Chainsaw came around cause the Locust hide was too thick, the blades broke most of the time unless you had a lot of momentum. Tai improvised in a hardware shop where he killed a drone with a power saw, where Marcus went to his father (head of weapons development ) and asked if it was possible. Thus the MK 2 was born
that is correct the lancer mk1's bayonet aka the retro lancer was pretty much useless against the locust's thick hide and would either bounce off or break, also the small mag size and total ammo carried proved to not be sufficient for prolonged firefights
@@theoutlawking9123 Yup! Karen Traviss did a series of Gears of War novels that are actually quite good and do a magnificent job of fleshing out the world and the characters, including one that detailed Marcus' time in prison leading up to Dom breaking him out of jail and what exactly he did to end up there. I think Gears 3 resonated with me even stronger than it would have normally because I had a lot of anticipation of it because it not only resolved the plot of the games, but several plots in the novels. IIRC Traviss was also the lead writer for Gears 3. Anyways the novels are Aspho Fields, Jacinto's Remnant, Anvil Gate, and Coalition's End. The prison novel is The Slab.
I like how he's coming from a place of love with his criticisms. He actually plays the games and understands the "rule of cool" while being a firearms expert. 👍 fun series to watch
Yeah, I like this video more than most of the others purely becuase it is just Jonathan talking about a game he enjoys. Same reason I watched the Left 4 Dead video twice.
They actually made a blueprint of the internals of the lancer, the really neat part is that the magazine is U shaped because it has to leave room for the chainsaw
The story of the MK 3 is that Marcus modified his own custom Lancers in Gears 4, which included a few improvements such as the improved sights and a carved wooden stock. Between Gears 4 and 5, however, Baird ended up using these new modifications to upgrade the COG's existing guns from the MK 2 to the Mk 3 (though Marcus still favours the one he made himself).
I love how naturally he flows from "the buttstock is too short but looks like it might extend" to "they've been fighting for years without a buttstock and so they choose not to use it"; as implausible the situation is realistically, that sort of reading of consistent internal logic tickles my lore pedant brain, even as someone without personal investment into the series. Fantastic as always, y'all!
Did you mind that starting in Gears 2, the barrel extends beyond the chainsaw? Feels like that'd make it more likely to snag on whatever you're sawing through.
You don't really cut through bodies in Gears 2 if I remember right, it still behaves like a "traditional" bayonet just with some more flare and I even played through Gears 2 chainsawing whenever I got the chance to. Even took that into Gears 3 and actually got chainsawed in return by one of the hive guards towards the end of the campaign just not expecting Locust to have Lancers.
To note on the retro lancer and the bayonette.. is because they bayonette (I'm spelling it wrong most likely) is because the knfe kept breaking off in locust hides hence the upgrade to the chainsaw
Since it comes from French "baïonnette" spelling it as bayonette is not completely wrong, the more common spelling is bayonet though. Either way does not really matter that much in my opinion.
On the subject of the GL - it kind of reminds me of those Anti-tank rockets that launch 'horizontally', then shoot up in the air before coming down on 'top' of the Enemy that has been laser targeted. A 'precision guided' anti-personnel launcher similar in concept to a Javelin to compare to more real world weaponry...
Killzone's one of the few games that had more "realistic" sci fi gun lineups. Then again, most of the Killzone guns are based around being kitbashed from real-world firearms...
This series works so well BECAUSE Jonathan was already a video game fan and it shows. He critiques the game guns but understands the historic significance of the designs and from gameplay balance perspective. Love this series and Jonathan's real world insight!
