It also just happens to be the most famous adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio, a novel written in 1883 by Italian author Carlo Colludi.Īll told, Pinocchio is about growing up, about transition, and about what it means to be “a real boy.” In short, Pinocchio is about masculinity. Most of us are probably familiar with the 1936 version of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio - it’s a triumph of animation and was deemed “culturally significant” by the Library of Congress. It spends too much time with clumsily-stitched-together set pieces and not enough time letting me take cover and shoot things (which is a testament to the quality of its core mechanic), but it’s a definite narrative step up from the first one, and it’s still the third-person multiplayer shooting experience par excellence.īut Gears of War 2 is also, I want to argue, a modern treatise on masculinity, agency, and anxiety, and perhaps strangely, a recasting of the Pinocchio story.

There exists in the gaming community a particularly virulent strain of anti-intellectualism that would assert, among other things, that Gears of War 2 “is just a game, bro.” On the opposite of the spectrum is an equally uncharitable position: Gears of War 2 is nothing but a testosterone-fueled male power fantasy with no real merit.ĭon’t get me wrong: Gears of War 2 is definitely a game, bro, and one that I like very much.

Tai gears of war