Gears of War

0:17 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Other Castle. The Other Castle, this is the podcast where we tell you the plot, lore, and more behind your favorite video games, or maybe your next favorite video game. Well, my name is Tom. And I'm Andrea. And yes, as you said, we are The Other Castle podcast. If this is your first time joining us, you can check us out at our website, theothercastlepodcast.com. That's the othercastlepodcast.com. Over there, you can check out all sorts of things. You can listen to all of our episodes. You can sign up for our Patreon. You can sign up for our Discord. You can sign up for our newsletter. All sorts of fun things you can do over there. How much is that, Patreon? Just $2 a month, and we do monthly episodes over there as well, including in the off season. Ooh, yeah, we just did Donkey Kong with you. That was so much fucking fun.

0:58 Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, that was a great, great episode. There's also some DLC to games we've covered, like Ghost of Tsushima, and The Last of Us, Left Behind DLC. So if you just want more of the same, it's there. If you want more of slightly different, but still really cool, it's also there. Yeah, awesome. Anyway, so today we are here to do a game that has been requested so many times by people. Like honestly, when we were doing our conventions, this is the one people asked me personally a lot. Yeah? Yeah, Gears of War. I feel like a lot of people told me to do a bunch of boyfriend dating simulators, and I'm not sure what that really says about me. It felt a little targeted where you're getting Gears of War, and people are asking me like, but have you tried like this dating sim?

1:39 And I'm like, I'm married. The pigeon one. Yeah. We genuinely did get that a couple of times, and I'm like, I'd be curious to look at the fan base, but it's not really my vibe. Like, that's not how I want to spend 20 hours, but I get you. I don't know if it's right for the show. Yeah, it may not be a great fit, but Gears of War apparently is. Yeah, that's right up our alley. Perfect. So way back in 1991, a student named Tim Sweeney was attending the University of Maryland studying mechanical engineering. Very cool. On the weekends, he tinkered around on his family's home computer as his parents lived near the college. He taught himself how to code and even came up with his own coding language.

2:19 Jesus, that's really cool. Yeah, not easy to do. No. Through his experimenting, he programmed a game creator called ZZT. Is that short for ZZ Top? No, it wasn't at all. Okay, because it lines up, but okay, fine. Right. It was a program that people could use to make their own custom video games. So it's a lot like RPG Maker today. Oh, that's really cool. Or, you know, the season three game for Mythic Quest. Yeah, right? He advertised in magazines, like PC magazines, and sold it through a phone number that routed to his parents' house. Oh my God, that's so embarrassing. Yeah, and from there, his dad would ship the copies of the game to those who would like order through the phone number in the ads.

3:02 Nevermind, I came back around. This is the cutest fucking thing I've ever heard. What a sweet little family business. It was, and his dad continued shipping these copies all the way up through 2013. Wait, no, that's too recent. I know, right? I mean, that's 10 years ago, but it's still, that's pretty recent, the fact that it went from 91 to 2013. That's when GTA V came out. Like, that's wild. Why were people still buying it? He had initially named the company after his childhood home of Potomac, Maryland, but he wanted a name that could compete with the bigger names in the video game industry as he realized he could make a living in gaming. He wanted to express that he had a big, successful company despite having a single product that he made by himself.

3:48 So he chose the most 90s name possible, Epic Mega Games. Oh, that's fucking great. I love everything about that. Well, fortunately, ZZT had a lot of clout in the gaming development community, and a former employee of Doom Producer ID Software named Mark Rine decided to partner with Tim Sweeney. Pardon me, I was thinking, since you said the original name was Potomac, this is the story of Bethesda Games. Oh, no, not at all. Like they just moved to a bigger city. No, it's an even bigger company. Okay, gotcha. From there, they hunted down people who bought ZZT and had used it to create some pretty cool games.

4:28 They didn't look at just the most polished games either. Some of them were ugly, but had incredible sound. Or they had great level design, but no story. They wanted to find the talent in each area, even if the full product wasn't great. This even led them to a 17-year-old programmer named Cliff Blazinski. Epic MegaGames eventually went from two employees to 50. Wow, they did so much recruiting with just product zero. That's so cool. Yeah, they were able to really get a lot of people interested. They wanted to compete with the heavy hitters in PC gaming, like the Doom franchise, the Quake franchise. And in 1998, they released the 3D first-person shooter, Unreal, a game that would alter the course of gaming forever.

5:16 Because they developed the Unreal Engine while making this incredible shooter. Oh, my God. Tom, you know I love the Unreal Engine. But like, I say that unironically. I made you watch the GDC presentation they just did in 2020. 2023 and was like, watch this girl FaceTime herself into AI. It's so fucking cool. Right. So this was the development of the Unreal Engine. Oh, can you imagine if it said Epic Mega Engine instead? If they were just like, no, let's brand it like for the team. Oh, no. And then 20 years later and we're like, man. What could it have been named? I could have been named Turbo. The difficult part of making Unreal was the fact that their team of 50 was actually scattered all over the world.

5:59 One of the big progressive groups for remote work. They were, but this was also at a time when it was faster to mail a file on a disk than it was to send it over the internet. Oh, holy shit. So they built a new office in Cary, North Carolina. That feels random. Right, very random spot, but I bet the cost of living was incredible. Oh, bet. And they moved everyone that was willing to stick around and changed the company name to simply Epic Games. Okay, so that in and of itself, that act means they are making enough fucking money to keep 50 people on payroll and move them out and get a fucking office space. Like they're doing pretty well so far.

6:40 Yeah, Tim Sweeney started driving a Lamborghini when they did this. When they did this? Okay, so it's not like they were squeezing their fingers and hoping it works. No, they had the bankroll to accomplish this task. Also, he had a Lamborghini in North Carolina in what sounds like a suburban area. Yeah. That's fucking great. Good for him, honestly. Well, shortly after the move in 1999, they released Unreal Tournament, a multiplayer version of Unreal, creating some of the world's first esports tournaments and professional teams in the process. Wow. They also released Unreal Engine as a free to use game builder so people could mod the Unreal games as well as create their own.

7:21 And the world was never the same. And that's still something that they offer today. Unreal is still free to anybody that wants to use it. Holy shit, I didn't know that. Their stipulation is after you make a million dollars off of your game, they get 5%. Yeah, all day every day for that kind of kit that you can build the most beautiful pieces in gaming. Yeah, really incredible. And one of the things that I think is really neat is how many times we can kind of parallel Epic with Valve in this story. Because as we heard in our Hades episode, Epic went on to eventually create the Epic Game Store as a competitor to Valve's Steam platform. Oh yeah, we should have done these in order of chronological Epic growth.

8:01 That's really fascinating though. Well, over the next few years, it started to become less profitable for PC game publishers to make single player games. The growth of the internet led to the growth of piracy as well. Oh, you wouldn't steal a car. Yeah, people just didn't want to pay full price for a game if someone else was just giving it away for free on a torrent site. Yeah, or if you can play the next fucking half-life before it comes out, whatever. But to your point, there was some serious international piracy groups out there just stealing games. Constantly. And it was mostly for single player games because online multiplayer made piracy much more difficult, it required a lot of security checks to ensure someone was playing an official copy.

8:51 Oh, so it's like not just torrenting, it's like layers of VPN to really make it work so you don't get kicked or things like that. Right. Sheesh, not worth it. Well, the one place where single player campaigns were still profitable though was on console because piracy was way too difficult to even be viable. So they brought their idea for a new franchise to a company they'd worked well with for years in the PC space. Microsoft. You know, they're still doing all right in the PC space. They're holding strong, right? I think they've figured out a nice adaptation strategy as the years have gone on. It helped that they invented it. Their Xbox 360 was pretty much winning that generation's console battle, but only barely.

9:34 Was this against the PS3 or the PS2? This is against the PS3. Okay, because I mean, the 2 is still revered as one of the best systems. Yeah, that went up against the first Xbox. Wow, okay, got it. But yeah, 360 was kind of winning it, and especially because of online multiplayer. Halo 2 was Xbox's biggest hit still, but that was kind of Xbox's only big game, and it was from the previous console generation. And Halo 3 was a couple of years out still, and everything else was pretty much cross-platform. Gotcha, so they were like, what do we have that's ours that's for the love of fuck new? Yeah, they needed a new exclusive to compete with Spyro and Mario and Laura fucking Croft. So Cliff Blazinski, or Cliffy B, as he came to be called.

10:18 Oh, I love him already. Cliffy B, what's up, man? He designed his vision for the game along with his team, and they presented Gears of War to Microsoft with the promise of a decades-running franchise. They wanted to take everything that was popular in gaming and throw it out the window to give the world something new. An over-the-shoulder, third-person action-adventure shooter with the biggest, earliest men to ever grace the screen. Oh, big buff boys? Yeah, because in film during that time, movies like Lord of the Rings and even the earlier Fast and the Furious movies were giving us action stars who weighed 150 pounds. That's fair.

10:58 I mean, you know, Jason Momoa and The Rock didn't enter the Fast franchise until after the halfway point. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, and Paul Walker, I believe dressed like a dork who just went to Macy's for his junior prom. Yeah, he was a good looking guy, but he was skinny. Yeah, and he wasn't dressed very well. He looked like a dork. And then what? They followed that up with Ludacris. Yeah, you know, big, tough Luda. Right. I love Ludacris. Well, this game was like, fuck that trope. Give us the big boys of the 70s and 80s back. We want the meats. So I bring up movies specifically because this game also wanted to be cinematic, even when it wasn't in cutscenes. Oh, I love that. That's honestly very progressive in terms of like the artistic mindset for a game of this era.

11:41 It was very much so because first person shooter was kind of the it genre. Yeah, and you really didn't get more than, those are the bad guys in red. Please shoot them. And that was a big reason to give it a third person POV as well. The whole desire to do like a cinematic thing. Yeah, no, I see that absolutely. You're really in it and you're experiencing it as a full scene. And Cliffy says that the designs are so incredible and the teams created such a beautiful world. It seems silly to keep it in first person and miss out on the amazing work they did. And yeah, the 30 something named Cliffy B can be a little cocky at times. I love him. I don't give a fuck. Yeah, but if you saw a picture of the 50 team members at Epic, you would be able to pick out Cliff without ever knowing what he looks like.

12:26 Just being like that's definitely a man who calls himself Cliffy B. Yeah, he just stands out that much over everyone else. Good for his energy, I love that. Yeah, Cliffy B being in his 30s while making Gears of War, he's still dressed and acted like the cool 17-year-old surfer kid they hired years earlier. I love that. Yeah, and everyone at Epic was actually pretty fine with this, honestly. They're all his dads. Yeah, they were all like, we have social anxiety like a motherfucker, and Cliffy loves the spotlight. So they were fine letting him take it, and he really has become the face of the franchise as a result. Honestly, that's so sick. He's like, I'm a ham, I'm charismatic. I got my dream job as a teenager.

13:07 I'm living the life. Let's fucking go. Good for him. And I don't want anybody to get it twisted. He's an extremely intelligent and talented man. While I didn't dig deep for controversy, I didn't see any pop up about this group of people either. Oh, cool. So this is a place of people that respect each other. Yeah, honestly, listening to his coworkers talk about him, they all point to every innovation and fun aspect of the game, and say, yeah, that was Cliffy's idea. Holy shit. So this dude's kind of a visionary. A lot of the ways, yeah. He's a party boy, but he was also a visionary. I love that. He's like the lead character of a feel good comedy. Or his own movie. Ooh. The team at Epic also didn't want to give the world a childish game like Spyro or Mario.

