I recently finished Gears of War 3
While it's hardly high art, Gears 3 generally manages to craft a satisfying enough experience—except in one regard. For some odd reason Epic Games made the strange decision to saddle Marcus not just with his usual team of cohorts (Dom, Baird, and The Cole Train), but to also add in some new characters as well. The additions of female characters Anya and Sam to the mix works out well enough, but the decision to add Jace Stratton to the team is a disaster.
Jace first turned up in Gears 2, and apparently someone liked the character a lot—because he's all over the place in Gears 3, filling a valuable spot in Marcus' team for a significant portion of the adventure. This is unfortunate, because he's the worst character in all of Gears of War.
To be fair, there's nothing egregiously wrong with Jace—he's just another AI-controlled squadmate on a team of AI-controlled squadmates. However, whenever he actually opens his mouth to speak everything immediately goes downhill. While no one will argue that the characters in the Gears trilogy are deep (at least not with a straight face, anyway), they're well-suited for the world Epic has created. Sure, it's hard to believe that Baird is both good with a gun and a brainiac, but hey—at least he's funny. Marcus, Dom, and Augustus Cole are basically archetypes (or in Cole's case, dangerously close to caricature and stereotype), but it works. Gears is about shooting things in the face from behind cover—not about deep characters.
However, even by those standards, Jace is a failure. In a game of larger than life male personalities, he's surprisingly meek. When he does speak, it's usually to offer some bullshit platitude like "remind me to never get on one of these things again" when Marcus and company fight monsters from a submarine's torpedo turret. Because of this, Jace is annoying. That I had to spend a large portion of Gears 3 listening to this lunkhead (and reviving him—he dies a lot. I eventually stopped reviving him hoping maybe he'd just die and I could soldier on with a three member unit, but no such luck…) kinda ruined what should have been a special series of moments. The last installment of a trilogy's story isn't the place to try shoehorning in a bunch of new supporting characters and sidekicks—particularly when it keeps me from spending time with characters like Baird—you know, the ones I've actually come to know and like over the past couple of games.
While I will always question the wisdom of adding new characters to a story that's supposed to be wrapping up—particularly when those new characters take valuable time away from the ones we've spent the bulk of the narrative journey with—I could live with Jace if he weren't so pointless. Anya's switch to the frontlines works because we know her already. Sam's addition isn't particularly bothersome because she brings a new dynamic to the group. Jace, meanwhile, offers nothing. Even the argument that he's the "token black guy" doesn't work—the game already has an African-American filling that role in Cole. Jace is redundant and unnecessary even in the terms of quasi-political correctness.
Spoilers—for real, skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know about the end of the third Gears game.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why Epic would do this—why after building up Cole and Baird and even Carmine to the point where we think of them as family, they'd force them to the periphery for an entirely new character—and a lame one at that. I suspected, somewhat cynically, that maybe Jace was going to be the key to a Gears follow up or sidestory—that maybe the end of this game would see Marcus dead, having made some kind of noble sacrifice to defeat the Lambent and Locust once and for all. That isn't the case, though—Marcus is alive and well when Gears 3 rolls the credits. He's battle-scarred, weary, and humbled by what this battle has cost him, but he's still alive—and should Epic ever decide to go for it, ready for another tour of duty. I suppose we could see some sort of "sidestory" with Jace (who, apparently, is a bit of a focal point in the comics. I don't read those, because there's nothing more annoyingly dorky than being the guy who points out "but in the novelization/graphic novel/anime this happened…"), but really, after spending just a portion of Gears 3 with him, there's no way I want to play a game where he's the focal point.
End of Spoilers
The thing is, Jace could have worked. The two other "new" characters Epic throws into Gears of War 3
A film critic by trade, specializing in Euro-horror, cult exploitation, and Asian action cinema, Mike has written reviews for a diverse group of print and online publications. He covers horror news, movies, books, and games at TheHorrorGeek.com and Horrorsquad.com and spent two seasons as The Horror Geek on Comedy Central's pop-culture game show, Beat the Geeks.
