Gears 2

By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris

There's really no more simple way to say it: sequel's are hard. With an established audience developers face an expectation that the game will be the same as the previous entries while at the same time being different enough to excite and breath new life into an existing IP. While they're a reasonably safe bet from a fiscal perspective, from a critical perspective sequels are forced to walk a tight rope while stuck between a rock and a hard place. Gears of War 2 is a sequel that corrects course for the series in some ways but falls short of the standards set by its predecessor in others; while the overall experience is excellent the less than stellar pacing and relative lack of variety in gameplay makes for a great sequel that just barely fails to live up to the phenomenal legacy established by the first game.

Welcome welcome welcome everyone, welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. You can see everything we do including both of our podcasts all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. Now in my E3 video I mentioned that I might play through the Gears game's in preparation for Gears 5 so get ready for part 2 of 4 of the gears prep marathon, lets talk about Gears of War 2.

Spoiler Alert! This video will spoil some major plot moments from Gears of War 2 so if you haven't played it yet and you're like me and planning to play it before Gears 5 do yourself a favor and stop watching now.

My biggest gripe with Gears of War was the characters. Throughout the first game the characters felt unique and interesting without actually exploring anything that made them interesting. None of the main cast of characters felt generic, through their interactions with each other and dialogue it was obvious that the characters had detailed histories and backstories that were left unexplored in the first game. While there isn't a ton of expansion on the characters beyond their being roided out bad asses in the second game there are some particularly humanizing moments that makes their journey easier to become invested in. Dom's relentless search for Maria only to end in heartbreak is a really humanizing moment for both him and Marcus that forces the characters and the audience alike to stop and face the horrors that come with war in a nuanced way that isn't as heavy handed as one would expect from a action blockbuster like Gears. I also somewhat had an issue with General Raam in the first game getting very little screen time and almost no development good or bad. And I am sad to say that throughout Gears of War 2 that presence of a big bad villain is not only not filled but if anything left more empty than before. Sure there's the Locust Queen and her main henchmen Skorge but neither of those characters get nearly enough time or interaction with either the protagonists or the audience to take any meaningful place as a big bad. This lack of a villain leads to a confusing climax that feels rushed and not as satisfying as even the final encounter with Raam in the first game. As the second game in the series Gears 2 was tasked with expanding upon what was established in the first game with the exception of a villain for the story to lean on, in the character department it absolutely achieves that. Gears 2 takes its characters from unique and charming soldiers that I enjoy playing as to being well developed people with depth and real motivations.

And characters aren't the only thing Gears 2 improves upon. While there's nothing wrong with a simple and straightforward story like in the first game the sequel offers a more complex and engaging storyline that ventures into never before seen environments. What made the first game's storyline less than satisfying was a simple human vs locust conflict with no third parties and an over reliance on a McGuffin device used to push the story forward. Gears 2's introduction of conflict within the Locust population and segmenting the Locust into the standard Locust and the Lambent brings a much needed level of complexity to the serviceable story. War over resources, and divided factions of the same groups makes for a thoughtful allegory in a game that is clearly trying to be more than its predecessor.

Gameplay is on point once again and the single element of the game that is the most unchanged from the first to the second games. Shooting and movement still feel tight and responsive, the arsenal of weapons available to the player is empowering and well balanced making what feels like a catered experience for players to gravitate towards their favorites, and minute to minute gameplay is engaging. The variety of offerings for shooting encounters the first game provided are replaced with more by the numbers corridor shooter sequences rarely offering the same degree of freedom found in the Gears 1. But while the shooting sequences feel more straightforward and less creative than those in the first game they are still able to rely on the excellent shooting mechanics and the immensely satisfying feeling of popping Locust heads like they're cherry tomatoes. 

Where Gears 2 struggles is in it’s pacing. In my review of Gears 1 I commended the game for its best in class pacing keeping the player enthralled by never allowing them to do the same thing for an extended period of time. Pacing in Gears 2 isn't handled as well. The variety is cut down and the player finds themselves doing single things for longer but in addition to that the different permutations used on the same sequences are significantly curbed as well. Gears 1 offered so many different things to do between shooting sequences and so many different variations on the shooting sequences that it felt as though it all flowed together in an addicting, almost unstoppable manner. Gears 2 still features an above average level of variety but where it really struggles is the similarity of the shooting sections. Gears 1 was littered with wide open battlefields as a blank canvas, optional pathways for flanking, claustrophobic engagements in small areas, and everything in between. While Gears 2 does offer some of those things none of them feel as distinctly different as they did in the first game making for an overall less engaging experience.