13:50 Right, you know, we're getting into this era right after the waves of the crashes and the Spyros and these like mascot games. Yeah, it's time for more edgy games to come out because adults were starting to play games. And it wasn't necessarily that they were starting to, it was just that they were aging up and becoming adults. And you know, in media in this time, this is when, oh my goodness, those really dude-centric TV stations were out and they were doing game, like Spike TV, doing game coverage in G4, where it was finally, we're talking about video games in the media, which brings the conversation up. It like people open up about gaming if they see it being talked about. Representation matters, but anyway, but this was the time when adults could speak about games and it could be a journalistic path and it could be an opportunity to voice yourself.

14:36 So it was like celebrated to be an adult gamer. 100%, and they wanted to like celebrate that fact. Totally. And they wanted to crank it up to a level people hadn't seen yet in the console market and introduced elements like cutting bad guys in half from head to scrotum. Oh, I'm so excited. Or the really innovative and horrifying curb stomp. When an enemy would drop to near zero health, you could knock them to the ground and squish their head into the pavement. Oh, that's so cool. And with it being cinematic in nature, blood hits the camera lens all the time. Yeah. Another big thing they brought to this game was hiding behind cover and fighting in really tight small locations, giving us what they called intimate combat.

15:23 With characters as large as six and a half feet tall and armored, they take up a lot of space as it is. Yeah. So hiding is essential for these large targets, and you can do all sorts of innovative actions like blind firing over a wall. Oh, that's great. You can literally hit X to spray and pray. That's fucking sick. So many innovations came from this game that feel standard today, such as mocap performances. They were doing mocap back then? They were. Now, it wasn't like the actors doing the voices doing the mocap. They had kind of mime actors doing the body work, but they were using that for the actions of the characters. That's really cool. Do you know if that was for both the cut scenes and for in-game movement?

16:05 It was a lot for the in-game movement, honestly. Wow, that's really cool. I mean, when you are a large body crouching or you have to do a very specific kind of maneuver to make a specific weapon happen, that does make sense. Like, it could be easier to just have a model fucking do it than try and dream it up. Yeah, when you start to think of every movement as just a different animation that will get repeated, it starts to make sense that they would just get those assets and kind of just reuse them over and over. Yeah. You know, like when you watch interviews with like the Red Dead team, they're like, yeah, there's a whole week where we just had to squat and hold different guns. All of our calves were on fire. Another one of the innovations was its as yet unseen use of co-op, which we'll actually get into later.

16:49 Okay, exciting. For the characters, they wanted actors who could carry the gamer through the whole story without getting annoying. Which is hard to do. That's why the first Spyro got fired. Right. So many games prior to that had mediocre to bad voice acting as games weren't seen as serious entertainment for far too long. Facts. And still aren't in a lot of ways, honestly. True. But for the lead character, they went with an actor who was only relatively known then, but is legendary today. John DiMaggio. Oh shit, is that Bender? Yeah, that's Bender from Futurama. Oh my God. I can see his title screen in my head now. And another actor they cast is named Lester Rasta-Spate.

17:32 He plays a character named Augustus Cole. So Cliffy B was watching TV one day, and he saw a football commercial that Rasta was in, and thought his character was so fucking funny in that commercial. And he showed it to the team at Epic and said, Wouldn't it be hilarious to be in a war with this guy? What if this man were a warlord? So this commercial, you might remember, it was Terry Tate, defensive linebacker. And what he would do would, he was an employee of like an office, and he would tackle people for not putting the right cover letter on the TPS reports. Oh, this is one of the most classic iconic commercials. We'll drop it in the Discord if you are curious and you can't think of what to look for.

18:15 Yeah, and like he knocks a guy out and he's like, you're 10 minutes late, Mitch. I love that. And they're all just beige people with sweater vests on in a regular office. And he's in a full football outfit with like the shoulder pads and shit. Yeah, so they hired the actor from the commercial and just created this character for the game. This is kind of the story of how Ted Lasso got made too. You know? Well, the rest of the cast is filled out with some regulars in video games, and it gives us some of the most fun and realistic dialogue of any game of this type. I'm still really excited to hear about John DiMaggio in this. You know, his breadth of work is very heavy in voiceover in animated work, and he doesn't do a lot of video games, at least in the ratio of it all.

18:58 So that's super fucking exciting. He's done a great Joker. Has he? Yeah, in animated, he's done a great Joker. Very cool. I know the Joker is like the crown passed down from people to people. Oh yeah, that's like a hamlet. Yeah. Everybody plays Joker at some point. Yeah, but it's also a huge honor to do it and be amongst the Jokers. That's really cool. Well, Xbox was so excited for this game, they wanted it for their headliner at E3 in 2005. And Epic was pretty nervous, as they didn't feel they actually had enough to show just yet. Yeah, they're like, we've brought our fucking Avengers level like crossover event team of people we love who liked our first product, which wasn't a game.

19:41 And now we're launching a game, and Cliffy B's over there, dressed like a guy named Cliffy B, and they're like, all right, so are we fucked? Well, yeah, but also with the pressure of a billionaire on your back, you find ways to make the impossible happen. So they made a demo of the biggest moments they had programmed, and just that sneak peek was enough to bring the E3 floor to a halt. Shut up. And this was in-game footage? This was in-game footage. Cliffy B played the game live on stage. Oh, that's fucking sick. And that's so ballsy because even today, we're still getting trailers that are like cinematic, doesn't represent the actual game we're trying to charge $70 for and shit.

20:22 And that's fucking frustrating. Right, and they were trying to debate. They were like, okay, so we need to decide what elements we need to include. Honestly, the Chainsaw is not quite ready. Do we finish that and include it? Or do we not include it at all and finish all the other elements? And they were just like, Microsoft kept going, don't show the Chainsaw, please, that's too much, it's too gory. Don't show the Chainsaw. And everybody at Epic's like, yeah, we gotta show the fucking Chainsaw. He's telling us that the Chainsaw is gonna be the coolest fucking thing to show. Yeah, and everybody at E3 just watched a dude Chainsaw guy in half for the first time. And their fucking minds were blown. That's fucking great. That's so punk rock, too, you know?

21:04 Oh, very much so. Like, it's full fuck the man, and they're indie as fuck, so they're like, we're doing this. It's that season one finale of Silicon Valley where they win the fucking thing because they all came together and they're not polished, but they do it. Right. Ooh, I don't know what's happening in the video game, but I'm loving what's happening in the story. I'll tell you right now, this is really fucking cool. Well, Bill Gates himself was there, and even he said, that was pretty cool. Oh shit, to be blessed by a billionaire? Yeah. So there was no pressure. Despite not feeling ready for E3 2005, Gears of War went on to release November 7th, 2006.

21:45 Okay, so a year and change later. Yeah, and crunch was a major factor in getting it done. So they're like, we showed our hand, we have to follow through. Yeah, but this was that era where it was so normalized, they weren't ashamed to even be open about it. Oh, yeah. And you know, there's something to be said about being isolated, right? Because so much of development is in Northern California and Silicon Valley and San Jose, or Santa Monica Beach and Silicon Beach, or like a New York developer. To be kind of off by your own in a North Carolina setting, where there's not as many studios as there typically is, or not a lot of industry work at all. Not a lot to do on the weekends anyway.

22:25 What else are you fucking doing? But you know that they're all so isolated, so they don't realize it's as bad as it is, you know? Right, but they were still pretty nice about it. Like it was 10 hour days during the week. There was Saturday days, but it was like half days kind of stuff. Okay. They did cater every single meal. That's a good compromise to start with, okay. Yeah, and they even brought in masseuses to help them get through the long hours. I would fully get fired after wasting a masseuse's entire day. That sounds amazing. Just getting back in line like it's a fucking roller coaster. Yeah, like I'm Stanley on pretzel day, like I'll stand here all fucking day, and I'm gonna get back in line. I don't give a fuck. Well, the game's launch trailer also took an approach nobody expected.

23:11 Instead of heavy death metal that typical action games used. Yeah, it was a very near, near, like era of commercials. They used the Gary Jules cover of the Tears for Fears classic Mad World to introduce the world to Gears of War. And to introduce the world to this genre of commercial. Because holy shit, getting the creepy acoustic cover of another song is just a world of its own. It is a genre all in itself, and Gears of War totally invented it. God damn, I didn't realize how culturally impactful this was. Yeah, so Mad World is a slow, hauntingly beautiful song, and the trailer culminated in the song title, Mad World, being sung as the character confronts a 40-foot tarantula-like monster.

24:02 It really was a mad world. Well, this made people quake with excitement because that was not the tone they expected from a game called Gears of War. When it released, it sold over a million copies in just three days. Wow, that's a lot for... You said this was 2006? 2006, yeah. That's a lot for 2006. And it reached 3 million copies at 10 weeks. And that's still an Xbox exclusive. That's a lot for any console exclusive straight up. For a console exclusive, that's ridiculous numbers. Yeah, and for a first game, it's still a freshman title.

24:43 Granted, it's coming from Epic Games and the people that made Unreal Tournament, which was very well respected. It was still like mind blowing because this is their first console game on top of that. Yeah, this is really where they put it all out there and they knocked it out of the park. This is fucking great. Over 5 million copies ultimately sold. And it is the 360's second most played game beat only by Halo 3. It spawned several sequels, spin-offs, and movie rumors galore. Can I tell you about one spin-off? Oh, please. There was a special edition loot crate box for Gears of War 4. And I was in one of the promo photos for it because they needed someone who looked angry and tattooed and everyone's head whipped around in unison to me.

25:29 And the girl who says fuck every other word. That's really great. Yeah, I got to do a photo shoot for like a half day a loot crate there. So I'm canonical to this series and I'm glad you're covering me. I will happily cover you anytime. It was approved by the licensing team, which means it's canon. Canonically, I am in the Gears of War. Well, speaking of licensing, Netflix currently has the rights to the movies. Oh shit. And I'm sure they're waiting to see how Bioshock does before really pushing forward on it. Oh, the alleged Bioshock Netflix project. That may or may not ever happen. I'm not, I'm not gonna hold my breath. I know we're going underwater, but I'm not doing it.

26:12 Cause we may not, cause this may never happen. Although they did very well with the One Piece adaptation. That's true. They are doing all right with that. I mean, I haven't watched it. So this is obviously just from what I'm seeing on my Instagram feed, but people seem to really enjoy it. They seem pleasantly surprised. Yes. And the fact that The Last of Us has somehow found another revenue to make a billion dollars from, magically. Outrageous. Yeah, so I think we're out of the era of superhero and into the era of video game adaptations. I hope so. As long as they stick close to the adaptations like the comic book movies did when they started getting good. What studio would you want to see a crossover epic from? Like, would you want to do the Super Smash Bros universe where you have Detective Pikachu and Kirby and fucking Chris Pratt's Mario all coming together?

26:59 I think that's the most logical next step. I don't want logical. I want the Quantum Realm where the heavy rain killer is alive in Detroit and the androids are gonna kill them. I think Mortal Kombat has the best chance at doing some stuff though. Yeah, okay, you went logically. That's fine. Well, yeah, I mean, they have RoboCop in Mortal Kombat now. They have Terminator and RoboCop. So, you know, they've got all sorts of different IPs already worked into Mortal Kombat. That would be pretty sick. All right, I'll give you that. Well, anyway, in 2015, an ultimate 4K upgraded version was released on Xbox One and PC, and that brought in an additional million in sales. Oh, some nostalgia, some catching up for the first time.

