyond the games. Though I liked the comic included in GOW:UE way more than I expected to.
Well neither am I...I said as much. It is still weird to me that it is such a thing.
I didn't mean to imply it was/is magic. But it is strange that they have him using it in what j guess is regular combat. For example
It isn't a big deal on the whole. In my head it is just "ok I understand he had that scene with a knife once. I doubt that's his primary fighting method/style" although apparently it actually is. I had always thought the scene in gears 1 was so visceral for 2 reasons
1) obviously to shock
2) to show he enjoyed it/truly hated humans enough to take the time to finish someone like that
For #2 while that can carry to this scenario, if it is as dire as being described it seems inefficient. Maybe that's the best attack plan, I dunno. They could have had an equally badass moment by doing a number of other things
That's a lot of words for something super trivial that isn't a huge distraction for me. I'm interested for exactly the reason that was mentioned:
It makes me think they will actually have some characterization for the locust and not a big fan nothing.
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edit: I'm actually curious to see if they try and explain that out.
Edit: he could use them in the judgment dlc right? It's been a long time since I played that
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At one point Skorge, who is basically RAAM's "Dom" mentions he gave up a cushy position in the priesthood to fight with RAAM, and specifically mentions he gave up "breeding rights" which is weird given what the popular theories about the locust are.
Big takeaways
-Locust are fairly independent if they choose to be
-Invading the surface was RAAM's idea
-There's a glossery of locust ranks in the back, so that's cool.
-Ultimately, the locust seem fairly... normal. I wish they were presented as more alien to the human cultures, instead of just broing out at each other and yelling "Fuck."
1) queen as in myrrah or is there a queen that is actually locust?
2) is the theory that locust are mutated humans no longer a thing?
I feel like I'm mixing theories and actual canon and now am just confused.
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And yeah, the breeding thing seems to contradict the mutated humans theory; or at least the part where they are all previously human; rather than their species diverging at some point.
The DLC you're thinking of was from Gears 3, Judgment had no story DLC.
That could be true. It has been a while. Point is he was able to use them prior to gears 1, so presumably there will be some explanation during the comic.
How many issues are there supposed to be anyway?
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RAAM is tired of his battalion getting churned up in a constant, futile war with the Lambent and wants to abandoned the hollow to them and attack the humans on a surface, who he sees as an easier target. Skorge says he'll stand with RAAM no matter what, though he offers an alternative to RAAM's plan of straight up marching his battallion to Uzil (High General) Sraak and killing him so they can talk to the Queen.
Instead, RAAM and Skorge meet with Sraak to negotate, though RAAM quickly start's insulting Sraak by implying he hides in the Palace and has no clue about the frontlines, while Sraak is accusing him of leaving his post. Finally RAAM says he intends to step over Sraak speak to the queen directly, at which point Sraak declares a challenge and proceeds to be the holy shit out of RAAM. Sraak is HUGE by the way.
At first I thought he was in power armor, but then he headbutts RAAM and his head is ginormous compared to RAAM's. He then chokeslams RAAM onto a table and proceedes to beat his face in, then orders him back to the frontlines; Skorge is forces to drag RAAM's heavily bloodied body out of the room. Sraak then consults with the queen (who heard the whole conversation) and makes the case that RAAM has a lot of loyal soldiers under him and could lead a uprising; he only stayed his hand so the Queen could decide his fate; which she says to Sraak 'Do what you must.'
After Skorge and Jermad rib RAAM a bit for getting his face smashed in at a "negotiation", RAAM reveals that he knew the Queen would be listening, which was the whole point of the excursion. Skorge talks about what he gave up to follow RAAM (saying he "owes" RAAM) which highlights how utterly WEIRD the tone of this comic is.
RAAM and Skorge have a real buddy-buddy relationship, which I'm not too keen on. Not only does it feel too much like they're just pasting human relationships onto the Locust, but the fact that both of the Locust leaders from Gears 1 and 2 (i.e. the big fucking badasses) were frontline buddies together is a bit too much for me to take seriously.
Anywho, the comic ends with a Corpser popping up to kill our ... heroes? RAAM declares he saw the attack coming and won't be caught off his guard, but at the bottom of the page it says "NEXT ISSUE: RAAM IS CAUGHT OFF HIS GUARD.
