Gears of War 3: haters gotta hate

The rain seems eternal, though I know it has only been going on for about 2 weeks, ripping the leaves from the trees and making the ground an ungodly mess. My feet are completely saturated and I don’t even wanna talk about the chafing. Humping it up to the top of the closest ridge, a building comes into view.

The place looks safe enough. An abandoned supermarket, though ravaged by war and time, is a better place to sleep than the woods in a rain storm. Only thing between us and it is a muddy bank and the parking lot. We slide down the embankment and double time it to the front of the building. Running on asphalt is a strange, otherworldy feeling to me now. Almost like deja vu but sadder… sweeter. The dried husks from this spring’s weeds disintegrate beneath my boot, repelling the invasion of nature into the world of man once again.

Hot Lokust action after the jump

The stench of mildew is immediate and breathtaking. Broken registers litter the floor near the entrance. Through the dust filled shafts of light, filtering in from some long-abused skylight, I can see what must have been a pharmacy. Doubt they have any pain pills. Well, any that work. I guess I could go che– then movement. Lots of movement.

Bullets tear into the checkout stand I’m standing behind and I drop immediately into cover. This lancer I found is old, really old, but the ammo for it is gigantic. I flip the switch to “Rock and Roll” and clinch my teeth.

I hear one of the bastards coming, and coming fast. He’s jogging down the aisle next to me. I slide out and get my target, dead to rights. The man-made fire screams from the front of my rifle and the Lokust explodes into chunks.

I like this gun.

Boom! I blow to pieces. Then, a high-pitched voice calls out “YOU SUCK, FAG!”

Awesome.

That’s the power of Xbox Live. It’s a really cool and impressive piece of technology, if you think about it. The sheer amount of interaction that goes on between different kinds of hardware and software is mind-boggling. Xbox Live can be a very powerful experience. It can bring you together with millions of gamers. Also, most of them want to call you a fag.

If it’s not my sexuality being called into question, it’s my race or religion. I used to put on my headset and try to play as a team. Then the constant barrage of idiocy wore me down. When they aren’t screaming obscenities at you, there’s still plenty of irritating stuff going on.

A list of my favorites:
Rap
Heavy Metal from someone’s shitty boom box
Anything from someone’s shitty boom box
A baby screaming
Anyone screaming
Voice modulation
Outside conversations*

That’s only to name a few.

So what does one do to fight through these trying times? You can manually mute every irritating person or you can just mass-mute everyone that isn’t on your friends list. I use option 2.

This makes me pretty sad, overall, because the idea of team games is playing as a team, and the result is always better. In any game that you play as a team, you will almost always triumph over groups of people that are disorganized. It’s just that the signal-to-noise ratio is way out of whack on Live.

To mute everyone but your friends, follow the instructions in this video. Unless you really, really like being insulted, I suggest you follow my advice.

Next: matchmaking hootenanny extreme!
Click here for the previous Gears of War 3 entry.

*You know, hearing someone talk to their mother about homework