Playing Gears of War 2

Completed the game Gears of War 2 in 4 days. Gears of War 2 is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games. It was published by Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360 . I am quite satisfied with our performance. My daughter and I played a two person team and we managed to complete the game without using any cheats or walkthrough (ahem).

No, I am not entering my second childhood or becoming senile. Though in a couple of years I will be eligible to watch movies at half price which may not be a bad thing. I want to understand the younger generation and one of the ways to do that is to do what they are doing. I have been exploring their use of the Internet (hence bloggings, Facebooks, etc). Now I have included exploring their computer videos games.

Gears of War 2 takes place six months after the detonation of the Lightmass Bomb at the end of the first game. Though most of the Locust Horde was destroyed, the explosion also caused much of the liquid Imulsion underground to vaporize, causing a fatal disease called rustlung to spread among the diminished human population. After months of peace, the cities of Tollen and Montevado suddenly and mysteriously disappear underground, leading the COG to suspect the resurgence of the Locust. Soon after, the once impenetrable Jacinto, one of the last remaining safe havens for humans, begins to show signs that the same fate awaits it. In order to stop the fall of Jacinto, the COG responds with a large-scale counter-offensive against the Locust. Senior Producer Rod Fergusson says "In order to save Jacinto, [the COG] have no choice but to take the war to the Locust." source

The gameplay is not easy. I find that I have to train myself to use the XBox console which consists of little colored buttons. It is also a high adrenaline fast moving game so in my excitement I always pressed the wrong buttons. It is stressful too and maybe I should check my blood pressure. Compared to my daughter I find that my response time is slower. I take longer to analyse fast moving color images and formulate a response. However that become easier later in the game as I completed my learning curve. I am gratified that it is still possible to learn to play computer games at my age. I guess the neuro-pathways I use will be different from those my daughter is using but we achieve our objective in the end.

I discovered that it is a fallacy that gamers are interested in the violence and the bloody gore. I do not deny that these are present. Nevertheless I discovered that gamers are more interested to achieve their mission goals or defeat the 'big boss.' They will try a many different approaches as possible until they have achieved their goals. I believe that this is a mode of learning, maybe different from the mode of learning we older folks are used too.

In the final analysis, it is fun and I get to do a team gameplay with my daughter.

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