Mike's childhood was spent playing videogames any time he got a chance. His parents had a Pong console and his grandmother had an Atari 2600, where Mike cultivated his skills by playing hour upon hour of games like Space Invaders, Berserk, and Asteroids. From those early experiences Mike learned one thing: he loved games.
In 1999, Mike became a staff reviewer at Cinescape Magazine's website where he spent a year learning the craft of game criticism. After internal changes led to Mike leaving Cinescape in late 2000, he joined up with RPGFan in 2001 and spent several years writing reviews for them. Happy, but looking for an opportunity to expound on a wider variety of titles, Mike joined GameCritics.com and hopes to help Chi, Dale, and the rest of the GC staff bring a higher level of respect to the field of game criticism.
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By the way also Cole Train isn’t a caricature or a stereotype he’s based of Terry Tate’s and his commercial character Terry Tate Office Linebacker and also he’s is easily one of the best characters in gears
Thanks Gene!
It’s funny — no one ever said a word about how annoying and pointless Jace is when I was reading about Gears 3, but since I mentioned it a few days ago as I was writing this piece, a lot of people have said “yeah, I hated him too.”
I take that as an weird indicator that’s he’s just totally useless — so generic that most people can’t even be bothered to complain about him. That’s like the ultimate diss, I think.
Corporal Jayson[1] “Jace” Stratton was a survivor of Emergence Day and a Gear soldier in the Coalition of Ordered Governments army. He served in Delta-One and Midnight Squad, and later became the commander of Alpha-Seven during Operation: Hollow Storm.[2][3][4] A religious man, Jace had doubts about a higher power after fighting in the Locust War and watching his family and best friend Gil die during the war and witnessing the deaths of many innocents, but restored his faith after saving a girl and her mother. Jace fought in several of the biggest engagements near the end of the Locust War,… Read more »
I shouldn’t have to read a bunch of ancillary media to understand the importance of a character in a game. The game’s story (which is the actual canon of the series, I’m sure…) should explain *why* a character is awesome and necessary and all that — not expect me to go track down a silly tie-in designed to milk a few more dollars out of the franchise. This would be like Game of Thrones introducing characters in the next book who served no real purpose, then fans telling everyone “well, you’d really appreciate him if you’d watched the TV show…”… Read more »
You can’t be calling people who read comics geeks. You are a geek yourself, so show some respect. In my opinion, Jace was an alright character and served his purpose. He filled roles when there were other plots going on. You can’t be mad that he isn’t what you wanted to be, as a reviewer I don’t think you should have gotten so upset that they wanted to bring a character from the comic series into the game, he doesn’t have to do anything but merely be there. Now, I haven’t read the comics for myself but I still believe… Read more »
Your article is everything wrong with geeky fandom – the misguided belief that you are entitled to dislike certain characters because you can’t see their purpose in the narrative. While I agree with you that there should have been more focus on Cole and Baird, I don’t believe that Jace is a wasted character. He’s a black nerd, a student, a young leader, and, most importantly, a human who has somehow survived in fighting shape. Jace’s purpose is illustrative: the war has taken a toll on the a COG, and they can no longer afford to spread their forces which… Read more »
Very funny piece Mike. I also hated Jace, and you are able to lay it all out on why he was such an unnecessary character.
I completely disagree. Jace was not meant for a deep background story. He’s there for comic relief since we were diving into emotional struggles with Marcus, Dom, and Anya. Even Cole, Baird, Sam, and Clayton were pointless in the game if you’re questioning whether or not Jace had a real role. Jace, Baird, Clayton, Sam, and Cole were all comic relief and only there so that gamers wouldn’t complain as to why they were missing. It’s true that Jace may not have had particularly HUGE role, but neither did Sam or Clayton. That’s why they’re called SUPPORTING characters. They aren’t… Read more »