Gears of War 2 – 50 high-res screens

Can’t wait to play this.

i wanted to get this over the weekend…but screw it, im gonna grab it at midnight on thursday!

After seeing Mirror’s Edge, makes me cross that Gears of War didn’t go with with the whole bleached white dystopian outlook…

/sarcasm

Setting the sarcasm aside for a moment…

There’s a distinct difference between post-apocalyptic and dystopian. A dystopian society can be entirely functional, efficient, and effective. However, this is usually at the cost of the people living there.

If it’s not class related then the people living there are simply living lives void of humanity, basically works of a hive, not unlike a glorified ant-form. They may do this for the sake of rulers, or they may have done it to themselves believing this would provide them with better lives. They may even be unaware of their own suffering, or aware and unable to do anything about it. This is an example of a dystopian society.

If it’s class related then the dystopian element could basically refer to slave labour, or more darkly humans treated basely as slaves and resources. A fine example of this would be Syndicate Wars, were humans are grown in cloning labs and used to fight corporate wars. And the humans who exist as “fuel” for those corporations are fitted with wetware to ensure their loyalty and faux happiness. So that’s another example of a dystopian society.

As I understand Gears of War though, it’s like Resistance, isn’t it? In other words, where society has completely broken down. A dystopia usually implies a society or system in which humans can be dehumanised. I’d be more inclined to think of Gears of War as post-apocalyptic, as an Apocalypse Event has occurred which has reduced human society to ashes.

The reason I go over this is because the sarcasm only really works if Gears of War is a dystopian society, but it’s not really, is it? There’s no society or structure there to even be dystopian, is there?

I ask because I’m not sure, I’m not that familiar with Gears of War. I just always took it as being post-apocalyptic based on the trailers.

So… from the dystopian angle: Are these battles really just an arena game, and there’s a clean society out there somewhere using these warriors for entertainment purposes? For example, have they been stuffed into the bombed out ruins of some place or other to compete for something?

An example of this would be the episode of Sliders (if you’ve seen it) wherein they had a live-violence game show that took place in the ruins of a city that had been wracked with war. The whole thing was filmed so the clean-living, rich humans outside of that bleak landscape could watch for their sick enjoyment. That can be considered as dystopian.

Food for thought, anyway.

My god….

Not only did i not need an essay on it (just posted in the other thread about that) becuase I know everythign you just said, and already have enoguh food for thought, the word dystopian was actually used in reference to Mirrors Edge.

It’s kind of a disservice to call it that in the first place becuase the narrative clearly follows the conflict between those proclaiming it a ‘utopia’, those in between who have just adapted and those who are prosecuted when they say it’s a ‘dystopia’.

In retrospect, it would have been nice to keep that sarcasm on our side, becuase these serious conversations are ones I like to have on BrainyGamer, not VG247.

Don’t worry No_PUD… I’m too simple to make long posts.

Don’t be so modest.

Neither of us are too simple, but neither of us are that self absorbed either.

Meow!

Nice ad!!

/gruff voice

Sweet

/gruff voice

/smashes chest

It’s so sweet. Sweetest thing ever.