Mr eel

A Whinge About Gears of War Having a Prick of a Final Boss

So I’ve just about finished Gears of War on casual. I’m at the final boss. He’s one tough motherbitch. That’s OK, you expect the final boss in a game to be a challenge, but this time I call bullshit.

There are two types of difficulty in games. One is where the player fails simply because they didn’t do things correctly. In a situation where the player can see how precisely they failed, they have an opportunity and the motivation to replay in order to get it right.

The other form of difficulty is where the game designers have just made enemies extremely hardy, able to met out massive damage and with lots of secondary enemies harassing the player. This is a brute, artificial and demoralising form of difficulty — “just throw heaps of enemies at the player”.

The big-boss in Gears of War falls into the latter category. Now game players have preferences. Some folk get off on these sort of challenges. Power to them, but I’m guessing they don’t represent most gamers. Keep in mind I’m playing the game on casual. For anyone who wants the challenge they can play the hardcore or insane modes. At that rate I’m a bit confused why Epic decided to make RAAM such a bastard in the casual mode.

After hours of good fun blasting away at Locust, I now feel frustrated and the beginnings of boredom. I’m no GoW superstar, but I’m not totally inept. I don’t feel like I’m even getting close with this boss.

So, maybe I might finish the game. It’s a great game and I want to finish it, but I actually want to be entertained, not frustrated. Mind you if I ever beat the bastard thing I’ll probably be ecstatic

EDIT: I beat it. Felt a bit more like luck than anything else. The boss just sat there while I hammered it. My comments above are still valid I believe.

Posted on December 30th, 2007 | There are 2 comments

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