WINNER - The Therminator
By Joel Grafton
We’ll admit - and apologies to Joel - it doesn’t look like much. In fact, compared to some of the classy sketches, detailed illustrations and - in one case - actual, 3D, it’ll appear even stranger that we’ve selected this as the winner. But Joel’s entry got a whoooooole lot more interesting once we set aside his illustration and moved to his super-detailed description of The Therminator. From here, he simply dazzled us with three pages of absolutely fantastic ideas. Combining startling originality with horrible violence and a side order of the just plain bizarre, his ramped-up, weirded-out, temperature-controlled Shotgun was the standout entry among the pile of great ideas. Take a lookbelowfor the whole, gory-ous breakdown…
Silenced muzzle
A throwaway comment in his document is actually one of the most interesting elements: “For Gears 2 there will be female soldiers, pushing the game into new stealth territory.” He’s even saved Epic the trouble of dreaming up their names - they’re Quinn and Weatherman.
Grenade launcher
Grenades that contain flesh-eating viruses? Yes. Grenades that contain flesh-eating viruses you can mix? Even better. We love the idea of being able to take a doctor along too, to mix the viruses and having to protect him, meaning there’s additional tactics to match.
Release button
A new way to approach Gears’ gun-jamming - press it once and it unjams the gun. But we also liked the way Joel gave serious thought to the tactics behind it. Using the release button at will would make it pointless - only being able to use it twice during any one level, makes it a vital part of the decision-making.
Trigger
Now this is plain weird; an organic life-form as your trigger. Wouldn’t that feel plain wrong? Basically, it wraps around your finger, like a worm, to prevent your finger ever slipping away. How would the life-form feel about having its head stuffed inside a shotgun for the entirety of its life? The fact that it “adjusts” to your finger is just brilliant. We want one.
Temperature control grip
With Joel’s vision for Gears 2 involving more diverse locations - the cold of Lost Planet’s ice world, say, and the heat of Far Cry’s jungle - the temperature of the grip is suddenly inspired. How good is the idea of having a cold grip to prevent sweat slippage? Awesome, we tell you.
Casing
We’re not sure we fully understand how this black magic works, but basically The Therminator has the T-1000 as a barrel, meaning it can absorb fire if necessary without the internal barrel, i.e. the bit where the bullets travel, being harmed. Completely bizarre, but cool.
