Horde Mode

Y’know, it’s rare when something can hold all/most of our attention at once. So I guess it’s worth mentioning that LD, JC, Y, N8 and I all dabble in Gears of War 2 Horde Mode from time to time. And when I say dabble, I mean we send out emails scheduling Horde Mode nights days in advance and rush to be one of the first five to sign on xbox live so we don’t get locked out of being a part of the match with our other friends. Presumably, Grimbil will join us at some point (when he gets Internet in the barren wasteland he calls home), and SN can just keep playing Goldeneye against himself at home on his Nintendo 64 (it boosts his ego, he’s very fragile). These matches almost always involve:

• LD loudly screaming expletive laden trash talk at the computer
• Y silently, methodically killing the most people most rounds
• JC usually being the one who revives most of us
• N8 asking how to plant the shield at least three times while somehow still decimating foes with only the pistol
• Me going rogue from the “stick together” plan, only to hear everyone ask where I am as I get brutally murdered by multiple locust
• All of us accidentally rolling into the lasers on the Security map

The mornings after a multi-hour session of Horde, we send around an email thread discussing the highlights, strategy, map layouts, mistakes, and future plans for Horde sessions. And the beautiful cycle starts all over again. Yes folks, we’re grown men with real responsibilities too. Some of us even have families for God’s sake. And we’ve reached wave 34 out of 50, and I personally had a nightmare about bloodmounts (this, sadly, is not a joke).

So consider this the official Geek Prospectus endorsement of Gears of War 2: Horde Mode. Seriously, we can barely agree on where to eat, much less site design or draft ideas. The fact that at least five of us are all insanely amused by this game really says something.