27:39 Today, it has a 93% Metacritic rating. It's, like I said, one of our most requested games by far. And we surprised Andrea with Halo. Also, I'm in this. We made her fall in love in Half-Life. Famously. So let's see what she thinks after this testosterone thrill ride. Oh, joy. So rev up your chainsaws, Goombas. This is Gears of War. You keep saying chainsaws with no context given. We find ourselves on the planet Sarah. Great. Where we set our scene. It's essentially Earth, but it's not.

28:20 And maybe it's that planet from Disco Elysium, but like in the future. Oh. The planet is inhabited by humans, and their countries and cities look a lot like they do on our world. An older feminine voice speaks as we see these cities and people wandering about living their lives. The voice is that of a person known as the Locust Queen, Mira, which we don't technically learn her name until a later game, but since we know it, I'll call her by it. And she says that the humans of Sarah had lived in peace for a considerable amount of time. Then, Emergence Day came. A small, peaceful outdoor cafe descends into chaos as a building nearby crumbles.

29:00 Oh shit. And out from beneath the ground comes a gigantic, horrifying creature. It looks like they took a tarantula. Nope, I'm out. And crossed it with a scorpion. That's like the other scariest bug! And it's 40 feet tall. Did you hate this? Oh, it's the most terrifying fucking thing. You do not care for spiders. No, arachnids in general, I am not a fan of. I saw a scorpion in our house once, and now we have bug people that come every six weeks. They kill all the bugs for us. Yes. From underneath this creature, swarms of bipedal, orc-like creatures rush the humans, armed to kill.

29:43 And they're called the locusts. The locust queen says that the humans fought back for a time, but were ultimately overwhelmed and defeated by the locusts. We see battles with humans and locusts alike getting killed, and we see a human use a crazy weapon on one of the creatures. A machine gun with a chainsaw attachment. Oh, that's fucking cool. So this is the iconic weapon of the Gears of War franchise, and it's called the Lancer Assault Rifle. That's cool. The man with the gun runs up on one of the locusts and cuts this motherfucker in half with the chainsaw part of the gun with blood flying everywhere.

30:27 Hot dog or hamburger? Hot dog. Oh! Lengthways, like I said, from head to taint. The enemy forces, though, were way too powerful as they brought guns and other weapons of their own. Billions died, and the remaining few humans decided to pull a move out of the Matrix movies and laid waste to their own planet in an attempt to kill the invaders. Oh shit. From above, a sky beam shoots down onto the planet like it's the movie Independence Day, and it levels a major city. In the rubble of the planet they once controlled, two soldiers back themselves into a corner, shooting at an overwhelming onslaught laid out in front of themselves.

31:11 Not noticing the two 20-foot monsters approaching them from behind. The Queen says that now the humans are approaching their final, desperate last stand. As the scene cuts away, and we get our title screen. The game comes back to a prison, and we go into Act 1, Ashes, 14 years after E-Day. We're inside a cell, and above us, instead of a ceiling, is a metal grate. And creatures are running across it, hissing and spitting down at the inhabitant below. The big, thick metal door to the cell has a little window slide open, and we see someone standing on the other side.

31:53 He says, Jack, rip that door. And we see sparks come flying between the cracks. It opens, and we see a flying robot with a blowtorch for a hand move away. The flying robot is more like R2-D2 and less like Wheatley. Okay, got it. But it's also a lot more cyberpunk as it looks like it was built from parts rather than with intention. Oh, he's a Frankenbot. That's cool. Yeah. The human that opened the door is 6'3 and pure muscle as he stands in the light showing off an impressive figure holding a big-ass duffel bag. And he's a human. He's a human, yeah. Not a locust. Got it. The prisoner sits on the floor and asks, What are you doing here? The man says that he's here to get you out.

32:34 Now, suit up and let's go. The duffel lands at the prisoner's feet, and we can see the name Phoenix spelled with an F written on the bag. The prisoner says that the other guy can get in a lot of trouble for this, but he says that everyone else is already free. Someone named Hoffman already pardoned everyone. Oh, shit. The prisoner steps into the light for the first time, and we see our hero and protagonist, Marcus Fenix. That's such an extreme name. Right? He's a big and meaty, muscle-bound man, every bit as large as the man who freed him, with a nice little dark black soul patch just under his bottom lip. Oh, not the soul patch?

33:15 Yeah, Super 2006, right? Yeah. And a black bandana covering his head and hair. The man who freed you hands you a shotgun and says, Welcome back to the army. You take the gun, look at it, and say shit as you follow along. With there being five plus Gears games, there's a lot of lore and background on Marcus. Is he the protagonist for all the games? Not all the games, no. Not necessarily saying anything about the fate of Marcus. It's just that there are other stories to tell in the world of Gears of War. Totally get it. Nathan Drake's not the protagonist of every Uncharted. Right. And so there's a lot of events that lead up to him being in prison that we don't explore in this game.

34:00 But I'm going to tell some of it anyway. Okay, just for context, since we have it. Yeah. So after Emergence Day, Marcus joined the COG Army, which stands for the Coalition of Ordered Governments. Soldiers in the COG Army are called Gears. So you're gear in the COG. They don't really celebrate individuality there. No. While in the COG Army, he fought the Locusts for 10 years. As I briefly mentioned before, the Locusts don't look like their insect counterpart. That's just the name given to their species. The bigger insect-like beings, like the spider scorpion, are called hollow creatures.

34:42 I hate hollow creatures. Because they're less intelligent and their brains are hollow. That's a weird burn. No, not really. The hollow is the underground cavern they call home. Because also, like their insect counterparts, they all live underground. Gross. These are not aliens from above. They came from below. They did, like the Underminer. Hmm. I also have this headcanon idea that the humans on Serra are actually smaller than insect size. It's all about perspective. It is, and that the locusts and hollow creatures aren't actually giant, but that's just kind of like my silly little thought. They're regular? Yeah. They're all regular size insects, and that the people there are very tiny.

35:24 It's like if a whole generation went through Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. They all got in front of the shrink ray. Yeah. And we just pranked them. That's perfect. There's also a lot of variety in these invaders. So most are bipedal, almost humanoid in appearance. But again, I'd put them looking more like orcs from Lord of the Rings or World of Warcraft. Just instead of green skin, it's mostly blacks, grays, and browns. They're also slightly larger than the two men we've seen so far. Probably closer to six foot nine or a full seven feet tall, depending on the type. Yeah, huge, huge creatures and huge men fighting them. But yeah, so these creatures, they range from big and strong to smaller and agile.

36:07 Plus they have the hollow creatures, essentially as their allies as well, which are more like trained pets than allies. During a major battle with the locusts, Marcus abandoned his post and instead went on an unauthorized rescue mission to save his father, taking with him a weapon the Gears needed to win the fight. It all turned out to be in vain anyway, as the helicopter sent in to rescue Marcus and his father was shot down, and the helicopter landed on his father, killing him. Oh, shit! Marcus was thrown in prison for insubordination where he sat for four years, somehow maintaining his insane muscle mass, because everyone there is also in solitary confinement, so how did he do that?

36:51 Anyway, we gear up and take control of Marcus from here on out. The man that broke you out of prison is named Dominic Santiago. That's such a cool fucking name. Yeah, and everyone just calls him Dom. Because this is the Fast and the Furious now. Yeah. It's always nice to be reunited with family. Yeah, he's your best friend and actually went with you to rescue your father. But you convinced everyone that you had tricked Dom into going with you, and as far as he knew, he was just following orders. Dom gives you the option of doing a tutorial or just skipping it, which I appreciate more than anything. Do you want me to tell you when to press X?

37:32 Are you good? Yeah, they're like, we can go over here and you can learn everything, or we can just go straight through and run and gun. That's cool. And when you make it out of the bowels of the prison and into a central hall, Dom radios out that he has successfully freed you and that you are ready for some help. The help comes and starts bombing the building you're in, and Dom goes, not now, we're still inside. And the guy on the radio goes, oh, sorry. Yeah, you guys should probably move. Oh my god. The two of you maneuver through the blown out hallways of the prison, finding dead humans that had been torn to shreds by the locusts. The two of you fight your way out of the prison, which had been overtaken by the locusts unbeknownst to you a few months ago, which means the locusts were feeding you while you were in prison and you still didn't notice.

38:18 But whatever, the two of you kill your way outside, and we see buildings explode and walls falling down. Jesus, full war zone. Yeah. The support helicopter even gets taken out during the battle. God damn. So they have to send a second helicopter who says that they're going to need to abort the mission that they're on and just finish the extraction. Because getting you out was only part one of the mission. And losing helicopters is very expensive. Yeah, the actual mission was to destroy this prison and the locust swarm that had taken it over. The helicopter says that you need to hurry because the ground beneath you is moving. Oh, no. It lands and you run to catch it. As you do, we see the ground beneath you swell.

39:01 And up out of it bursts a tarantula scorpion. Oh, no. And it's actually called a corpser. A corpser? Yeah, because it makes corpses. Oh, Jesus. It scuttles across the ground, swiping its 40-foot legs at you, barely missing. 40 is too, too tall. I don't like this shit at all. It's so fucking big. The scale is outrageous. You leap onto the helicopter just in time as the cloverfield monster screeches from beneath you. Finally out of reach. On the chopper, you're given your own lancer gun, and you take it, and that's the one with the chainsaw on it. Hell yeah. You go, okay, you broke me out for a reason.

39:42 What's the target? A bald lieutenant on the chopper named Min Young Kim tells you that Colonel Hoffman will fill you in when you land. Another soldier who's just randomly shooting out the window of the chopper asks, are you really the Marcus Fenix? Ooh. And you answer in the affirmative, and the soldier goes, wow, that's so cool. So you're a local legend. Yeah, and you respond, not really. That's so humble and cool to say, though. I know, right? The helicopter lands and the testosterone level skyrockets as you are immediately confronted by Colonel Hoffman. He says that a traitor like you doesn't deserve a uniform.

40:23 There's a reason you were the only prisoner left in that jail. Hoffman didn't want you freed. You spit back that it looks like he doesn't get a choice. He needs all the help he can get. Hoffman walks off with Lieutenant Kim to talk. He tells him that there's a plan that will end this war once and for all. And Dom walks up behind you all like, yeah, we haven't heard that before. A nearby woman in a military uniform puts her finger to an earpiece she's wearing and says that sensors have picked up enemy forces encroaching on your location. You look at this woman who has a military escort with her, and she smiles at you. But that smile fades as the head of her escort explodes, and she gets drenched in his brain matter. Oh, shit!

41:04 From a distance, we see a locust with a sniper rifle scream out. The gears all go to action, and a fight breaks out. Hell yeah. During the fight, Colonel Hoffman tells Lieutenant Kim that he has a device called a light mask bomb. It can take out the whole swarm in a single go. They just need some data on their home and stronghold underground to make sure they place it in the right spot to take it all out. It's worth it. Let's do it. Alpha Squad went underground to set off a device called a resonator, and it can send out a pulse to map the entire underground tunnel system the locusts set up. Kind of like an echolocation bomb. Yeah, exactly like that. That's cool. But they lost contact a while ago, and the data from the resonator has not been transmitted.

41:49 He assumes Alpha Squad is fine, but he needs a team to go in there to make sure they set off the device so they can get the data they need for the lightmass bomb. While the two leaders chat, you and Dom take out the entire group of locusts attacking the base practically on your own. They're just having a full ops meeting right now while this is happening. They are. They're like ducked behind a wall chatting. Jesus. When they're all dead, Hoffman orders you and Dom to go with Lieutenant Kim underground to set off the pulse device. In the meantime, Lieutenant Anya Stroud, the woman with the earpiece, will be feeding you the intel they do have on the area to help you get to where you need to go. And just to like be in your ear a little bit for maybe some ear candy?

