Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Stop Overhyping Gears of War 2!

by Steve Wysowski May 13th 2008 12:26 AM CDT4 Comments

So; what did it take to temporarily steal GTAIV's two-week longer thunder? Why some Gears of War 2 footage, of course! And everyone knows what comes about when the media gets a wiff of Gears of War 2: so much hype that you may forget that there are other games besides it.

So many journalists have been weighing in with their personal opinions on last week's Gears 2 exclusive that it's hard to not crown Epic's upcoming shooter as the pinnacle of civilized man. While by no means is it not wonderful to see an Xbox exclusive receive so much hype, I do believe some people are touting this game light years away from any sense of proportion. How long was Saturday night's video? One and a half minutes long? Two minutes, tops? If the game is suppose to be this multi-hour epic adventure, you really think that is substantial enough footage to come up with some solid opinions?

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Despite the meager content given at our exposure, I have seen countless videos, articles, and podcasts critiquing the video in its two minute entirety. Not only that, but most of them were either discussing or reviewing the footage seen as if it were November and the full-fledged game was at their disposal.

I'm sure you're no stranger to this either, as you can go to pretty much any major site from Kotaku to IGN and you'll see in some shape or form exactly what I'm talking about. A couple of video features involving analyzing the clip were longer than the footage itself for christ's sake.

Is there a point in time where a game's hype has become too large to give a legitimized review of it when its release finally arrives? You can always attempt to "not fall for the hype" as they say, but when something is ravaging so many of the peers around you like Gears 2 has, it's hard not to get sucked into its whirlwind of hype. From what I've been reading, Gears of War 2 has such high expectations that in order for it to score at least a nine out of ten at some publications, it must cure world hunger in three days and be able to perform miracles upon immediate entry into the Xbox 360's drive (along with doing something about Cliff Bleszinski's hair; I mean for Christ's sake man, haven't you wondered why the kiddies keep running away from you?).

The original Gears of War was so captivating for numerous reasons. But one of the more significant reasons why Gears succeeded so much was that it truly "wowed" you away from the moment you started playing the game. Even though we all had some high expectations going into its 2006 release, no one truly expected the title to become the system-selling, mind-blowing, adventure that it wound up being. Yet another reason why originals are always better than sequels by nature; the unexpected is always more satisfying than what you know is coming. Just ask M. Night Shamamamalan.

The whole affair blends well with my recent encounters with the one of last summer's blockbusters, Michael Bay's Transformers. I completely bypassed the movie's release last summer, in fear that watching forty-foot tall, talking robots for more than two hours would destroy whatever little brain cells I had left. Well needless to say, now that the movie has reached the silver screen on Cinemax, I have given the movie a proper viewing. What do you know; I liked it. A lot. Would that have happened if I didn't go into the movie believing that staring at a hunk of crap for two hours would be more enjoyable than the movie itself? Probably not. Still, I'm rather certain that if I re-read every article concerning the the movie leading up to its release, simultaneously falling into the hype frenzy that surrounded it, I'd probably be left with a more negative impression of the film.

I don't want to see Gears 2 suffer the pain that comes with the opposite end of my experience with Transformers. I have coined it the "Halo 3 Syndrome", aptly named after Bungie's "one disappointment to rule them all". Halo 3 became so overhyped and overblown that after a week or so of getting my hands on it, I was left incredibly underwhelmed. I remember playing through Halo 3's penultimate level and just staring at the screen for a few minutes afterwards; trying to decipher whether or not I should save the little plastic helmet that came with the Legendary package or if I should turn it into a chew toy for my german shepard. It not only seems like Gears 2 is heading down that road for many gamers, but it also is apparentt that there is no way off of it.

Am I going to judge the trailer for you? Hell no. That would not only be hypocritical, but as I have said, it would be overly redundant. It was a small, two-minute long video of a game's third level; how can anyone expect to give proper analysis on it? That's like deciding whether or not No Country for Old Men should have won the Academy Award based off the first minute or so of the movie. You can't definitively come to any conclusions from what we have seen, and touting or jeering the game will only detract from the experience that is coming for you this November.

If you want the full Gears of War 2 experience that Epic and Microsoft are trying to offer you: don't study the numerous clips, commercials, and rumors that will inevitably coincide with the game's upcoming release. That will only leave you disappointed and frustrated. In this industry, there lies a limit to which you can raise a game's expectations to and anything past that is simply insurmountable for a video game. Gears of War 2 deserves better than that, and if you keep overblowing every piece of content that slips through the blogosphere, then you'll make this game's expectations unreachable for not only Epic, but more importantly, for yourself.

So view the trailers once, skim through the previews as quickly as you can, and continue on with your daily life. Don't overstress yourself or overblow this game, as all you'll be doing is setting yourself up for a major disappointment. And I can only assume that no one who faithfully loves their 360 wants to see that, right?