Gears of War 2 is excellent, it maintains the overall standard of quality set by the first game while expanding in some ways and falling a bit short in others. When I say I didn’t enjoy Gears 2 as much as Gears 1 it's important to note that it is a marginal difference between two really excellent games. Gears of War continues to surprise me with incredible gameplay, great characters, and an outstanding universe that I'm eager to experience more of in Gears 3 and 4 so expect a video on each of those games in the coming weeks.

What are your thoughts on Gears of War? Should I play Judgement in my Gears marathon? Let me know in the comments down below. And While you're down there don’t forget to subscribe for new content every week. You can find everything we do including both of our podcasts all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. I will be back next week talking about Red Dead Redemption so until then just go play some games!

Luigi's Mansion

By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris

In a world becoming increasingly crowded with expanded universes an original concept can be difficult to come across. As a universe grows the formula for how to create content for said universe becomes more and more strict until eventually all the entries begin to blend together and they lose what made them unique. Luigi's Mansion is a spinoff done right, a game that breaks from the platforming staple that propelled the mushroom kingdom into the stratosphere to take a big risk with a spooky Metroid style adventure. An interesting concept combined with a stellar setting would presumably be a homerun from a studio with as much clout as Nintendo. Eighteen years later Luigi's mansion remains a fun experience that took a huge risk but despite everything it has going for it, when stacked up against modern games it struggled to hold my attention.

Welcome welcome welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and the is the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. You can see everything we do including both of our podcasts all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. If you like what you hear don’t forget to subscribe for new content every week! Now lets take a trip into a haunted house, its time to talk about Luigi's Mansion.

Fundamentally Luigi's Mansion is an entirely different game from the rest of the Super Mario series. As the game progresses it slowly becomes evident that inspiration was definitely drawn from an existing Nintendo series but that inspiration wasn’t from Mario, but Metroid. Core elements of the gameplay experience center around exploration, discovering new abilities, and the literal unlocking of new areas of the mansion to progress. The game relies on atmosphere to craft a memorable gameplay experience allowing the player to explore the labyrinth that is the mansion with increasing freedom and backtracking in their venture to banish all the ghosts that reside within. But while this freedom is the games greatest asset in the late game it's also the largest detriment in the game's opening hours. As the mansion opens up and puzzles have more room to breath demanding more backtracking and callbacks to earlier encounters the developers are able to fully realize the potential of the concept of an approachable baby's first metroidvania type experience. Without the dozens of rooms across multiple levels of the mansion to explore the opening hours of the game leave the player with a sense of monotonous handholding being delivered in a depressingly linear fashion. A fantastic atmosphere and one of the best settings to ever come from the Mario universe are stymied by restrictive game design and an extended tutorial section that will lose most players before they get the chance to enjoy what the mansion has to offer.

Of the game's four major areas the first two and consequently the first hour and a half of a five hour game are spent shuffling the player down a closed of hallway that moves from one room to another with little to nothing connecting the experience. Luigi's Mansion is a game that has an acceptable narrative, excellent exploration, and surprises around every corner that lead the player through a maze of haunted hallways and rooms but the majority of what the game has to offer is locked behind an oppressively slow opening. Just like all media games are supposed to hook the player early and Luigi's mansion offers the antithesis of a quick hook.

Some games of yesteryear stand up to even the most intense of contemporary scrutiny; others, even games that were considered some of the best of their time, fall apart at the seams. As I played through the entirety of Luigi's Mansion for the first time since November of 2001 it became abundantly clear that it is a game that leans heavily on nostalgia in order to even be playable twenty years on. The series develops in personality with Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon by leaning into the slapstick humor and being a genuinely funny game, and it looks to be developing in scope in Luigi's Mansion 3 moving from a mansion to a haunted hotel. When controlling for the nostalgia variable in 2019 Luigi's Mansion comes across as a quaint game with a unique take on the Mario universe that struggles to achieve lift off leaving the vast majority of its audience on the tarmac, and even for those that stick with it to the end the experience is an unremarkably average one. If you're someone that is really into the idea of a stand alone Luigi game then sure, go ahead and revisit his first solo outing. But if you're even the slightest bit hesitant on any of the elements of the game it's best to leave the first game in the soon to be trilogy in the rose tinted rear view mirror and just play Dark Moon for an overall better experience.