42:30 Yeah, she's your girl in the chair. Do we dig her? We like her a lot. Yeah. Cool. Hoffman tells you that he expects 110% out of you, and you tell him to go fucking self. You're not doing this for him. First of all, you're bad at math. Second of all, fuck you. You decide the best place to start is where this current group of locusts came from, as they had to come from somewhere. As you progress, you come across some dead human soldiers. You tell Anya that you have visual on Alpha Squad, and they look like they are probably all dead. You also can't find the resonator anywhere. You inspect the bodies to make sure it's Alpha Squad, but their cog tags are missing.

43:11 Oh, no. Because in this world, they have cog tags instead of dog tags. Oh, yeah. I get you there. So these cog tags are actually the collectible in this game, so you can find them kind of scattered all over the place, like they're the coins in the comics from Last of Us 2. You know, in Last of Us 1, they literally collected Firefly dog tags, but you went with Last of Us 2 when we do co-orders? That's right, they did have the dog tags in the first one. I forgot about those two. Tom, you skipped the more obvious one, but yes. To answer your question, I'm with you. Well, one of the soldiers in your group of four, named Carmine, finds a round metal ball thing and Dom asks if it's the resonator. He says no, he's not sure what it is.

43:53 So he tosses it down an old hole the Locusts had once used to come up out of the ground. Anya tells you that this might not be Alpha Squad, since you can't identify anyone and they don't have the resonator. It's likely an old scouting troop or a trap set by the Locusts. Those are dead people we left here a long time ago. Don't worry about it. There's a building up ahead where they last contacted Alpha Squad, so your small group of four heads in that direction. And Anya is remote but in your ear, right? Correct, yeah. She kind of can see you through satellites and shit. Cool. You take out some Locusts, and your group talks about how, after all this time, humans still haven't found a way to plug up the holes the Locusts make when they come to attack.

44:34 Every hole they destroy, another just opens up. So they kind of just stop trying. Do you think there is a groundhog problem in North Carolina? That might be the issue, yeah. I know that you're obviously very in the thick of it with this war, but there's some echoes of human truth in this. Every time I get one, another pops up. Another goddamn groundhog comes up. It's the groundhog hydra. Yeah, I feel like North Carolina is a place where you can actually afford a home with a big lawn. They're just like, I'm trying to make a cool deck. What the fuck? Carmine says he used to have nightmares about the locusts as a kid.

45:15 The rest of you look at him like, how old are you? Because E-Day happened when you were all adults. But Dom being the chillest fucking guy in the world just goes, I still have those nightmares. He's just like, honestly same. It still sucks, huh? That's actually one of the things that makes Gears of War so special, the little side conversations you have throughout the game. I love these charming moments between characters. It may not feel like it adds to the story, but it adds to the atmosphere. It adds to your intimacy with the characters. It makes you care more. I really enjoy that too. And I feel like a lot of people often look at like Rockstar Game as really being the leader in side talk from characters during missions.

45:56 But Gears of War ran so Rockstar could fly. Absolutely. This is still 2007. This is six years before The Last of Us came out, and people talk about Joel and Ellie's conversations as what makes the game and makes you fall in love with everything and gets you on Joel's side for the end, you know? And just like that, the friendship between Dom and Marcus is fucking incredible. Oh, I love that. You really get this sense of brotherly love between the two. Dom loves family. Especially when you play this game in co-op. And even more so if you're playing with your actual best friend, which I did when it was released. I was just going to ask if you got that experience. Oh. Their bond becomes so cemented and real to you because unlike most co-op games, the other playable character is as much a full and rounded character as the main protagonist.

46:46 That's really cool. So unlike, say, Halo, where you can play as Master Chief and other Spartan. Is that really just what you have to work with, Master Chief or Spartan? Yeah, it's just the other Spartan. That's who the second player is. That's really funny. Gears gives us two fully visualized and crafted characters to play, and it really set itself apart from other games in that regard. Especially because it was one of the first co-op games that allowed you to play from two different locations. Wow. This is a very revolutionary game. In so many more ways than just one or two. At every turn, you're like, and then they invented this.

47:29 Holy shit. Prior to this, couch co-op was kind of the only option available in gaming. And you say couch co-op, that's like a Mario Kart. Yeah, a Mario Kart, but you literally have to be playing on the same system to play the game. Right. Online PVP was normal by now, as this game had an incredible online PVP as well. But the main campaign, online co-op, was unheard of really. Co-op was only invented so your annoying sibling could play. Very few had ever written a story that made the second player as important as the first before. They also did some other incredible things that no other game had done, like splitting up the two characters.

48:09 Oh, so you're not on the same screen? Yeah, at one point, there's a fork in the road, and Lieutenant Kim sends you and Carmine down one path, while he and Dom go down the other. Oh, so for a full real experience of knowing what's happening on both ends, you really do have to be with a friend and be like, okay, so on my side, we got this. Right, and if you want to see both sides, you can play as the second player another round. That's cool. So yeah, they each go on their own separate adventures for part of the story, only to meet up later when the two converge again. Once the two teams reconverge, you kill a ton of locusts and proceed forward. You make it outdoors, and Carmine runs up to the lieutenant with a problem. His gun is jammed, and he can't get it to work.

48:51 Everyone is crouched for cover behind a wall, and Carmine stands up to hand his gun over to Lieutenant Kim so he can see what's wrong with it. And standing is the worst thing Carmine could have done. I immediately got nervous. His head vanishes in a cloud of red mist, and a locust sniper can be seen in the distance as Carmine's body falls to the ground. Oh, just there one moment gone the next? Yeah, poor Carmine. Oh, that sucks. The three of you kill the locusts and continue onward through the rubble of the city you're in, looking for signs of Alpha Squad. As you round a corner, you hear a battle going on, and Lieutenant Kim says, well, I think we just found Alpha Squad. There you go. We can hear a man yelling, get some!

49:33 And you look out over a courtyard and go, holy shit, it's just one guy. Just one lunatic? And this dude is single-handedly slaughtering the locusts, like shit-talking them the whole time. Oh, hell yeah. You help him take out the remaining locusts, and Lieutenant Kim asks for his name. He says he's Private Augustus Cole of Alpha Squad. Hell yeah. That's how he's Alpha Squad, bitch. This is the character that Rasta played. Oh, I love everything about this. Just dick-swinging, having a great time. Fuck you. Yeah, he's just as large as the rest of your group, maybe a little bigger. And while I and every person who plays this game loves Cole, you can't help but criticize the fact that he is a video game stereotype of that era.

50:19 Oh. He's the big, beefy, fun-loving, shit-talking black man that only speaks in catchphrases. Oh, no. Yeah, so like, think Barrett in Final Fantasy VII. Fortunately, this trope died out shortly after this game, and we have seen much better representation both in this series and in video games as a whole. We love to see progress, and so does Epic. Cole very much grows as a character as the series goes as well. I like that you are confirming that Cole is an ongoing character in the franchise too, which makes me very happy. You know, I'm not gonna go too far into who lives, who dies, and who tells the story, but at the same time, yeah, Cole sticks around. Hell, yeah. This dude's Asian booked him so much work off of booking one commercial.

51:03 Right? Look, that's just impressive, you know? Well, despite the stereotype aspect, Cole is many people's favorite character in the series, including Dom, because after hearing Cole's name, he goes, wait, Augustus Cole, as in the Cole Train Smash Ball Champion? Cole Train. Turns out Cole was famous before E-Day as a professional athlete. Oh, hell yeah. Dom asks you, remember when we saw him play in the finals, which makes Cole go, everyone wants to see the train, baby. Which we'll hear Cole say some variation of about a thousand times in this game. I bet it's kind of charming every time though. It can be charming, and sometimes it's a little much.

51:45 Fair enough. Because I hope that Rasta got paid for every time he said the train and baby in this game, because it would mean he made a fortune. You respond to Dom's question saying, yeah, and you still owe me 20 bucks for betting against his team. Oh, shit. Call him the fuck out, right? Yeah, in front of Cole? Hell yeah. Cole says the rest of Alpha Squad is hiding nearby. They've been trying to radio for help, but the locusts are jamming all the transmissions. They couldn't get to where they needed to go for the resonator and decided to try and escape so they can regroup and try again. Fair enough. Cole was out here trying to get a radio signal. Your group decides the best course of action would be to take out the locusts blocking the transmissions.

52:28 Once you have the communication open again, you should be able to get an extraction team in there or at least some backup. As you fight your way to the transmission jammers, you find a weapon near some dead soldiers. The weapon is called the Hammer of Dawn. I love the weapon names in this. They're pretty great, right? Yeah. The Hammer of Dawn? Holy shit. It only works outdoors as it is a device that gives you a special laser pointer. Wherever you point that laser will cause a light beam to descend from the sky, frying whatever it is you're pointing the laser at. Oh my God. And the lasers come from satellites orbiting the planet, and they use the sun's rays to create a laser much the same, I don't know, a magnifying glass does on a mountain of ants.

53:14 Holy shit, that's great. There's a lot of bug energy here. Right? Which again, I can't help but think of this as like insect scale, which makes the satellites that much funnier to me because they're just a bunch of kids running around with magnifying glasses. Yeah. The Hammer of Dawn also won't work all the time, as it requires the satellites to be in position at the time. So these space lasers are the weapons they used to scorch the earth back in the day, thinking it would wipe out the locusts. You use the Hammer of Dawn to take out a giant insect creature that's jamming the radios, and when it kills the creature, you get a weak signal from your home base, and you tell them you need to take out a couple more to get a full strong signal.

53:56 On the way, you find a horribly mutilated corpse, and Cole recognized him as a member of Alpha Squad, a man named Rojas. Ugh, that sucks. Looking at the corpse of Rojas, Dom says that maybe he should have left you in that prison cell after all. Oh. You destroy all signal jammers and have a clear line to Anya. She says she has Alpha Squad on the line and patches you through to them. Turns out they're not far from you, but they're under siege, so you agree to flank the locusts, keeping them trapped. Cole recognizes the voice on the radio and says, Baird, the train's coming for you, baby. As you make your way towards them, you enter a grand cathedral.

54:37 Is this all still underground or is this on the surface? Mostly underground, yeah. That's cool. An underground cathedral is so goth. Yeah, there's a big round table in the center, like the Arthurian legend. Oh, the Knights of the Round Table? Very cool. Yeah, and the table is surrounded by 30-foot statues of great men. And Lieutenant Kim calls this a sacred place. And you say that it's a sacred place of lies. Okay, Edgelord, he came straight out with that. Lieutenant Kim tells you to watch your fucking mouth. Even though he's working with you, he doesn't trust you. He's read the transcripts of your trial. You're a loose cannon. To which Baird of Alpha Squad says, over the radio, that trial was a sham, sir, but no time for arguing, because the locust you're flanking, you're just ahead.

55:24 You sneak up on one and chainsaw his ass in half, then take over his machine gun turret and turn it on the locust down below. You clear the area so Alpha Squad can come out into the open. Lieutenant Kim calls for an escape chopper, and Cole says those things make him puke his guts out every time. Oh, this will be fun then, great. Yeah, and Dom goes, well, you can sit next to Marcus. Marcus, you be in the middle. Fuck you. I love that they're just like childhood best friends who clearly grew up with a passion for war. Right? You know, like their jib jab is very sweet. Great chemistry. Baird approaches Cole and gives him the resonator, which is a gigantic metal backpack basically.

