(The tl;dr video companion to this article):

Preface: What a fucking shit show this article has become….I guarantee you I’m just going to entitle this article something outlandish referencing ballsacks or some nonsense of the sort. Anyways, I don’t normally write a preface for my articles, but as I will make mention in a minute here, this final piece is cobbled together from several different moments of thought the past few days, which is not how I normally do things. I was thinking about just scrapping the whole god damn article, but I am afeared if I do so, I will be right smack dab in the middle of Procrastinationville, and will have nothing to show for my creative efforts for the fourth day in a row. So for better or worse, here is what (more or less) should have gone up several days ago. Thanks for stopping by.

From a purely recreational standpoint (outside of writing, I mean), this weekend has turned into a lamentable one, as my schedule has been completely misaligned with what was suppose to be a launch week heavily focused on playing and writing about Gears of War: E-Day. I have written a couple of articles about the game thus far, but I had initially set my sights on getting back to a regular writing rotation, and delivering articles on the daily, as I have done so many times in the past. Alas, what I desire and what the reality of the situation ends up being are rarely intertwined, which has me revisiting my tried and true advocation as of late: cease and desist all expectations, and the quality of life of your everyday will transform over night.

Since this article is now something of a Frankenstein’s Monster piece, being cobbled together of disparate elements from totally different entities, it represents several different focuses and ideas over a period of a few days, so none of this is all totally contingent on what came before it, which means the clean up and editing job is most definitely a sloppy one. Having said that, and in reference to E-Day, my main take away’s from my time with the game thus far involve at least the following: things are totally fucked for the Coalition, as describing what happens in each chapter of the campaign as “a series of unfortunate events” would make even Lemony Snicket’s envious, and a good reminder of why day one patches can be vital to a games overall refined polish.

The sequel isn’t “by the numbers” per se, as that turn of phrase plants the seed of an idea involving some uninspired dev with a tedious checklist, going through the motions to make sure they’re hitting all of the “obvious demographics” to make “content quota,” or some similarly absurd nonsense one may find in a lesser EA franchise (I’m aware they neither developed nor published this game, btw). However, E-Day is quite the return to form, as it more or less takes the tact of not fixing what isn’t broken, as the game doesn’t feel a day older than the original Gears did, back in 2006. Well…more refined, I guess, as the first go around of any major franchise tends to be a bit rough around the edges, but I suppose what I mean to say is just a reiteration on a previously vocalized observation; in that E-Day will put a smile on the face of anyone who spent their more formative years during the halcyon era of gaming that the Xbox 360 helped to define, as E-Day feels as if a direct continuation of that trilogy, for how similarly they feel in metaphysical spirit.

Having been largely absent during the interim years of the Gears franchise, aka, Judgement, 4 and 5 (apparently there are some weird mobile spinoffs as well? Err…okay), I can’t really comment on where the series may have gone wrong in-between the original trilogy and E-Day, all I know is that the series felt as if it took a backseat to almost every other major AAA shooter on the market during the era following its original trilogy: whether this was due to the proliferation of Call of Duty for it’s relevant reign as top dog, or the eventual popular culture shift of gaming trends involving both GaaS gaming and Battle Royales, I can’t say for certain, but Gears just kind of seemingly vanished into the background for awhile there, at least from my perspective. Perhaps, it was always that “Cliffy B” touch that did it for me, as he was present and accounted for during the original run of games, but moved on to other far more interesting venues, including having a go at stand up comedy, and being one of the financial investors and producers in the Broadway darling Hadestown, which is a fun fact I bestow upon any of yous totally unawares.

Regressing slightly to my original point: I absolutely dropped the ball on writing and posting an article this weekend, which was more or less a spontaneously unfortunate freak shit moment on my part. I’ve realized my writing process has changed, and what once catalyzed me to start my creative engine, no longer revs the motor the right way, which is part and parcel a sure fire way to remain in a paralytic repugnant hell of the stagnating variety where creativity is concerned, so my mea culpa involved sitting down to write an article on the fly in my down moments during my working hours, which is what you have now before your very eyes. In good Active Time Event fashion, it’s not necessarily an article about Gears of War, but an article about an article about Gears of War, which is nearly as good as the bona fide thing.

I have a ton of thoughts involving the absolutely bombastic menacing that occurs throughout act 3, and how E-Day is ridiculously unrelenting (in a good way) involving a continual ratcheting up of difficulty, packed with set piece after set piece that acts as a perpetuation of a one ups man-ship rarely seen over the course of a normal shooter campaign. This is all tied into the notion of being a genuinely compelling narrative, even if it is not one of vast intellectual compromise, but Gears knows its strengths, and plays to them pitch perfectly, and without a shamelessness that is acknowledged and properly appreciated.

I have a feeling I should take one more pass at this draft,  before officiating it as a piece of writing of mine that isn’t total bottom of the barrel slop…slop, as there may yet be some extra meat and potatoes I need to shuffle into this mix, but we will leave it there for now.

Edit: Draft Revision Number: Just Post It.

~Pashford