The only reason I can think of why they haven't covered it yet is because it takes a lot of time investment to unlock the guns. I think Dave already plays Destiny 2 so its not a big problem for him there. I'm not sure though
@@dormikdelron i think that it's simpler to get guns in warframe, since you just have to either buy the weapons with platinum or buy the blueprint and grind the resources and craft it, which takes on average 12 hours to craft, not including getting the resources
@@dormikdelron There's a _lot_ of guns in Warframe that don't need all that much of a time investment to get, and most of the low mastery guns are more 'traditional' in their form and function then the higher level mastery stuff. TBF though there's a _lot_ of guns that need a lot of time to unlock, either through rep grinding or material grinding that he wouldn't get to see unless they're already on the way to unlock them.
The motion captures of the game was done by a Vietnam and world war II vet. They also help around the shakiness and feeling of a actual combat. They even film themselves using Nerf guns simulating how they fire and how to properly take cover. I know all of this because I used to have the limited edition copy of gears of war 1 with a inside look of the game DVD.
In the latest installment teaser trailer, E-Day, Marcus has a retro lancer and he does indeed release/take off the knife during it. Granted it's super quick and in shadow, but it happens and maybe you can do it in game 🤷🏻♂
Trying to think of how that ejection mechanism could work on the MK 3: 1. Bolt come back, and the spent case is pushed horizontally into a tube. 2. The next round is fired, and gas pushes the previous spent casing back to the ejection port. 3. When the bolt comes back after the second round, it hits a lever that kicks the case out the side (maybe those little cutouts in the port visible at 12:29)
I really liked how they introduced the Retro Lancer in with the passing comment referring to the huge recoil and heavy damage to make it the video game AK of the Lancers about how the kick would basically take your arm off and how they all hated the gun.
Skallagrim did that a little while ago. It wasn't too much of an _'in-depth'_ analysis, but, at least he did it. Kruber & Saltzpyre got the best weapons, honestly.
Gears is one of my favorite game franchises so to see Jonathan go over the iconic lancer specifically, and then the other awesome weapons in the series in the next video makes me so happy. Even better that he's also a big fan of the games. I wonder why this didn't pop up in my recommended when it was uploaded though.
Honestly, I'd say that only really applies to the first game, the second and third had a lot of effort put into their setpieces and story. Haven't played 4 or 5, though.
Jonathan should break down the weapons from *METAL GEAR SOLID 3* before the remake comes out. So many weapons in MGS3 to react and comment on like the Patriot's infinite ammo magazine, the EZ tranq gun, Snake's customized officer M1911A1, Snake whittling the pistol grip to use a knife for CQC, Ocelot's SAA juggling skills, The End's paratrooper tranquilizer Mosin Nagant, the Davey Crockett recoil-less nuclear launcher and Eva's chinese mauser clone. There are so many more other interesting trivias and weapons in MGS3
now this is a shot in the dark here, but my headcanon is that the clip on bayonet wasnt sturdy enough to stay on the rifle while fighting close up, so the jury rig solution to the retro lancer was just to bolt the knife in place with whatever bits of metal bracketing you have available. even the model looks like they just drilled a hole in the side of the rifle and stuck a bolt through it.
They didn’t change the bayonet to a chainsaw because of technology upgrades but because the locust skin was so thick and hard the bayonet would have a hard time going through it
So they don't tall about it in the gears universe as the games primarily drop you into the more interesting time of the universe. Your standard cog soldier from G1 and G3 were very bulky and for the older soldiers it definitely showed. This cones during the long pendulum war with a portion of the COG hierchy focusing on research into creating supersoldiers. One of these projects was a steroid compound stim for trainees and led to soldiers have heavily augmented strength. This coupled with the older proto cog armor being incredibly heavy and durable with the lighter variant chest peice being incredibly heavy, led to the older soldiers being incredibly bulky with enhanced reflexes. Later soldiers wich were streamlined were given a watered down compound and lighter mass produced armor. This added muscle and durability allowed soldiers to fire low caliber weapons like the lancers with relative ease. Even allowing them to fire the 70. Caliber revolver and carry extremely heavy weapons with ease. In the later games of G3 G4 and G5 soldiers went away from the genetic alteration in opt for use of technology to supplement forces and gear with heavy ordinance being handled by M2 Dee-Bees.