56:06 Baird asks about Rojas, and Cole just holds up his cog tags in response. Oh. The rest of Alpha Squad joins your group, and you all look around for the helicopter being sent to rescue you. You see it flying between buildings heading to your location. I don't feel good about this. Well, you shouldn't, because what your group can't see, but the camera shows you, is the choppers being chased by a swarm of running locust forces. Oh shit. Some of which are also flying hollow creatures. As the helicopter approaches, the flying creatures slam into the helicopter, and it crashes into the side of a building exploding before your eyes, killing a bunch of Alpha Squad members in the process.

56:48 Ugh. All hell breaks loose, and the remaining Gears start fighting. Lieutenant Kim says to watch out. The locusts are flanking and surrounding the squad. Too bad he didn't take his own advice. As we see a seven and a half foot tall, cotton-con looking Locust general named Rom walk up slowly behind Lieutenant Kim. Hmm. Lieutenant Kim turns and fires up his chainsaw, swinging it at the locust leader. And this fucking dude catches the chainsaw in his bare hand jamming it up. That is the scariest fucking thing you can ever see. Oh, God. The locust queen voice from the beginning of the game starts speaking over the scene.

57:32 She says she is pleased with the progress being made by the locusts. They found the backup squad, and that the strategy isn't going to change. Cut off the head of the snake, and the body dies. As she says this, Rom throws the lancer assault rifle to the side, and lifts Lieutenant Kim high in the air by the throat. Rom then shoves a giant blade into the stomach of Lieutenant Kim. You watch as Rom tosses Lieutenant Kim's body to the ground, and you turn to blast him. But Dom says that's not the mission. You're here for the resonator, which you have now, so you need to get the fuck out of here.

58:13 They said, but you have the flag, go! Your remaining squad retreats into an abandoned building, where you barricade the doors and regroup. This group of 48-year-old privates, the lowest rank in the military, Wait, you make it sound like they're like seniors on JV. Yeah, they basically are. Oh shit. And they are now leaderless. And you radio back to Anya to inform her so. And she goes, well, shit. Yeah. He was the only one who knew where to go next in your group, since all of this is classified information, and now nobody on your team has security clearance. So she tells you information as you need it, saying there's a courtyard on the other side of the building and to head there.

58:59 That must be really dangerous, too, to be doing it on, like, radio comms. So she has to be very specific about what she can say. Right. She can't speak in code because they don't know the answers to the code. Yeah, I'm sympathetic to the communication issues of her only trickling out information at certain checkpoints. And Baird thinks that he should be in charge, since he was leading Alpha Squad after the death of their leader. And again, testosterone spraying everywhere, as this group of literal alphas decides who should be in charge. They're also dummies, though. I apologize, these are big beefy boys, but they're still just privates? Yeah, they're not the smartest ones in the group. No, these are the C's get to grease boys. Well, the argument is interrupted by a deep, guttural growl in the distance.

59:43 Ruh-oh. You ask, what the fuck is that? Were they saying fuck? Sometimes. So it was edgy to the point where they're like, no, no, you can swear, like truly live in the scene. That's actually really cool. Yeah, there were guts flying everywhere. They didn't care about saying fuck. Don't you just hate when you see like war, like intense scenes and they're like, what the heck? What the frick, man? You are being a real jerk. And you're like, what the fuck? Son of a binky bonky, that hurt. You know, that's super regular fucking thing that people say. Yeah, entirely. I called someone an inbred cunt in a parking lot the other day. Because she backed up her car towards mine.

1:00:25 Like, maybe that's a me issue, actually. Never mind. Well, after you ask what the fuck is that, Baird responds that it's a berserker and that she can smell you. So there will be no hiding from her. Oh shit. We next get to see this berserker being poorly restrained by two locust soldiers. And the berserker is basically the abomination from the MCU. Oh shit. Can you describe what that looks like? Yeah, the evil Hulk. So it's like eight feet tall, just all muscle, like 380 pounds, just gonna fucking destroy anything it touches. Ooh, bipedal, like gnarly motherfucker. Yeah, standing on two legs and just running and destroying anything that it hits.

1:01:07 Oh shit. It's the juggernaut, bitch. Yeah. The berserker kills the two locusts holding it. Oh shit. And then charges down a hall. That's actually really cool that it's like fuck all of y'all. And we're presuming this is in your direction. One of the Alpha Squad members starts freaking out, saying they need to get out of here, and they run off down a hallway. As they turn down the hall out of sight, we see the shadow of the berserker and the shadow of the Alpha Squad member. Oh, what a good horror movie moment. And they come face to face. We see the shadows merge and blend as the berserker rips the man into tiny pieces. Oh, yes, that silhouetting is just perfect horror movie shit.

1:01:51 Yeah, you figure that should keep it occupied for the time being. And Anya tells you to find a way to get it outside. Once outside, the Hammer of Dawn should be able to do the rest, as your bullets won't work on this thing. The two of you have to play that final level of Bendy and the Ink Machine here, as you lure the berserker into chasing you through some hallways. And it turns it into a charging bull with you as the matador, trying to lure it into smashing through the doors to the outside. You eventually do, and then drop the hammer on her ass. And you regroup with Baird and Cole and call in to Anya. She says, Please hold for Colonel Hoffman. The Colonel gets on the line and he's like, Wait, really? You have the Resonator and Alpha Squad with you?

1:02:31 Don't sound so surprised. Yeah, he's very surprised, because when you confirm it, he says, Okay, standby for new orders. Oh, shit, he wasn't expecting you to do well. Yeah, he is shocked that you are still alive and are on target to complete the mission. He gets back on with a new location to set the Resonator, and finishes by saying that you're now in charge, Sergeant Fenix. Ooh. And Baird is all, Really? Him? Baird says it's almost nightfall, so you guys need to get somewhere safe ASAP. You don't understand why nightfall matters, and Baird goes, Sure, give the promotion to the jackass instead of the smart one. The two of you are about to go at it when Cole and Dom step in to break it up, saying that you need to get moving.

1:03:16 This takes us into act two, nightfall. You make it inside a big building, and once again have to split up. You take asshole Baird with you while Cole and Dom go a different way. The whole time Baird and you argue and fight, while Dom and Cole giggle at the two of you over the radios. You all fight your way through and eventually reconvene. You all agree you need a way out of here, and Dom says he knows a guy nearby with a vehicle. It's a junker, but it still runs. Baird starts asking questions about this nearby guy, calling him a stranded, which are people not involved with the war effort. As far as most people are concerned, you're either fighting in this war or you're dead.

1:03:59 People shouldn't be taking a neutral stance right now. Yeah. So Baird asks Dom why he would associate with Stranded, and Dom shoots back that he doesn't. He was here on a scouting mission once, and he found a community of Stranded in the process. He met the guy then and noticed the junker. It's not like he's friends with these cowards. You fight your way to this community of Stranded right as the sun begins to set. When you get there, it's a shanty town built into the ruins of blown out buildings under bridges and tunnels. Yeah, does he both kind of have to live away from society and some sort of counterculture if they're not participating in the main discussion? Yeah, and it's what you think of when you think of a shanty town with barrels of fire, plywood walls, hanging lights lining the streets, couches outside, that kind of thing.

1:04:45 Yeah, we're making do. Yeah, and the people here are also normal sized humans, unlike you four gigantic motherfuckers. There's a lot of five, six motherfuckers in the audience here. Yeah, there's a lot of people built like me out there. Okay, some medium sized men. Yeah, to compensate for their lack of size, they're all armed to the teeth, and they watch your group walk through their makeshift town as you head to see Dom's friend with a car, a man named Franklin. You finally find Franklin, and he's hanging out on an outdoor couch with a group of cronies. He sees Dom and says that he still hasn't found the girl Dom's looking for and to get out of here. He'll get in touch if he finds her. The last thing he needs is for people to think he associates with Gears.

1:05:30 I appreciate that they're both fronting a little, but I'd like to think there is a friendship here of like, okay, well, if you see my girl, can you call me? There is fully a friendship here. They are both completely bullshitting for the sake of the people watching. That's so funny. Dom says that's not why he's here. He needs the junker. Franklin says, fuck that. He's not giving up the only working vehicle in the city. Dom grabs him and says Franklin owes him a favor, and he's cashing that in right now. Ooh, on our friendship, man. And Franklin's cronies raise their guns due to the aggressiveness of the right now. But Franklin calms them, saying that Dom can have the car on one condition. Baird and Cole have to stay as collateral until Dom can return.

1:06:14 If Dom's gonna take the only means of escape he has, then he'll need the extra firepower if shit goes down while you're out driving around. I think that's actually very fair. He tosses Dom some keys and says, Good luck. It's at Chaps gas station a few miles away, and then laughs at you. Baird and Cole yell at the two of you for this deal over your radios, because they are not happy about being left behind. By now, it's fully dark, and we find out there are certain hollow creatures that only come out at night. Oh, of course they are. Are they bats? They're basically bats. Yes! Oh, I was just thinking of what the scariest nocturnal animal could be. Yeah, they're called the krill.

1:06:54 And yeah, they're bat-like creatures, and they attack kind of like piranhas and gigantic fucking numbers and can swarm and kill you in seconds. I don't like that. Problem being, they're very sensitive to any form of light, so they can only attack in darkness. If light hits them for too long, they explode. Is that what happens in FNAF if you use the flashlight? I wish, right? Yeah, they're basically vampire bats. Which means you need to stay in well-lit areas if you hope to make it to Chaps. You fight your way to the gas station as sections of the Shantytown are not well protected at night, with locusts and krill attacking you constantly.

1:07:34 Nightfall really takes this campy action game and turns it into a horror game with the introduction of the krill, and you check in with Baird from time to time and he says that everyone in the Shantytown figured out that Cole is THE Cole Train. So now everyone is just fangirling over him. I appreciate that no matter where he goes and no matter what sect of the world he's in, he's like, they're gonna know me, I'm gonna fucking let him know who I am. You know, like these outsiders who have actively taken themselves away from it are like, okay, but before the war, this motherfucker could hit a ball. And when he gets to the locusts, he's like, I'm the Cole Train. I'm gonna explain my character loud, you know?

1:08:17 It's a great character study of someone who will always have their story told. That's true, right? If you don't know me, you're gonna fucking know me. Absolutely. Well, Baird hates not being the center of attention, so he's fucking miserable. He's just your asshole friend who needs the attention at all times, and then you have the TikTok famous friend that people actually want to talk to. Yeah, the one who actually has the charisma for it. Cole says they even cooked them a big dinner. He can't see why Baird is so miserable. Cole is literally being wined and dined by these people. To which Baird says, they're going to get dysentery over this shit. I feel like this is what Terry Crews should have made his persona. Instead of being a loving father and dedicated partner and incredible work ethic guy, he should have been this.

1:09:01 This would have been fucking funny. Just taking those Old Spice commercials to heart and been like, whatever, I can move my pectorals. Well, I like that dysentery is a nice little nod to one of the most classic and famous video games of all time. Oh shit. But more on that later. You make it to a checkpoint on the way to the gas station and watch as a light above the people manning the checkpoint breaks. Uh oh. They are all instantly devoured by the krill. You let the people back at the shanty town know that the krill are on the way and to make sure all the lights are working. But you still need to head to the gas station. You come up to a straightaway completely covered in darkness as the power is out in this section. Oh, now you're an outlast. Right.

1:09:43 You see a spotlight high up in a building and tell Dom to wait there while you run up to it. Once there, you use the spotlight to guide Dom down the street into the building across the way. When he gets inside the building, he's able to turn the power back on lighting the street, making it possible for you to follow. This section is cool while you make your way down the street as locusts attack you. If you shoot the lights out above them, the krill will attack them as well. So you can use them to your advantage if you play smart. You make it to the next checkpoint, and the guy manning it is drunk as shit. It's a war, what do you expect? He says there are zero lights between here and the gas station, so best of luck to you.

