Game writer Dean Takahashi thinks THQ is ripping off Gears of War in its upcoming shooter, Space Marine... he can't be more wrong.
It's not often we take such umbrage at the work of another writer that we feel we have to deliver our own retort. It's kind of poor form to pick at a colleague in that way, but sometimes... you just gotta throw down. We discovered Dean Takahashi's recent ignorant rant claiming that THQ's Space Marine is a blatant and dumb rip-off of Gears of War and the nerd-rage set in almost instantly.
Nerd. RAGE.
First up, though, I should be honest here. A lot of the Atomic community know this, but it bears repeating - I'm a huge fan of the Warhammer 40,000 (from which Space Marine comes) universe. I read the novels, spend far more than is healthy on tiny plastic man-dollies, and even cosplay the damn thing. Since the first edition of Rogue Trader: Warhammer 40,000 was released in 1987, I've been drinking the Kool-Aid.
Hell, I even wrote my own history of the setting and its influence on gaming, which could make good reading right about now.
The writers of the game were honest in their sources of inspiration - they drew on works as diverse as The Lord of the Rings to Heinlein's classic Starship Troopers. It was an unabashed homage to everything they loved, an exercise in pastiche that nonetheless has launched one of the richest and most complex examples of world-building outside of Tolkien's Middle Earth.
And yet, Takahashi reduces the work of decades worth of writers, sculptors and designers to this:
The grunts in Gears of War are derivatives of the U.S. Marine Corps soldiers, re-imagined in a sci-fi universe. So THQ’s game is really just copying Microsoft’s Gears of War game (made by Epic Games), which is copying something out of the history of marines.
What is that - I don't even...
Well, actually, scratch that - I do. Forget for a moment the touch sycophancy about the Marine Corps, let's focus on the real evolution here. Warhammer's Space Marines draw a lineage that goes back to Frank Herbert's Sardaukar in Dune and Heinlein's Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers (the book, not the film!). Hardened super-soldiers trained to an elite status in the art of war - it's a classic trope that predates not only Warhammer itself, but also Gears of War.
And that's the start of what is either an epic example of internet trolling, or an even better example of ignorant fanboism.
Start with the over-sized armor and bodybuilder physiques of the marines. When you aim a gun in Space Marine, the target reticle is huge, just like the target reticle in Gears of War.
OMG muscles! Only Gears of War has muscles! OMG! I'm really hoping that Takahashi hates body builders, too, for so blatantly ripping off the 'roiders in Gears. As to the similarities in reticle... that just boggles the mind. There are only so many ways you can make an expanding targeting reticle in a game, Dean, chill.
The guns are huge and they feature a chainsaw blade that can be used to slice enemies in half, execution style, similar to the “chainsaw bayonet” of the Gears soldiers.
The guns have been huge, and with chainblades, since at least 1988. Chain weapons are an established part of the setting, and, to be honest, most people have always thought Gears was copying 40k. Just sayin'.
And then there's this, on the Ork enemies you fight in Space Marine:
Of course, their very name does bear resemblance to the “orcs” in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but we’ll ignore that for now.
You'll ignore that, Dean? How nice of you! Will you also ignore that 40k's Orks are in fact derived from the Orcs in Warhammer Fantasy (which predates 40k, though was written by many of the same people), which itself was inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, which itself took Orcs from Tolkien. Any number of fantasy authors, game writers and developers have used Orcs - they're the badguy that keeps on giving!
It really does seem that the Xbox-loving (Takahashi's authored two books on the console), Microsoft-pandering Takahashi has a real hate-on for THQ, Space Marine, and the so-called 'copy-catting' developers who've so blatantly stolen from his beloved Gears of War. And you know what - that's okay. Taking sides is a part of the gaming landscape, and after writing our own pro-Space Marine screed we'd be hypocritical to deny Takahashi the right to pass on his own views.
But we ask that even the most incandescently glowing of fans get their facts right.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012