Like most people who play and love games, I have many fond memories of games that have stuck with me over the years.watching her sister punch final fantasy VII I begged my grandma for an Xbox 360 for the first time on the TV in the living room of the house we grew up in, and eventually she inevitably got me.nearing the end dark soul After a long and difficult battle, the game suddenly crashed and I lost all my progress. (That last one hurt.) But none of them take up as much space in my memory as the time I spent playing them. gears of war With my best friend at Christmas 2006.
Epic Games’ highly influential cover-based shooter had been released in November of that year.still remember E3 trailer, It depicts a cruel world where humanoid monsters have eradicated civilization. My teenage mind was quickly possessed by blood, gore, and violence. The now-iconic chainsaw gun. My grandmother, on the other hand, wasn’t too thrilled with what the screen would look like with gross guts splattered all over as the soldiers known as the Gears dismantled the infamous Locust Legion.
Still, my best friend Jay and I were hooked. So not only did she beg her grandmother for her Xbox 360 that Christmas, gears of war and a second controller. She came through the clutches, and on Christmas Eve morning, Jay and I found our mark after we tore our pajamas and socks and ugly sweaters and searched for the biggest box in the bunch. We ran into the room, excitedly hooked up the Xbox 360 to the TV, closed the door, plugged in the controllers, and blasted through the game’s campaign.
AF was tough! Berserker, was a particularly painful place to encounter about an hour into the game, fighting a total of 3 different bosses. While playing in split-screen local co-op, Jay and I were attacked non-stop by giant monsters. Locust His drones, over and over, run over us with linebacker bodies in deafening screeches, destroying our cover in the process. She frightened us, but with her coordination and determination, as well as her ability to revive her fallen teammates, we gave her enough lead to ultimately bring her to her death. I was. I remember giving each other a triumphant high-five, “Oh yeah!” I finally tasted victory. Cue an epic handshake meme. It’s an exhilarating moment, something we’ve experienced several times as we face the onslaught of the Locust Legion.
By the time you reach the final boss, Uzil Rahm, Jay and I were gear experts. In perhaps five minutes, the senior Locust general was lying in a pool of his own blood.We high fived again, sighed in relief, put down the controllers and watched gears of warPlayout of the final cutscene of . It was a satisfying experience and I was sad to see it come to an end, but it brought us much closer together than ever before.
Sure, we’ve been best friends since middle school, but “brothers” and childhood friends Dominic “Dom” Santiago and Marcus Michael Phoenix overcame all odds to save the world from impending doom (temporarily). ) there was something to save. Each of us had our own life, dealing with abuse at home. In this way gears of war It acted as a form of therapy for us, a way to process our bitterness and frustration with our family by throwing it at the ruthless monster. It gave us solace, but it was also so much fun that when the credits finally rolled, we replayed the game on a harder difficulty to test our skills as Gears. And it took me about 10 hours to complete, but this time I finished the game in just 5 hours.
I miss it so much. Modern games don’t always launch in local co-op. The result is an online game that looks like this: Diablo IVlike a party title mario partyor like a brawler Street Fighter. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy playing this kind of game and my partner and I have a lot of fun. Diablo IV When defeating demons in Sanctuary. But nothing matched the friendship I shared with Jay. Sitting in the darkness of her bedroom, ignoring the hours when dawn broke through the curtains, her sweaty Xbox 360 controller slipping out of her hands, constantly in need of new batteries. Dom and Marcus in particular, though they sometimes clashed, were always there for each other, so that was special. Their relationship mirrored my relationship with Jay in a way we didn’t anticipate, in a way we didn’t fully recognize or grasp at the time, but it’s just as we get older. It will leave a lasting impression over time.
we are far apart now. I’m in New York City and Jay is still in California. It’s a shame we no longer play games together as our interests have changed and there are no more online games that would motivate us to work together again, but I regularly look back on our time together. gears of war. Maybe it’s the nostalgic rose-tinted glasses, or maybe it’s the fact that the golden age of the local co-op seems like a bygone era.It does not mean that movingsand overheatedThe world isn’t fun, that’s all gears of war The hit is different.Nonetheless, I really miss breaking out gears of warCampaign with my best friend.