1:10:26 Fuck! But he can turn some on to help you get to the area without any lights. And you leave your old flying robot friend Jack behind with him to make sure he leaves them on, because fuck this guy immediately. So Jack is sentient enough to kind of like elbow him if he's too drunk and starts to fall over? Yeah, he's got a pretty good AI in him. That's what's up. Dom even says, I think I'm going to kill this guy. I'm just going to put it out there in case I do it. I'm calling it right now, like fucking white ball corner pocket. Let's do this. And while you work your way through some buildings, you find that you were right to leave Jack with him because he keeps fucking with you. He keeps turning off the lights in rooms you're in just because he thinks it's funny.

1:11:07 Oh my God, what a cunt. Yeah, you get through the house and find the area without lights. He set a bunch of things on fire, like cars and barrels, and they light your way. You finally make it to the gas station and find Chap himself. He's pissed because you just torched his neighborhood and stirred up all sorts of commotion with the local locust and krill populations. But whatever, the junker's over there. And it's way more than a junker. It's a six-wheeled assault vehicle. Oh shit. But Chap's didn't put gas in it. He never thought there was a chance you'd ever make it here, so he makes you fill it up. Oh my god. He's the worst friend. Everybody thinks you're a failure, just right out the gate without ever even knowing if you can.

1:11:49 Of course, an attack occurs, and the locusts rain down bullets on this little gas station. After the assault, Anya radios to you saying that the shanty town is under attack, and you need to hurry back. You and Chap get into the car as Dom pulls the gas pump out, leaving it running, spilling gas all over the ground, and climbs in after the two of you. The car drives away, and as it does, a light pole falls and crashes into the pool of gas Dom just left behind. Yeah, of course. The fuel catches fire, and you drive away from the gas station as it explodes in a ball of flame. Oh, are they cool guys just driving away from the explosion? Fully. That's fucking sick. Chaps teaches you to use the car's UV lights to shine your way out of here, and also kill nests of krill on your way.

1:12:32 Well, if you've ever had a car with their high beams on driving near you, you understand. Yeah, one of those tall SUVs or trucks. Ugh. You return to the town, and it's fully under siege. You kill the locusts and rescue your friends, but you're not leaving them as collateral any longer, and you scoop them up and leave the shanty town behind. Your destination is a mine just outside of town. Down that mine, you should be able to place the resonator in a location that can get you the best data of what the underground tunnel system looks like. Some locusts cut your trip short though, and the car comes to a halt about a mile from the mines. There's no krill out this way, fortunately. Baird says he'll get the car fixed later for the drive out of there in the morning.

1:13:15 In the meantime, the four of you head toward the mine on foot to complete your mission. You get there, and it's sealed shut. The door to the inside is so thick, not even Jack can cut through it with his blowtorch. You decide that since you're in a horror game now, you better split up. I appreciate that Halo and This have kind of evolved into being horror games. You know, it starts with a very clear, like, military mission, and then you're fighting aliens and darkness and the horrors of man. Right. Yeah, if you split up, you can cover more ground that way. Oh, God damn it. You tell Cole and Baird to go one way, and you and Dom go the other. Cole hates the idea, but you pull rank and he snaps into shape.

1:13:57 And honestly, you doing this kind of does it for Baird, too, and he's like, yes, sir, let's go, Cole. Dom waits until it's just the two of you to express his opinion. He doesn't like the idea either, but he's going to follow you to the literal ends of the earth. Oh, that's friendship, bitch. He's worried because nobody has ever survived going underground before. You tell him that it's probably going to be pretty horrifying, yeah. But to keep that information from Baird, because he's clearly already scared enough as it is. And the two of you giggle at the idea that Baird is a scaredy cat. You find a way inside the mine, and we go into act three, Belly of the Beast.

1:14:38 The mines are like a modern mine, not an old-fashioned one, so there's a whole factory that surrounds the actual shaft. Okay, so we think about, like, the mines underneath until dawn. Are we a little more modern than that? Yeah, even a little bit more modern than that. Okay, cool. Because you have to break into this factory through the roof. You let the other two know that you made it in, and they're like, we've been inside for a while. What took you so long? Oh, shit. They went in through the basement, and that was a lot easier. We were just doing superhero shit. Fuck you. Anya directs you to a mineshaft over the radio while she directs Cole and Baird to the power switch. When they turn the lights on inside the building, Dom immediately asks for them to be turned back off.

1:15:19 Is he hungover? No, because the room you're in is full of dismembered body parts scattered everywhere. Oh, shit. Never mind you're in Until Dawn. You're in Little Nightmares 2, bitch. There's just body parts? Everywhere. Yeah, this really went full horror. You enter another room, and as you do, a gunshot hits the wall right next to you. You literally say the words, Hey, dipshit, we're here to save you. Was he written by me? That's how I describe things all the time, especially on this show. I was so excited when he said, Hey, dipshit.

1:15:59 Because how many times I've been like, Hey, dipshit, I'm Abby or whatever the fuck. Well, yeah, anyway, so this person that shot at you is just a miner that has somehow survived. You ask him to show you to the mine cart station, he's all, wait, are we not leaving? He went, I was really hoping I could get out of here. Yeah, you tell him not yet. Now, come on, dipshit. You're just like, this is dipshit now. Your name is dipshit. I'm assuming because they're a miner and not a warrior, they're probably a smaller build than all the beefy boys. Very much so. He is a small man. On the way, you hear Cole and Baird fighting their way up from the basement. And at one point, you end up a floor above them, and you can look down at them through the graded floor beneath your feet.

1:16:43 Oh, that's funny. And you all agree to meet up at the cart station from there. You come to an area with two by four planks laid out as the ground. The miner goes first and falls through the floor. Oh, no. You look down and watch a locust variant eat him alive. Oh, we lost dipshit. Yeah, bye-bye dipshit. RIP dipshit. Oh, well, gotta keep moving. Yeah. You continue on your path, fighting scarier creatures that explode spewing yellow lava acid everywhere. Eventually, you get to the cart station and meet up with Cole and Baird, where you confirm that Cole still has the resonator and that it's undamaged. And Cole says, You know what, baby, the train ride's smooth.

1:17:27 I appreciate that he's always on. He's always on, all the time. No matter what horrific shit he's just experienced or contributed to, he's still got this very like smooth Colt 45 energy. He's got a good buzz riding the whole game. Yeah. You know, is it Billy Dee Williams that did those commercials? Yeah. That's the energy I'm thinking. I'm just like, whatever, baby, let's do this, you know? You find the carts leading into the mines and decide to ride them in because why wouldn't you? Yeah. Each of you hop in a cart and they descend into the mine. Of course, it's an action packed thrill ride that would make Indiana Jones jealous. Hell yeah.

1:18:08 You're shooting at locusts, all four cars end up on different tracks. You zig and zag, dip and spin and ultimately come to a stop at the end of the track. You step out and look back to see another cart tearing ass down the tracks toward you, not slowing down the way yours had. You get out of the way as the cart crash into the back of yours, sending Baird flying out of his cart and into yours. Fucking Baird. He pops up and goes, that was fun. And he just hops out of the cart. Honestly, good for him. That's the least insufferable he's been all game. Dom and Cole are elsewhere together and each of your groups heads further into the mines. So this is another split-off point for that co-op play you're talking about.

1:18:48 Yeah, they do it a lot through the game, which makes it really cool. That does give you incentive to replay the game as both characters and experience what their paths have taken them through. Yeah, it's not just the fact that it's a fun as fuck game. It's got other reasons to replay it. And honestly, if you just want to hang out with like party boy Cole, you could take the Dombrow. Right, totally. Anya guides you through the radio deep into the mines so you can find the location to set off the resonator. You also need to do it before dawn, because that's when the krill retreat to the mines to avoid the sun. Miners until dawn, underground, got it. Right, always. The two groups join back up deep in the mines, but split up again, this time you take Dom with you while Cole and Baird go off together.

1:19:30 They only wanted to develop the one route for this one. Yeah. While split up, you end up falling down a slope, taking you deep down but closer to your destination than the others. You're heading to a pumping station in the mine. It's the best place to get a good reading from the resonator. But falling down and getting separated has made both teams of two lost. Oh, no. And not even Anya can help you navigate anymore. Are you so deep you don't get signal from her? Well, no, you're actually in the tunnels the locusts have built now. Oh, so she's like, I don't even have the map for this. Good luck. Yeah, you have nothing mapped out yet. My schematics do not cover this. Good luck. As you explore, you see rivers and lakes of that golden yellow acid lava from before.

1:20:13 Oh, that they were like spitting out and throwing up and shit? Yeah, and exploding. It appears to be a naturally occurring substance here in the underground tunnels, and it's called emulsion. It's the main fuel source on Serra, and it's the most valuable natural resource in the world, which has caused many wars throughout history. Oh, so like our world, where our wars are based on oil, this is their oil. It's just goopy and yellow instead of black. Yeah, but it's also very corrosive and, like I said, kind of an acid lava. As you run through these tunnels, krill attack in the dark areas, locusts attack around every corner, and the earthquakes constantly beneath your feet.

1:20:59 Is that earthquake from the tarantulas moving up and down and shit? Yeah, you eventually see the source of the quaking as a corpser the tarantula scorpion burrows by. Oh, those are the really, really big ones too, right? Yeah, the 40-foot ones. I don't like them. Unfortunately, it notices you too and attacks. Now, every time you've seen this thing so far has been outside, but now you're in a cramped tunnel with this imposing creature, and you're in its territory. He turns out to be too large and armored for your bullets. And being underground, you can't use the Hammer of Dawn either. So instead, you lure him out onto a bridge over a pool of emulsion.

1:21:42 Oh, this is how the Joker made Harley Quinn. Yeah, and you need to shoot out the supports underneath the bridge. This sends the Corpster into the emulsion below as it convulses like a bug that just got hit by bug spray. You turn and walk away from the pool, and Dom yells to look out. You turn around and watch a couple of emulsion-covered spider legs come flying up out of the pool. Oh, no. You stand there like a fucking boss, as the legs slam down inches in front of you. Don't even flinch. They try to dig into the ground as the weight of the corpses sinks down in the pool of emulsion, leaving a golden trail in its wake.

1:22:26 Oh, shit. All that racket proved useful for Baird and Cole as they find you near the pool of emulsion. The four of you manage to figure out your location and start toward the pumping station so you can set off the resonator. It's heavily guarded by some elite locust forces. You have to kill them, obviously, and after you do, Baird takes the resonator off Cole's back and sets it up while the rest of you get on a very conveniently located elevator back to the surface. That worked out. The resonator starts to pulse, shooting off little sound waves that grow bigger and bigger. Baird runs to the elevator and kind of trips over a metal ball that we last saw Carmine toss into a hole.

1:23:08 He picks it up and makes it to the elevator just in time. You come out of the elevator into a little shack in the woods. The four of you run as the resonator gives off a powerful EMP-like explosion. No fire or damage, just energy. It even sends you all flying to the ground. It's so strong, but it's not a traditional EMP, so it doesn't fry any electronics. It just created a really gigantic sound in the hopes it will echo through the entire locust tunnels and lead them to their base. The echolocation bomb, exactly what I thought it was going to be. You radio to Anya to let her know the resonator went off. And she says she's sending helicopters to pick you up right away, congratulating your team on a successful mission.