What are your thoughts on the Luigi's Mansion series and how do you see the third game panning out? Let me know in the comments down below. And while youre down there don’t forget to like this video and subscribe for new content every week! Head over to ColdNorthPro.com to see everything we do all in one spot, I'll be back next week talking about…Red Dead Redemption 1 probably so until then just go play some games.

Red Dead Redemption 2

By: Patrick Morris

I learned two things while playing Red Dead Redemption 2. First I learned that it's ok to just put a game down and walk away from it if you're not enjoying it. We are all busy people and time is the single most valuable resource any of us have so if you're not enjoying something why keep doing it? No matter how good everyone says that thing is, no matter how much everyone insists you keep doing it ultimately if you're not enjoying yourself don’t waste your time with it. And if you do end up putting something down because you're not liking it don’t automatically assume whatever it was is bad. It's important to be able to recognize quality while at the same time keeping your own priorities in order. I personally don’t like Game of Thrones. That doesn’t mean that it's automatically a bad show and I recognize that it absolutely isn't but its just not my cup of tea so I'm not going to waste my time on something I don’t like. The second thing I learned from Red Dead Redemption 2 is patience with a game. Nothing is perfect and not everything is going to hook you right away but if we exercise a bit more patience sometimes that can pay off in a big way. Red Dead Redemption 2 is far from perfect but once I learned the cadence of the game what it had to offer are without a doubt some of the best memories I have ever had in video games.

Spoiler alert. This essay will contain some major spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2 so if you're like me and you didn’t play it right away but you think you might later stop reading now and just go play the game because it's really good. Or if you're like the former me and you gave it a shot but it just didn’t click with you that well and you don’t think you're going to go back to it don’t worry that’s totally okay but be warned you're about to have a great game spoiled for you.

Before we get started on Red Dead Redemption 2 (which by the way is actually Red Dead 3) I feel like it's important to give a really quick background so you as the reader can better understand my perspective while I played this game. I played Red Dead Revolver when it first came out and absolutely loved the game. Then when Redemption was announced I was crazy excited to go back to the wild west and play cowboy again. As I played Red Dead Redemption 1 I was disappointed, I kept waiting for the game to pick up and to get some really great action set pieces going and it just wasn’t happening. All I was doing was riding to Armadillo then riding back to the McFarlane's ranch. I stopped playing Red Dead Redemption after about five hours and even after everyone kept telling me how amazing it is I just wasn’t willing to go back to it.

Despite not being a big fan of Red Dead Redemption 1 I was very excited to play Red Dead Redemption 2. As the game approached everyone's hype grew and I was sure that this time around I would have grown and matured and would be much more capable of enjoying what Red Dead had to offer. I bought the game on October 26th 2018 the day it was released and immediately went home to install it on my Xbox One X. After playing through what I admittedly even at the time thought was a very good prologue that began to build the power dynamics within the gang I then found myself in chapter 2 doing the same thing that had put me off of the first game, I was riding from camp to Valentine and back to camp over and over again with no real sense of progression or interesting set pieces to keep my interest. Over that first 10-15 hours that I played shortly after release there were things that I was doing but none of it felt meaningful and the game was getting bogged down in the "live in the world" elements that I feel contribute very little to the experience. Shopping in video games isn't fun it's something that has to be done in order to get to the actual fun stuff so making it a significantly more involved process of walking around the store holding a button to pick up an item, holding another button to look at it, then holding a button to buy it doesn’t add to but instead detracts from the overall cohesiveness of the experience. Brushing my horse, bathing and grooming Arthur, and polishing my guns are all things that on paper add to immersion but in practice just make it more difficult for the player to become highly invested in the game. What I came to Red Dead Redemption 2 looking for wasn’t being delivered and I had given it what I felt was a fair shake at the time so I walked away from it. I recognized the incredible quality of all of the individual elements of the game but despite that quality I wasn’t enjoying myself so I put it down.

