Gears of War vs Eat Lead
Note to Self: Dying Sucks
It’s Hazard time. Note to self: dying sucks. Phrases that no one reading this is familiar with. I know of only two other people who bought Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (EL). Without confirmation, I will assume we were the only three sales. Anyone who is a modern gamer on the other hand, has probably played, or at least has heard of Gears of War (GoW). It is a multimillion unit selling franchise with an extremely dedicated online community. Let’s provide some context as to what GoW and EL are all about. We’re only going to compare the first GoW to EL, since it wouldn’t be fair to compare later franchise installments of a major studio who got to refine their formula, to a smaller studio with lacking resources to even polish this game before it had a chance.
GoW has players follow Marcus and his other testosterone-overloaded friends on a journey to kill the very large opposing army of Locust. Traveling through damaged cities in the third-person shooter, players must use city remnants, blockades, pillars, whatever objects they can find for protection. Luckily the conveniently laid out terrain only composed of chest-high objects to hide behind means protection is never too far. The story leaves much to be desired in terms of depth, but is quite effective in terms of giving you a very easy reason to progress. Kill the big, ugly mutant things in front of you until they are all gone, go forward, do it again, rinse, repeat. Things that are not human are bad, simple and effective. The responsive control scheme and satisfying weapons make the journey much more fun. This is a solid little game.
EL is a third-person shooter with with many similar game mechanics. Particularly the cover-based shooting, where players hide until the can shoot safely, or lose accuracy with an always safe blindfire. The story in MH is comical, and a lot different to say the least. Players take control of Matt Hazard, the self-aware video game character who has to overcome difficult odds while his game is being hacked. Now while the humour isn’t for everyone, I think there is something about the raw charm that makes this game’s story rather refreshing. Unlike GoW, EL is rather clumsy with its control scheme, but you get used to it after a while (I do long for GoW controls in EL mind you).
Now that we have the context, and we know the context of this series of articles, we know we’ll have to find something about EL that is superior to GoW. The obvious choice would be the story, but that is a much more subjective comparison. We need to try and look at this with some objectivity. We’ll have to find something a little more unexpected, but something we have already mentioned.
Strategy. EL has plenty of it. GoW, not so much. I am not suggesting that GoW isn’t difficult, because it can be. But there isn’t much of a planning process to ensure victory. Players need only find the chest-high wall to duck behind and pop the ol’ chainsaw gun over when less bullets are coming toward the bullet-sponge of a protagonist. There is usually a piece of cover that is always safe, so the process needs to be repeated until all non-human things are dead. It is a nice change of pace when fighting the last boss, or the Berserker with the Hammer of Dawn, but fights like that are few and far between, forcing the game to become repetitive rather quickly. Not bad, just lacking in strategic engagement.
Now while EL shares a lot of similar tactics, there are a few differences that make for quite a change of pace and forces players to be strategic. Firstly, on top of cover being more scarce then in GoW, it can be destroyed (de-resed in EL terms, since this is a self-aware video game). Not all cover can be destroyed, but enough of it can be to make this a notable feature. The player is not able to camp in one spot, shooting only when safety is ensured. Players must be on the lookout for other pieces of cover in case theirs’ gets destroyed, or kill enemies much faster at the very least.
This lacking safety is further enforced by the brain-dead AI. The enemies often have a tremendous reckless indifference towards their own lives’. With absolutely no strategy, cover or any awareness, enemies with charge with great speed towards and around Matt Hazard, forcing the player to be even more aware of the surroundings. Either to move safely to other cover, or know where enemies could be hiding, waiting for their chance to engage in a surprise attack (I am giving too much credit to the game, AI often get stuck or spawn incorrectly).
The final element of strategy the player has to consider is the rock-paper-scissors element with different enemies and their respective weapons. Unlike games that implement this much better, like Pokemon, where fire is weak against water, grass to fire, etc., EL uses methods where rock beats rock, and scissors beats scissors, and lasers beat everything. Each enemy found in the game has a different weakness, which is always their own weapon. For example, futurist, super-soldiers are weak against their own weapon, the laser. Another example being that scuba divers are weak against their own water guns. Thus, in levels where there is a greater variety of enemies, choice in the two weapons players can carry is crucial. It is not very wise to waste an entire clip of one weapon on a scuba diver, when one shot to the head with a water pistol will suffice. GoW can be beaten with one piece of cover per area and two guns. So strategy isn’t nearly at the same level.
Marketing aside, there are so many reasons why GoW is as successful as it is, and EL has been played by virtually no one. But EL has a special place in my heart, and I think it deserves just a little more attention. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ma goin’ right.