1:23:52 Don't celebrate yet. I'm a big fan of not celebrating the end of it until you are somewhere safe. Well, the four of you lay down in the grass, relieved that you are finally heading back where you can have some hot food and a nap. Uh-huh. I'm nervous. Yeah, your fun is cut short by Colonel Hoffman coming over the radio. He tells you that the resonator didn't work. Turns out the network of tunnels is so incredibly large and vast, it would take 30 resonators to map the whole place. What the fuck? How many people died for the first one? Come on! Baird throws the metal ball he picked up at you, saying you can use this instead.

1:24:33 And you say to what? Bash your teeth in? Do it. Baird says, shut up and look at it. The ball opens up, and a hologram showing the entrance points to every locust tunnel appears. They had maps. That's why the group of Gears you saw earlier were killed. They had found this map and were bringing it to home base. And you guys went, that's weird, huh, and just moved on. Yeah, if dumbass Carmine hadn't thrown it down that hole, you could have skipped the last day and a half. Oh well. Fucking Carmine. Hoffman wants to see where the entrances lead, and Anya says the file was created at the home of Professor Adam Fenix.

1:25:17 Marcus, you got some splaining to do. Yeah, your father. Hoffman asks if you think you can find your way home. He wants you to go there to see if there's more data showing not just the entrances, but the tunnels themselves. This is from your father. And Marcus has been gone for so long, and oh, this is juicy, bitch. The camera pans down past your feet, into the ground, back into the tunnels below. We see the locust leader, Rom, holding the helmet of a gear. He's listening in on the radio transmission. God damn it. As Colonel Hoffman informs you that the incoming helicopters are gonna take you to your father's old house instead of back to base, two locust soldiers drag a beaten gear towards Rom.

1:26:07 He grabs the gear's head and twists it backwards, snapping his neck. Oh! Jesus! Rom and his soldiers march away to head you off at the pass. You fly into a new city with a gang of fighter helicopters nearby. Is this more of a suburb or is this another major city? This is another major city. The locusts attack, taking out every helicopter but yours. You land with your usual crew and check in to see how the other choppers are doing, taking us into Act IV, the Long Road Home. Anya says one squad has an emergency beacon activated nearby, so you head towards them.

1:26:48 You split up, taking Baird with you, and you explore the area looking for a way to the downed craft. You find it in a courtyard with a giant hollow creature attacking. Anya lets you know that satellites are positioned for attack, and you use the Hammer of Dawn to rescue the downed Gears. Abso-fucking-lutely, hell yeah. You approach the wreckage, and some of the cowardly Stranded are there, trying to scavenge the dead and injured bodies of the Gears on the ground. You scare them off and realize that even the living Gears are too fucked up to help. Oh, they're just so traumatized and beaten up. Yeah, their legs are broken, shit like that. So you radio in to have a rescue team sent.

1:27:28 So your father was a professor, and you grew up in a house on university property. You have to work your way through this abandoned university to get to your old stomping grounds. And because it's a different universe, I guess there's different housing rules for teachers. There's a berserker here, the kind that's like the Abomination, and you have to lure it outside and use the Hammer of Dawn again. And this at least gets you closer to home, and you team back up with Dom, but send the other two off on their own for a while. You find your house, and it's completely overtaken by enemy forces. Anya says seismic activity in the area suggests that your house is a major base for their forces.

1:28:09 This really isn't looking good for your dad. Not one bit whatsoever. Once you kill your way inside, you find your dad's secret lab, because of course he had one. God damn it. In it, you find the rest of the map, and it does show the entire system of tunnels, and it's bigger than any of you knew possible. The file is so large, you can't send it wirelessly, so you have Jack plug into the computer system to have him save it to a portable thumb drive. You know, there's some echoes when you were saying that their first project was too big to send wirelessly, and they had to mail it out on thumb drives. Right, because that was just the reality of their life. Yeah, you know, time is a flat circle.

1:28:51 You write what you know. While it uploads, Baird says there's a battle upstairs, so you head up to help out. Also, this house isn't so much a house as it is a mansion. Oh, he's balling out of control on his professor salary. Yeah, Marcus grew up fancy as fuck. Okay, so it's more Braithwaite family house, not like our family house. But today, it's overgrown and run down and full of locusts. It's like the house in Jumanji. Yeah, so you redecorate a few rooms with their blood. You make it to Baird and Cole, who are holding down a force of locusts advancing on the front door. You do your best, but they're pretty overwhelming, and they break into the mansion and chase you out the back door into a courtyard.

1:29:34 As you enter the courtyard, Anya informs you that Jack has finished downloading the map. There's a military vehicle nearby, so you all decide to run to it and escape. As you run, a 20-foot-tall, lumbering, troll-like hollow creature called a brumak comes charging after you. Brumak? These are all so fucking great. Also how good would be a tie-in beer called the brumak? Right. This game is begging for a partnered IPA. Dom and Baird fire on it, but the bullets just bounce right off. Everyone loads into this tanked-out, dune-buggy military vehicle, and you floor it out of there as the brumak chases after you.

1:30:16 It fires explosive projectiles as you drive away, roaring at you. And then we see Jack come flying in from up and over the creature, dodging blasts as it catches up to the vehicle and secures itself to the side. Hell yeah. You just barely drive away to safety, and it takes us into Act 5, Desperation. You drive through a city street and let Anya know you have the map data. She says that the Lightmass Bomb is on a train heading toward you. You say, I'm sorry, what? We only know the coal train. Yeah, she explains that you're going to have to retrieve the bomb from a train station and use the map you have to upload it into the Lightmass Bomb.

1:31:02 From there, the Lightmass Bomb will guide itself like a cruise missile to where it needs to go to blow up the Locust Stronghold. Since the map was too big to upload wirelessly, they need you to do it manually. Yeah, okay, that tracks. On the way, you get to a drawbridge that's raised and the power is down. God, I love a drawbridge. Yeah, so you can't lower it. Turns out this was an ambush and an epic battle breaks out. Hell yeah, but you're on the surface, right? So you can use the power of the drawbridge to put the sun in the palm of your hands. Satellites are out of position at this time, unfortunately. Fuck. Baird's pissed because the Locust obviously know what you're up to. You tell him to shut up and listen to you because it doesn't matter.

1:31:42 You still have to keep going. Yeah, even if they know the plan, I'm not going to change the fucking plan. Yeah, and he says, whatever, boss man, as you and Dom head off to turn on the power to the bridge. I get how he's never been promoted. He's kind of a cock. Dom says, you sounded like your dad back there. You're like, we're not talking about my dad right now. He might be a piece of shit. Yeah, you say, fuck my old man. He was an idiot who thought he could reason with the Locusts. So that was your dad's deal. He wasn't necessarily a traitor. He was trying to be diplomatic with the Locusts. It didn't work. They still killed everybody that he knew and loved.

1:32:22 He's like, what if we all got along? They're like, cute story, let's murder everyone. Right, and that's why he allowed them to use his home as a base for a while, things like that. And Marcus was tired of that, so he went to save him. I get it. That sucks, though. He tried. I'd like to believe that was done with best efforts intended, you know? But also, what about Dr. Breen in the Half-Life 2 story, where he was also kind of in the same situation, and he ended up becoming the ambassador for Earth and betraying humans? Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it's historically a great route to take. Saying a lot of these doctors probably should have taken a class in, I don't know, like, statistics. Statistically, this is a bad idea, you know?

1:33:04 It truly is. And Dom's like, yeah, but now his map is going to end the war, so that's gotta be worth something, right? And you go, yeah, but you're gonna use it to blow shit up? He probably wouldn't have appreciated the irony. He's like, but I do, let's fucking do this. On your hunt for the power station, you regroup with Cole and Baird. You send Jack off... You send Jack off with them to repair the power lines while you and Dom hold off some enemy forces. As Jack repairs the power, you group up, but there's another one of those brumacs patrolling the area. Before anyone can stop him, Cole runs up and says, hey, stupid, come chase me.

1:33:48 I fucking love Cole. I know this is easy, ridiculous character, but he's fucking great. And every scene you described with him in it makes me happy. Yeah, you watch the brumac run by with Cole saying, yeah, baby, you can't catch the train. He went from Cole train to A train now. He's like, fuck it, let's go. And he also kind of forces Baird to run with him too. But this clears things up for you, and you go to check on Jack. The train carrying the bomb is under attack, so you have to get to the train yard pretty quickly. But the brumac manages to find you, and you have to hide. Baird radios in while you hide from the brumac to tell you that they have now successfully lost the brumac.

1:34:32 And you're like, yeah, dumbass, it found us. So Cole and Baird fire from a distance to help you out. You try to kill the brumac, but it ends up trapping you in a room instead. You ask Jack to help you break out, and while it torches a door open, you attempt to contact Anya. You get static only because the locusts are jamming your signal again, so you have to go on jam it. You find the jammer inside the university's theater. It's a grand theater with balconies and box seats like there's a performance of Our American Cousin playing. Oh no. This fight is pretty cool because being indoors, you can't use your hammer of dawn, so you have to shoot out the supports for the set pieces on the stage.

1:35:16 That's cool. So it's a lot of environmental strategy. Yeah, so then the scenery collapses onto the signal jammer, killing everything underneath it. Honestly, that sounds like really great gameplay. It is, and I love that Gears of War managed to squeeze in a theater sequence. Yeah, you're like, the theater kid in me is high-fiving the gamer kid in me. Right? We're all enjoying this. You're like, get stage left. You regroup with Cole and Baird again and realize the comms are still jammed. Since you'll never find the train without comms, you need to kill another signal jammer. When you do, Anya is relieved to hear your voice. The train is still heading towards the station, but locusts have managed to get on board.

1:35:59 They're throwing train guards under the wheels as they make their way to the conductor. Oh, that's so gnarly. To top it off, even though the power is fixed, the bridge still isn't working. Some stranded appear to have rerouted the power to a nearby shantytown, but another power station nearby should be able to get it running. By now, Dom isn't his plucky self, and he and Baird are both like, okay, this is turning into some actual bullshit now. But you don't care. You have a mission to complete and an asshole colonel to prove wrong. Yeah. You split up again, taking Dom with you. While searching the power station, you realize it wasn't Stranded that rerouted the power.

1:36:41 It was the Locusts. They know how to do that, apparently. Fuckers. They're directing a shitload of power underground, too. Some of this turns into Technobabble, but basically the power station is working. But you need to connect two giant electrical transformers together in order to get it to power the bridge. But you don't have the right equipment. And the two giant electrical transformers are like 20 feet apart from one another. And you're like, 20 feet, huh? So I just need something with a 20-foot wingspan. So fun science fact. I'm sure many people learn in grade school. If you do a T-pose, the distance from fingertip to fingertip is the same distance as your height.

1:37:25 Yeah, your wingspan is your height. If you put your arms out, it's just straight out from your shoulders. And you know about a 20-foot brumack in the area. So? Yeah, you hatch a plan. You and Dom go outside and get its attention. It chases you to the Transformers and very politely dies in a way that restores the power to the bridge. That is very kind of him. Thank you for your service. As it lays there, smoldering at your feet, you say, And I thought the prison food smelled bad. Wackety-schmackety-no. But here's the thing, the Brumack IPA does taste like electricity.

1:38:08 It ties in. It's great. Just giving that like Star Wars, I thought they smelled bad on the outside. On your radio, they tell you the train is out of their control now. The Locusts have taken it over. Oh, shit. And they floored it, so that it's just gonna pass right through the station instead of stop. So she needs you to intercept it. Dom's like, Awesome. Now we get to jump on a moving train so we can grab the world's largest bomb. There's always a goddamn train. Today just keeps getting better. You head to the station since you know it will be passing by. And it zooms through while Locusts shoot at you. And you're like, should I just sneak on now?