Months went by and the accolades for Red Dead Redemption 2 kept rolling in. Game of the year awards from individual outlets, perfect scores, four of the most prestigious awards at the 2018 Game Awards, and an absolutely insane 97 on Metacritic. All of these things began to add up and I started to question my decision to stop playing the game. Now I do still stand by that decision because ultimately if you're not having fun with a game don’t bother wasting your time on it but all of this talk of the game had me wondering if I had approached it from the wrong angle, if playing the game in a different mindset would make any sort of difference. So I knew that eventually I would go back and give it another shot and after finishing it I am very glad I did.

When I started playing Red Dead again I didn’t restart the game. I picked up from where I had left off about six months prior because I didn’t want to fall into the same trap I had previously and I wanted to make actual progress. Coming back and being about ten hours in I was at the point where had I just pressed forward for another 30 minutes I would have been hooked. We all get enjoyment from video games for different reasons and we even get different types of enjoyment from different games. I played Doom 2016 for the gameplay and I am looking forward to Doom Eternal for that same reason but I played The Last of Us for the story and the characters. For the most part story is what drives me forward in video games and in Red Dead Redemption 2 it was the character driven story that really hooked me. Gameplay was good, setting was fantastic, but the characters are the reason I couldn’t help but keep coming back for more.

When I finally picked the game back up I was determined to play the main story and nothing else because I had a feeling that that's what would capture my interest. The very first story mission I played when coming back was Arthur taking Jack fishing and seeing that dynamic between the two as they rode and talked and fished and taught and learned from one another blew Arthur wide open as a character with incredible depth, a past, a personality, and extremely human motivations. Suddenly after seeing Arthur be soft and protective over Jack and encounter the Pinkerton's then explain it away to Jack to keep him sheltered while at the same time knowing he was going to have to inform Dutch and they would have to move quickly I knew that the real story that was lying in wait for me was the development of the character relationships. And when it came to character relationships Red Dead Redemption 2 had them in spades.

Throughout the game Arthur develops enthralling relationships with so many different characters. Some characters Arthur grows closer to while others he drifts from but they all feel meaningful and intentional. In the early game the hierarchy of the Van der Linde gang is established. Dutch is obviously the leader with his two most trusted followers Hosea for counsel and Arthur for muscle at his side. Across the first three chapters Hosea acts a voice of reason of sorts keeping Dutch's wild ambitions in check but after his death Dutch and that ambition are left unchecked and he takes both himself and the gang spiraling out of control. Arthur's growth into the Hosea role as an antithesis to challenge Dutch nearly every step of the way is not welcomed by Dutch as he has difficulty adapting to Arthur's new place within the gang's hierarchy. Not only is Dutch resistant to Arthur's new role as counselor and muscle but he was also left unchecked for long enough that his plan had been able to go so far off the rails there is truly no saving it. After their return from Guerra Arthur recognizes the position the gang is in and begins his work to disband  the gang in as peaceful a way as possible so as to save as many people as possible from falling victim to Dutch's madness. Arthur fills the void Hosea left in the gang but whether it was because he filled that void just a bit to late or that Dutch was to far gone or a combination of both the only effective option Arthur has to counteract Dutch is a scorched earth policy. By the end of the game Arthur's relationship with Dutch has progressed to the point where the two are fire and ice battling over the fate of the gang moving forward.

But the Dutch and Arthur relationship isn't the only highly rewarding one the player is able to see develop. During the prologue the player is introduced to John Marston and a tone of animosity and general disdain is set very early; and the player and Arthur are introduced together to Sadie Adler a woman who from the outset is incredibly strong and bold who eventually becomes one of Arthur's closest allies. The Sadie relationship is somewhat straightforward. Sadie and Arthur have similar temperament's and get along well. The two share stories and grow to truly care for one another in what is in my opinion an undoubtedly platonic way. They become close friends and learn that they can trust each other when they can trust almost no one else.  Sadie becomes a more prolific and significant presence in the later chapters as Arthur executes on his plan to save everyone from Dutch's mishaps and by the end of her arc Sadie had become an incredible character that the game couldn’t function without. Arthur's relationship with John is the more interesting of his two closest allies though because it starts from a place of distrust and becomes one of mentorship. John has admittedly made some mistakes in the past that give Arthur justifiable reason to not love John. And Arthur isn't shy about that, constantly reminding John of his mistakes and the fact that Arthur doesn’t like him. But as Arthur and John begin to see the real Dutch together and them both having their own motivations for leaving the gang they become close. Working together over literally dozens of hours the dialogue between the two gradually changes from short and hostile to more dependable and embracing. The two know they can lean on each other when they need to and by the end of the game as they setup the dynamite on the bridge and Arthur tells John that when he gets a chance he needs to run and not look back Arthur speaks to John almost as though he were a little brother that needed looking out for.