I'm interested to see where this goes, but it is a very weird tone; it's a tone I've seen in other Gears fiction, but it just feels off applied to the Locust.
While I was initially OK with them being Bros that was because I thought it was A) only for the battle scene in the preview and
I almost feel like this should've been expected though. I can almost hear someone saying aloud "well how else would they act?"
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So you're left with two obvious options: make them utterly inhuman (and unrelatable and unsympathetic) like stormtroopers (who ironically are human), or make them a foreign equivalent to the Gears and militarized humans in general (which would make them relatable and sympathetic). Going in between the two is hard and requires skill (I don't want to pass judgment on the story without having read it though).
Of course, some laziness could definitely be a cause of making them really like the Gears in their behavior.
Yup. The confusion over their origin only compounds the issue. I wonder if that will get ironed out in this story or if it just be a muddy mess.
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I'm grateful to hear they kind of avoided a trap that a lot of western action/adventure properties fall--though not all of them, Star Wars is particularly guilty of this (or maybe it's jus the fact that we're all media bombed by it on an annual basis now)--there's a tendency that the multitude of antagonists are completely unrelateable and unsympathetic by design. The bad guy cannon fodder cannot be shown behaving off duty, or having particular quirks, or humanizing qualities/flaws (unless they're going to switch sides) even though there's no reason why they necessarily wouldn't (even if they should have very different kinds of qualities and flaws than your average small-truck-sized Gear).
Unfortunately, it sounds like the way they manifested this is...by having them behave basically like Gears, but with an obvious biological/visual/political distinction (and translated dialogue). The opposite though, is worse, with completely inhuman cannon fodder who basically act like statues until they're shot up the emergence holes. This is, ironically, how the COG sees Locusts, of course, having absolutely no idea of their origins (at least initially?)--remember Baird's freaked-out observations about the Locust actually having culture, back when the COG basically saw them as walking, shouting gun platforms as the series expanded on them in GOW2.
To be, the Locust are kind of like the Zentradi of the Macross franchise--except even less alien (since the Zentradi and Meltradi diverge from humans tens of thousands of years earlier, at least, whereas for the Locust it happened in a matter of a few generations). Importantly, they do have a culture (a much more utilitarian, militarized culture than their UN Spacy enemies, to the point where they think they don't...and that's cultural in its own right). They're not aliens, but pretending to be aliens...or something. I guess I should really read this comic.
Like, to go back to an earlier idea I had, what if they were uber collectivists and the mere IDEA of RAAM managing to disobey an order and devise a plan in contradiction of the Queen is not only a completely foreign concept to the Locust, but the act rather than the plan is winds up being what earn's RAAM his newfound position as general; instead it's just treated as like it would in a human as filtered through extreme warrior race Q; complete with his buddies going along with it (and razzing him about how successful he winds up being.)
Anywho, it's not the end of the world, and it's probably super hard to sell the idea of a Gears comic without characters broing the fuck out, so I'll enjoy this as the odd little duck that it is.
Well some of the stuff in your spoiler:
Does immulsion cause sterility? I feel like I was led to believe locust were made and not breed but I guess not.
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Ok so I didn't imagine that, there was a theory floating around about that. I agree with you that it makes things incredibly weird. It almost seems like they want this ambiguity to.make it seem cool and mysterious. Honestly it is kinda irksome that there isn't a clear-cut answer.
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I should say, when I mean "alien"....
Though I'm torn who is more alien (or more accurately, less human)--the Swarm or Locust. I thought the Swarm were resurrected Locusts, not converted humans, but maybe I missed an obvious detail in GOW4. The Locust also seemed to have non-hominid lifeforms, just like the Swarm do (beasts of burden, etc.)
On the other hand, no tentacles. So that's a thing. I really don't know enough about the Swarm to say that with any certainty, and I assumed the Locust had some sort of larval metamorphosis as well, like the Swarm. On the other hand, if they don't, yeah, that would certainly suggest the Swarm are more different.
As far as we know, the Locust either actively convert humans, or they just breed via couplings between drones and beserkers.
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There IS a glossery of Locust terms (including ranks) in the back, so they're perfectly fine swapping out those. That said, Gears probably isn't a good fit for faux swear words like frell, frack or scrap.