How it ends-Oh Carmine for where art thou Carmine

Now you too can sing along.

Devotchka-How it ends Lyrics

Hold your grandmothers bible to your breast
Gonna put it to the test
You wanted it to be blessed
And in your heart
You know it to be true
You know what you gotta do
They all depend on you

And you already know
Yet you already know
How this will end

There is no escape
From the slave catchers songs
For all of the loved ones gone
Forevers not so long
And in your soul
They poked a million holes
But you never let them show
Come on its time to go

And you already know
Yet you already know
How this will end

Now youve seen his face
And you know that theres a place in the sun
For all that youve done
For you and your children
No longer shall you need
You always wanted to believe
Just ask and youll receive
Beyond your wildest dreams

And you already know
Yet you already know
How this will end

You already know (You already know)
You already know (You already know)
You already know
How this will end.

Refuge in Audacity*

The only thing missing in Gears of War 2 is a buzzsaw unicycle.

Well, not literally: anyone who can visualize Marcus Fenix pedaling his way across the battlefield severing the toes of his opponents while lobbing frags left and right is in dire need of some psychological help (and anyone who thinks the aforementioned scenario would be a good idea is beyond helping).  If you really think about it, just about everything in GoW2 is so ridiculously overblown that it is a miracle that the game can be taken seriously on any level.

It’s like a collection of Chuck Norris facts, except with fewer roundhouse kicks.  Did you know that Chuck Norris doesn’t read books?  He just stares at them until they give up their secrets.

Other games have bad weather.  Forget rain, sleet, and hail: in GoW2, there is a lengthy section where it is raining razor-sharp chunks of death.  Yes, the razor rain can kill you if you stand out in it for more than a second.  Other games have characters who cough up blood, or who cough up water after almost drowning.  In GoW2, the characters cough up blood after almost drowning…in blood.  I’m not even going to mention the chainsaw bayonets.  Oh, wait, I just did…

Still, this game was terribly fun.  Usually, I don’t like games that tend towards the twitchfest end of the spectrum, partly because I am appalled by their shallowness, but mostly because I suck at them.  In a co-op game, I usually end up playing the meat shield, eating lead, lazer and longsword so my invariably-more-talented partner can actually kill stuff without too many distractions.  I’m pointing my finger at you, Halo (guess which one).

Fortunately, this wasn’t the case in GoW2.  Whilst playing co-op, for once I actually felt like I was doing something that was both useful and didn’t involve me intentionally becoming a bullet sponge.  All this I credit to the fact that in GoW2, players in co-op can play the game on their own difficulty setting simultaneously my own emergent awesomeness.  So what if major elements of the game are so ludicrous that you feel the urge to just laugh at them?  (Grand Theft Brumak, anyone?)  If you want to gib ugly aliens with a variety of exceedingly heavy weapons, without having to worry about sympathizing** with said aliens, this is your game.

But you know, this game would be even awesomer if you had a buzzsaw unicycle…

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*Here is the reference.

**I can totally hear Marcus Fenix in my mind, growling “Sympathy? If the Locust want some sympathy, they can find it in a fucking dictionary in between shit and syphillis.”