My first attempt at Red Dead Redemption 2 was cut short by what I still see as very valid criticisms. In the early hours of the game it appears overly concerned crafting an immersive experience when it should be more concerned with approachability and getting the player connected to the characters. But if you don’t have a problem with a game that seems almost intentionally obtuse from the start then I really cant recommend Red Dead Redemption 2 enough. My second attempt at Red Dead Redemption 2 taught me that in some cases I have to know what it is that I want from a game otherwise I'll spend hours doing something feeling like I'm doing nothing. It's an amazing game and the worst thing about it is that it leads straight into Red Dead Redemption and as I'm playing that I feel as though it is nowhere near as good as Red Dead Redemption 2, but of course that cant be levied as an actual criticism. But remember that even though it hooked me on the second try and it was a game that I wound up really loving if you walk away from red dead, or any game really, don’t worry about it! Games are supposed to be fun and rewarding and fulfilling and if you're not getting what you want out of a game don’t waste your time with it, no matter how good everyone says it is, life is to short to let other peoples opinions force you into wasting your own time.

LegalSpeak Gears of War

Gears of War

By: Patrick Morris

Nobody is impervious to making incorrect pre judgements about a piece of media. Just a few weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I have been believing my own inaccurate judgement of a game for the last 13 years and that stupid prejudice has prevented me from being able to enjoy what I would now call a very good game. This week in the court of appeals I'll be taking a look back at my own mistakes when it comes to Gears of War.

Welcome welcome welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. You canm find everything we do over at ColdNorthPro.com and that includes our gaming podcast HardReset and our movies podcast NoRefunds the podcast that watches bad movies so you don’t have to! If you like this video don’t forget to subscribe for new content every week. Now lets discuss Gears of War.

For trasparency's sake I didn’t actually play the original version of Gears of War I played the ultimate edition made for the Xbox One on my Xbox One X I'll adress that briefly at the end. I also want to say that I am fully aware that I have been the asshole in this situation and this video is going to be me eating a gigantic plate of crow.

I've been a nerd my entire life and not the cool hip kind of nerd that has sleeve tattoos and wears oil in his beard while sipping on a latte; I've always been the nerdy kind of nerd that wants to talk about the deep lore of the interloper theory on the Zelda timeline and expects everyone to have their computer specs memorized just in case a conversation should come up where we can discuss them. So naturally when Gears of War was announced at E3 2005 featuring meaty no neck soldiers I wrote it off as a game that was shallow and marketed at jocks that probably weren't even going to buy an Xbox 360. And I hate to say it but I held that opinion for a really long time. It wasn’t until Gears 4 came out that I started to be a bit intrigued by the series and after the latest Gears 5 trailer I was ready to set my preconceived notions aside and see what the series had to offer.

Gears of War is a superb experience in so many ways and even in the places where it's not at the top of its game it is still completely competent. Gameplay, characters, story, and setting are all excellent and with pacing that is some of the best I have ever seen in a game even in 2019 this 2006 title stands up to its contemporaries.

While they didn’t invent the cover based shooting mechanic the game relies so heavily on Epic did do it better than anyone had previously and arguably better than anyone has since. Combat scenarios are all extremely well measured and offer incredible variety while utilizing the gameplay driven by what is essentially one mechanic. Epic pushes the player into different circumstances that force them to tackle challenges in one of several ways. Throughout the game youre faced with wide open environments with tons of cover points as a sort of blank canvas to approach a fight in any way you want, narrow corridors with linear cover points that force the player to address swaths of enemies with limited space, multiple pathways allowing for flanking of the enemy or an all out assault, and even explicit choices for the player to make that take the player down one of two different scenarios entirely. Gears offers collectables off the beaten path that in my opinion don’t offer much of a reward but also are so close to the critical path that the hunt was enough reward in and of itself. And some light puzzle solving my favorite being a room comprised of two levels, the top level being a maze in which the floor breaks loose dropping the player down to the bottom level where they are swarmed with  the tiny enemies that explode real easy (sorry I didn’t take the time during the game to memorize what each enemy type is called.) All of this is accompanied by tight controls and excellent gunplay with some really great shooting mechanics to make the moment to moment gameplay fast paced and satisfying.

