Gears Through the Years: A Gears of War Campaign Retrospective

I don’t see any comments mentioning this so, the tomatoes in gears 4 ARE the tomatoes Dom was growing. If every one gets destroyed Marcus has additional dialogue where he laments the loss of Dom’s tomatoes. He was growing them as a way to remember Dom specifically

"That this world of ours was destroyed by the greed of people who'd lived and died long before we were even born, and their poisonous legacy will one day waft up from the sewers and dead places to finish the job, no matter how we strive to escape it." Holy shit, I was not ready for that line.

I’ve always found it interesting that according to the people who chose to save JD over Del at the climax of Gears 5, they did so not for his own sake, but because they didn’t want Marcus to lose the only family he’s got left.

Writing is as sharp as always, and the video editing is looking better than ever!

What's funny too is that I went through all the campaigns and finished yesterday thinking, "Man would be great if Noah can cover this."

This has the smoothest-written intro you've ever done, I love it

I'm kind of surprised that Noah got all the way through the Gears Tactics section without once saying the word "Xcom".

The brilliance of this work is how Noah begins by saying, "what is there to say about Gears of War?" Then he goes on for over 3 hours to say some truly insightful things about the games in a way that made me feel like I hadn't wasted my time at all. And I've watched it twice. (So far)

I've never played any of the Gears games but it's refreshing to hear a review of them that isn't just snarky or dismissive.

I've been a defenders of Gears against its supposed 'brain-dead bro game' image for years, and I'm very happy to see someone express what I couldn't, with such detail and thoughtfulness. Excellent work as always.

"Here they are, in the basement of the past, looking at the dusty brown box with Genocide printed on the side" phenomenal and correct!

That section where you compare how the characters feel about JD's actions with your own relationship to veterans, war, and the underlying two-way hypocrisy of it all was really bloody good, Noah. A typical example of the fantastic writing that so many of your videos are filled with. I have a feeling this is gonna be yet another video of yours that I rewatch a bunch of times.

The Maria scene still disturbs me greatly for some reason. It has a bunch of flaws but the way they modeled her makes the scene extremely scary to me. Her face has that same kind of utter disconnection and suffering that you can see on the faces of dementia patients. Where you know they're still a person but they've been largely erased and only tatters remain of what they once were.

This is honestly a better Holiday gift than I could've wished for. Cheers everyone, and a happy new years to you, Noah.

I've always felt that the first three Gears of War games had a very strong "Band of Brothers"-vibe to it: a group of soldiers fighting and in the end winning the war, but at such a heavy cost that makes you wonder whether it was really worth it. Gears of War 1 had Delta Squad go through some terrible situations to do pretty much nothing at all in the grand scheme of things. The resonator didn't do nearly as much mapping as everyone had hoped it would and the lightmass bomb did turn out to not do very much in the grand scheme of things. Gears of War 2 has the COG destroy the locust capital at the cost of thousands of lives and sinking their own last remaining city. It left both humans and locusts unable to effectively deal with the new lambent threat, and at the start of Gears of War 3 it is clear that both former parties are fighting a losing battle with the latter. Gears of War 3 finishes both the Lambent and Locust parts of the story, but once again at heavy cost. Dom dies, and all immulsion on the planet has essentially evaporated, which I assumed catapulted the humans back a few centuries in terms of technology. Gears 4 would make clear that didn't happen at all (on the contrary), but to me it felt like that at the time. It's genuinely good stuff for those who are willing to look beyond the dudebro buff characters. Gears 5 even deals with the emotional aftermath of a life of non-stop fighting. That first conversation between Kait and Marcus at the beginning is quite chilling if you think of it, and DiMaggio delivers it with the necessary gravitas as well: Marcus: "Nightmares?" Kait: "Does it get better?" Marcus: "It gets tolerable" Marcus is both a physically and psychologically scarred man who has no choice but to keep fighting, knowing full well that sooner or later he will end up losing even more comrades and loved ones. Marcus Fenix is one of the best developed video game characters in existence for me and the main reason I keep coming back to the Gears franchise.

Thank you for making me realize how much I underestimated these games. I played the first one as a kid but very quickly wrote them off as emblematic of everything wrong with 360 era game design. In truth, I think they were everything right with 360 game design. They are fast-paced, hard hitting, unpretentious games but still manage to have meaningful things to say and powerful emotions to convey. They're like a really good burger. Too much fanciness ruins the bite. The things that make a great burger a simple, and because they're simple they're so often overlooked, even by chefs who ought to know better. All you really need is a good bun, a good patty, one sauce and one or two toppings. Do all of that as well as you possibly can, and you've got a great sandwich. That's Gears of War. A really, really good sandwich.

This man has given us over 20 hours of content this year and I couldn’t feel more grateful. Thank you so much, Noah!

2:38:00 "I don't believe in war, but war sure as hell believes in me." Considering that you started this video by admitting you weren't sure what to even say, I think you've found a pretty darn compelling reason to analyse the themes in these games.

Gears one helped me quit smoking. My flat mate and I stayed up all night playing it. All the nicotine withdrawal symptoms, the sweats, the rage, the anxiety… it all just got soaked up into the atmosphere of the game. Made the experience peak and took the negative out of the withdrawal. Thank you gears of war. The only game that helped me overcome addiction 🙏

In Gears 5 I believe that even though it does demonize JD to make it more of an easy choice to kill, it also makes him more heroic when you think about it. He's the son of the most famous war hero in history and I believe that it isn't his pride behind his choices but more of his fear of failing to live up to his father's legacy. He joined the COG like his father (probably to make him proud even though Marcus said don't do it), and attained a position of command likely due to his parentage. As mentioned in the video, Gears 5 is all about the continued damage of Legacy on the new generation. JD is not Marcus, but everyone sees him as that, even the player is inclined to save him due to his legacy. The video claims that killing JD doesn't allow him to atone for his crimes, but I don't think Atonement is like a community service punishment where you put in an allotted amount of hours. His atonement is a single action or choice that takes him off of his fathers path. For killing the protesters, JD left the COG which is something Marcus never chose. For the Hammer of Dawn activation, he resigned himself to assisting Kate. Becoming a secondary player unlike Marcus who was always the main character. Every Bad choice, is a choice he made attempting to follow in Marcus' footsteps. Every good choice is one he makes to turn away from what his father would have done. Del was a great side character, and maybe I'm missing a lot of lore on him that I didn't pick up. But Del has never had the struggle that JD was put into, Del wasn't at the protestor rally, Del wasn't talking to Baird to decide whether the HoD was a good idea. Del is a new blank character who is capable of making his own mistakes and just hasn't had the position to make them. In the end, my point is that Del and JD are the exact same person, one just has the most famous Mother and Father of all time.