Gearheads of War

OH, we had FUN!  and yes, I was holding my own with the shottie! Woo Hoo! (Though I think Blank was still killing me twice for every time I killed him). About our third or fourth? match in, we played on Mausoleum.  My teammates were mostly or all dead, and Zoso was in the middle behind the casket.  I ran up and grabbed the boom, shot at him and missed, around  which time he became fully aware of my presence.  I jumped up onto the platform with a live round still in the boom, and then switched over to the shottie (hoping the people watching were noticing this - seriously ;) ) and then took him down. After that, I jumped back down, ran through to the middle of the bridge and took out the remaining single COG.  The icing on the cake, was that I did it again on Subway, taking out someone (Obi?) by 'nades with the first Boomshot round, and then switching weapons, boom still viable, and taking out Grymm? with my shottie.  Both were kinda Babe Ruth moments, if you know what I mean.  Later, on Tyro Station, I didn't switch out the Boom, but hindsight told me that I should have.  ;)

The evening was just LOADED with stories!  Of course, there were all of Grymm's nades - we started calling them Active nades because their radius always seemed to extend just far enough to kill you.  I think he was using some kind of Sonic Boom perk with those things.  And Zoso's Bow - just absolutely terrifying!  I am serious.  I don't care if it is 4 on 1, if Zos has the bow, chances are me and my entire team will lose. When I fully realized/remembered this (it has just been so long since we all played Gears together), I just started commanding everyone to rush Bow and keep Zoso off it at all cost because if he got it, it wouldn't matter how many of us were left to try to fight him, the round would be over with "Final Kill" and his name plastered across our screen.

Then, there were the cinematic moments, like the time on Raven Down when I gibbed Creepy (who was a source of stories all his own), and Zoso's 'nade blew up just under Creepy's freshly gibbed torso.  In Zoso's words "he flew up into the sky like Superman".  Then there was the time on Bones when Blankman did a cartwheel.  A frickin' cartwheel?! And we are not talkin' about some half-assed, limp-legged roll that one might expect of a forty year old man, but that of the bouncy, high school cheerleader captain.  And the laughter went on and on.

You know, it was just great to hear everyone's voices and it was exactly what I needed after a week of 14 hour days.

Gears of War, it is the pacing, the communication, the down-time spectating and rushed mini-conversations, and the impact (i.e., the gore and blowing sh!t up).  It is the whole experience, and just thinking about how Cliffy might be making it even better with chainsaw duels and the like, reset our hearts to that of our elementary school boy days.  

If it weren't for the fact that my wife's sister's family came over for dinner, I NEVER would have quit.

Just a couple of shoutouts to those we didn't get to play with because either they were in the other room (papi et al), they had to leave early (Kenai for one), or they never made it on at all (GearsChris and Poland et al).  We missed you.  Also, I was looking for you Tyrus, but I guess you couldn't make it.  Especially if you enjoyed Gears before, I think you will have a blast with us!  Hope you can sometime soon.