1:38:49 Yeah, very much like that Arthur Morgan moment. But yeah, that's the plan. Somehow you and Dom jump on to the final car, which is one of those open air freight cars that I've only ever seen in video game trains. I think sometimes there's just loose coal in them when I've seen them in Christmas train sets. Right. But that's a very specific reference. Baird and Cole miss the train and say they're going to follow in a helicopter as soon as one comes to pick them up. That's embarrassing for Cole. He is a train. You and Dom in the meantime advance down the train, because trains are always traveling downward. It's a little train fact for you folks. Thanks, Tom. About halfway down the train, you encounter a berserker again, and you have to get it to run past you onto a car behind you, and then unhook the car from the train.

1:39:38 Because they really found cool ways to repeat some mechanics, but make you defeat those mechanics in different ways as the game progresses. I can appreciate that. It's not too repetitive. It's actually just building on your skill set to accommodate for power creep or just familiarity with usage. That's cool. Yeah, it really gives you a lot of variety, and it kind of goes against that whole 30 seconds of fun that the Halo franchise has. After you defeat it, Baird lets you know that Colonel Hoffman personally flew in and picked them up, and that they're coming to help you. You fight on as the sun begins to set. Anya reminds you that you need to upload the map file into the lightmass bomb so that its internal AI can know where to send the missiles.

1:40:23 You finally make it to the open-air car holding the lightmass bomb, and the locust leader Rom is there, with a swarm of krill flying around him. This motherfucker. From above, we hear, Yeah, baby! As Cole turns on a spotlight mounted to his helicopter and fries the krill surrounding Rom. Cole is so fucking cool! I fucking love Cole! Rom yells out, Serve the Queen, as he advances on you and Dom. That's horrifying to hear as someone gets into a fight. This is the gnarliest fight by far, and it takes every skill you've learned through the game to beat him.

1:41:04 But once you do, he sprays his blood and guts everywhere as he falls to the floor dead. Yeah, fuck you, Ram. Rom? Ram? Doesn't matter. Fuck you. Yeah, it's our AAM. I'm not even entirely sure. The helicopter pulls up next to the train matching its speed. Dom hops onto it as you run to the Lightmass Bomb. You upload the map information, and the Lightmass Bomb arms itself with the knowledge of its target. You look up in horror, as you see that the bridge up ahead is blown out, and you need to get the fuck off the train. The helicopter flies in, and you reach out for Dom's hand. But you two are so beefy, your fat fingers can barely grab each other.

1:41:46 The helicopter almost hits a pole as the train begins to cross the blown out bridge and swerves. The train tips over the edge of the bridge, and you jump, grabbing Dom's hand. The bomb falls the golden yellow emulsion below, where it deploys several torpedo-like devices off itself. The torpedoes all take off in different directions, and we follow one as it directs itself deeper and deeper into the earth. It crashes into a wall and bursts through it into a locus tunnel, pinning a locus to the ground as it does. The bomb explodes, and we follow the shock wave as it kills scores of locus and hollow creatures as it travels through the many tunnels.

1:42:31 Oh, hell yeah. From above, you watch the ground beneath you explode as you hang there one-handed. Colonel Hoffman walks over to the edge of the helicopter and looks down at you hanging there. He gives you a stern nod of approval, and you look back and return the nod, still hanging by one hand. Finally, Colonel Hoffman thinks you're worthy of living and bends down to take your other hand. They both pull you up and into the helicopter, as the other bombs detonate around the area, sending fireballs into the sky and entire mountain ranges sinking into the ground, crushing the enemy forces below.

1:43:15 As you sail off into the sunset, Dom asks, so what are we doing tomorrow? And then they do their beefy fist bump, and they're like, yeah, we're beef, beef, beef, boys, beef, beef, beef, boys, beefy beef, boys, beef, beef, beef, boys, we're beefy beef, boys. Well, Colonel gives a rousing speech as we watch the world burn, saying that the humans may have suffered defeat in the past. Today, we look toward a new future. The voiceover is replaced by the voice of the locust queen. Reciting the lyrics to Mad World, she says that while the humans celebrate today, they do not know why we wage this war.

1:43:57 The dreams in which they're dying are the best I've ever had. She finally comes into the camera's view for the first time. She's decked out in red and silver armor riding on a flying hollow creature. Oh, she's one of those badass queens. Yeah, she says that we can't stop and we will not stop. The camera shows her face, and we see that it's not a locust. It's a human. No, their queen was one of us? One of us the whole time. That is the most pick me ass bitch shit you could do. She says that we will fight until we die, and we're not dead yet. She kicks off on her flying mount, and it soars at the camera as the world burns behind it, cutting to black.

1:44:43 And that was Gears of War. That was cool as fuck. I need that to be an entry in the Expendables franchise. How fucking sick would the Expendables boys be in that? Oh my gosh, all those guys? Yeah, that would be great, right? Yeah, that was way more interesting than I thought it would be. It is a great political thriller, but there are sequences where they do it through the lens of a horror movie, which is very fun. Yeah, and the Locust Queen being a human the whole fucking time? The whole time. Oh, what is she the fuck up to? I don't like it. Uh-uh, not one bit. But yeah, this game spawned several games after this. I think this is going to end up on our list of having to just go through the whole fucking series.

1:45:27 We're starting to wrap up a couple of those that we started, so we might as well. We're almost caught up on the Bioshocks, you know, or we're jamming through it. But no, that was way more fun than I thought it'd be. I don't find anyone in the game fuckable. Okay, that's fine. You don't really have to. They're a little too big. I think I'd be afraid of fucking any of them. Yeah, no, that's a lot of, like I sang, beef. But I do like Cole as a character. I know, I understand that it does submit to some stereotypes. But man, if that's not fucking fun, it sounds like he had fun doing it too. Like the kind of energy you bring to that role. It's kind of hard to fake. Like that passion and that joy that you bring to this murderous warlord character is very fun.

1:46:10 Well, it's kind of like they say in Kick Ass 2, it's not a stereotype, it's a trope that's different. Damn it. Yeah. Cool. But yeah, so that was Gears of War. I'm so happy to have done it. I had forgot, like I played it when it first came out, and I haven't played it since. And I, oh, this game, so great. Did you do the sequels? I did up to three. I didn't go past that personally, but it was just because I didn't have an Xbox anymore. Oh yeah, we still don't. Yeah, so I'm like saving up some money to upgrade my PC so I can get through all of them again and get like some really nice games going, because you can play pretty much anything on Xbox on PC. Yeah, that makes sense. Very cool. That was really fun. I really particularly enjoyed the history that you brought to this, too. Oh, thank you.

1:46:50 The context of how Epic came together and have brought it through. Now, did Epic do all of the sequels as well? Like, has Gears of War stayed in the Epic house? Oh yeah, that's theirs. Cool. Yeah, and this team went on to make a little game called Fortnite. Shut up. Fortnite's an Epic game? Yeah, Fortnite's an Epic game. Wow, so they just print money. Yeah, they're really good at it. You know, we talk about Valve being hit makers, but Epic is one of those ones that are also equally as up there with Valve in terms of innovation, pushing the limits of gaming, and also just making banger after banger. That's, you know what, good for them. Good for... was it Cliffy B? Cliffy B. Cliffy B, like a... Like someone who's trying to be cool saying Cliff Bar.

1:47:32 Yeah. Throw me a Cliffy B. That's the worst. I hope nobody calls a Cliff Bar a Cliffy B. So there's a Cliff Bar headquarters in Northern California, and I visited it. In the Cliff Bar HQ, there is a rock climbing wall. Like in the warehouse where they have all the boxes like out so you can taste test whatever you want. It's the most Berkeley shit that's ever Berkeley'd. I mean, on their logo, it has a man climbing a mountain, so I guess that makes sense they would have that. It's just funny that like they leaned that hard into it. Okay, but like OSHA exists. Why would you put a rock climbing wall? You know what I mean? Never mind.

1:48:13 But that's fucking great. I really appreciated it. I thought this was going to be dumb because you open with this is super testosterone fuel, and I was like, dude, stuff. Yeah, that's not your usual cup of tea, but you know what? I think these games surprise you every time. Yeah, I covered Lollipop Chainsaw. I guess I do like dude stuff. But you know, like when it's aggressively testosterone focused, my eyes kind of glaze over, and I'm like, but are you focusing on the right things? And yes, they were. The character building sounds incredible. You know, the closeness you get with the characters and how you can say, oh, and Baird is being a piece of shit. Of course he was. You know, Cole was being the party animal who everyone loves. Of course he was. He's fucking great. And that love of Dom for his family is a trope we will see in other franchises to come.

1:48:56 Very true. I'm sorry I had to bring it back to that. But no, that was fucking great. I enjoyed the shit out of that. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because this game, like you were just talking about all the testosterone and all the fucking hard male energy and stuff. Like, I'm not even that kind of a guy. No, you're not. No, we talked about in our cyberpunk episode, I call myself a demiguy just because like, I don't consider myself into any of that alpha male kind of like, this is what masculinity looks like kind of bullshit. Yeah. But there's something about this game that just speaks to the inner male in me fully. It awakens something masculine in you. It does, yeah. Like, do I want a beer? Yeah, it does take you back to that Spike TV era of just like hardcore masculinity.

1:49:40 And that's, and again, for context, that's what was happening at this time in media. You know, the conversations on Spike TV were about this and like, the man show existed. Don't look it up. But, you know, they had characters called Juggies who would just jump on trampolines so their titties would bounce. That's what was normal on TV at the time. That's how every episode ended, with just girls jumping on trampolines. And opened, and between segments. It was just, it was their bumper. It was everything. That's true. But for Gears of War to kind of say, I accept that that's what's happening. And, you know, it's a male-dominated team from what you've described of the leadership team, at least. Cliffy B., a boy's boy, you know. Right. He's my dude.

1:50:22 But like, bringing that in, in a playful way, but that's still meaningful, where it's complex. You talk about the politics of these groups. You talk about the interpersonal relationships between these people. It's not just dude stuff. This is just well-written story. Very true, yeah. They really crafted it. They cared. And you can tell with every ounce of it. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that was really fun. Thank you for taking us through that. Absolutely. And thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed that episode, please remember to like and subscribe. Yes. Next week is a game that I'm doing, and there is some space shit going on too. So if you dig this kind of shit, stick around. Yes, definitely. And don't forget to go to our website, theothercastlepodcast.com.

1:51:02 That's the othercastlepodcast.com. We've got links to every episode we've covered, and we have links to our Patreon. It's two bucks a month, and you get access to all of the hidden episodes and the bonus episodes we've made exclusively for that group. And I believe there's a seven day trial right now. So if you're, you know what, if you're balling on a budget, I respect that. Binge it for a week. Enjoy it, and then hang out with us on the Discord. Yes, please do come over there, sign up, do that kind of stuff. You can listen to the episodes completely free. We don't care. Yeah, we make the content. We just hope you enjoy it. And some people who are hanging out with us on Patreon are Trevor, Unuseful, I think you're pretty useful, Molly, Brian, Krisha, Molly Mock, Jackie, Ellen, and of course, Tijan.

1:51:50 Thanks guys. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Yes, thank you so much Goombas. We'll see you over on Discord. We'll see you in the comment section on YouTube. And until next time, this is Tom and Andrea reminding you... Choo-choo for the Coltrane! And don't skip the cutscenes.