I've heard that the story and characters are excellent in the later games and I really hope they develop more in 2, 3, and 4 but from what I saw in this game while there wasn’t anything wrong with the character's (except General Raam) there really wasn’t anything remarkable about them either. The four main characters exhibit quite a bit of very unique personality that I enjoyed but they lack any meaningful backstory to make me more invested in their journey preventing them from having any substantial development. Why was Marcus in prison to start the game aside from a cool prison break scene? How long has it been since Marcus and Dom worked together last? How did Cole Train go from a career as a professional football player to an elite soldier? What drives Baird to be such a cocky prick all the time? All these characters are likable and they all have the seeds of a back story planted but no backstory is developed in the first game. Where all the protagonists are good but missing something making them great the villain is bad missing something making him even okay. General Raam has no personality, no clear motivation, and almost no presence in the story. As the game progresses it is made clear that Raam is the big bad guy that the player is going to fight at the end but there is so little engagement with Raam throughout the game that he might as well be a faceless nameless boss fight at the end. The final fight of the game is fun and from a gameplay perspective very cool but from a story perspective it feels hollow because there wasn’t any reward earned in finally kicking Raam's ass.

Where the game shines the brightest is in the pacing. The player is never doing the same thing for to long and the game keeps the player moving from one scenario to the next at a relatively quick clip offering a real sense of progress in a short amount of time. The core experience of cover based shooting in any given environment is excellent and the variations on that experience like I mentioned before keep that core experience from ever feeling stale, but the devs never wanted the player to be playing any variation of that same core experience for to long. So they mix it up. Minecart segments, "puzzles", defend the point segments they all culminate into what is an incredibly fluid and cohesive experience that's hard to put down.

If I had to choose anything to criticize the game for it would be the difficulty spikes. Towards the end of the game there are some major boss fights that I was forced to strong arm via trial and error until I figured them out. Fighting the giant locust dinosaur at the end, why wouldn’t I head for the nearest cover point and start shooting? But that always leads the boss straight into a very small enclosed area where I had no hope for escape. And the final boss fight with General Raam, I hadnt seen the Kryll since the second act of the game where the contrast between light and dark was much more apparent but it took me several attempts before I even noticed there were lights offering cover then a few more after that before I was able to beat the boss. The game features some really stellar gameplay but leaves quite a bit to be desired when it comes to balancing the bosses.

And I mentioned at the beginning of this video that I would be addressing the ultimate edition. My experience with the original version of this game is so limited and so far in the past that I really have no meaningful point of reference to go off of but the quality of life improvements and the Xbox one graphics made the game much more approachable than it would have been had I had to play the 2006 version via backwards compatibility. Visuals were sharp and enjoyable and although I hadnt played the original version for more than an hour 10+ years ago I could very easily tell that they had toned down the nearly sepia tone of that version quite a bit for the ultimate edition. The ultimate edition was a really cool thing to look at because it was so faithful to the original in animations and character models but differed wildly in level of detail, lighting effects, and draw distance that it made it look distinctly like something I haven't seen in six years. Because I have no frame of reference I cant look at the game and say the usual "it looks the way I remember the 360 version looking" and instead I'm left with "it looks the way I remember 360 games looking" which is odd. I felt almost teleported back to 2005 when I first played the 360 after waiting in line for 45 minutes the day EB games got their demo 360 console a month before release. Needless to say if there was some magic machine I could put all my 360 games into to make them look the way I remember games of that generation looking I would be able to die happy.

So overall the lesson I learned while playing Gears of War is simple: don’t be a judgmental dick. Anyone is capable of judging anyone else in a premature and unfair way and because I was unable to see past my bias I missed out on a really good game for 13 years. Gears of War is awesome and when played in contemporary setting it has it's shortcomings sure but it can definitely stand up to the best of whatever 2019 has to offer. If you're like me and you havent played Gears of War because you're a lonely little prick clinging to some pathetic means of self identity based off meaningless shit just go play the game, you'll really enjoy it.

Have you guys ever pre judged a game and later found out how awesome it is? Let me know in the comments down below! And while you're down there don’t forget to hit the like button and the subscribe button for more content out of my face every week.

Thas all I have for you today but check out our website ColdNorthPro.com for everything we do all in one spot. I will be back next week and frankly I don’t know what I'm going to be talking about next week yet so until then just go play some games.

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