The thing in Gears that is still a bit of a question mark for me is that they use the M1 clip as their ammo icon. A very specific weapon's means of reloading, whilst most games use a generic line of cartridges, a magazine icon (usually curved AK-style or STANAG-style), etc. The M1 Garand clip is specific to just the M1 Garand.
Gears 4 features Marcus' custom Lancers. Which removes the mag lock and adds a wooden stock and the rearward ejection port. Then in Gears 5 we find Baird's blueprints for the MK3, which comments on Marcus' upgrades and implements them into the new design,, along with the grenade launcher variant.
i think it's odd that more games do not employ some sort of reloading minigme. it's great way to do things and the folks who invented it were happy to share the idea with other developers. if i ever create a shooter, rest assured it will have a dynamic reloading system, a la Gears!
Maybe the low recoil could be explained by a constant recoil system like the one in the Ultimax light machine gun developed by James (Jim) Sullivan. Forgotten weapons or maybe it was InrangeTV did an episode where they interviewed him about it, and fired it full auto with one hand!
I think it would've been neat to touch on Marcus's custom lancer from Gears 4- he has four, and what do they all feature? Wooden buttstocks. High-grade wood I imagine, all things considered. Probably how the Lancer developed into Gears 5.
@7:24 To quote from an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Adept: "From bronze to iron, from iron to steel, from steel to chain-teeth, from chain-teeth to power weapons; so forward marches the machines of war."
You did mention the Mark III Lancer getting rid of the weird magazine arm and actually gaining ejection ports but didn’t mention the bizarre proportions of the magazines themselves? They’re gigantic, especially compared to the ejected brass or the size of the ejection ports which gives an idea of the size of the cartridges they’re supposed to hold. Does the thing hold multiple stacks of ammunition as well as being stacked front to back? The magazines on the Lancer series are just weird.
You forgot to include the modified lancer from GoW 4, wich in my opinion is the coolest looking. It has some sort of mg42 wooden shoulder stock, looks very solid
Great video as usual! Would love to see Jonathan cover the guns of Enlisted in the future! So many cool prototypes and experimental weapons in the game!
Fun fact, in gears 4 old man Marcus Phoenix made his own improvements to the mk 2 lancer, as in he was the genius to finally add a buttstock to the thing made of old wood. Which is why the mark 3 finally has one in gears 5.
I think that "arm" bit for the magazine was taken off from the MK3 because the front magazine grip is likely what's keeping the magazine in place in a similar way to how an AK-47's magazine stays in place. Edit: also, the ejection port being towards the rear of the gun, likely is because that handle above the magazine where the port would normally be is where you put your hand when you activate the chainsaw bayonet, that's actually where that specific handle usually is on all the Lancer variants obviously except the Retro and GL variants
4:20 The reticle in the front sight is slightly different than the one in the rear sight, mainly in that its actually a point in the middle with wide arrows in all four directions while the rear sight is a plain cross. This may actually be a better sight than most since you're simply trying to position the aforementioned arrows to be ontop of the lines of the cross, with the top and bottom arrows liming up the Y rotation and the left and right arrows lining up the X rotation.
Awesome analysis of the Lancer. I never noticed they removed the magazine holder arm thingy. Escape From Tarkov just added the PKP and PKM GPMGs and SVT/AVT rifles. The animations look raaather good. Would be cool to see yer opinion on them :)
The reason the lancers don't have buttstock is because all the people in this game compensate for recoil with their thick, beefy arms and their refrigerator of an armour. Even the women are Amazonian.
7:57 Maybe that's an intentional change in universe? The Lancer MK2 started being fielded because the MK1's knife couldn't break through the skin of the average Locust Drone. But I believe that some people didn't really like the MK2 and stuck with the MK1, kind of how in the earlier days of the M16 some soldiers refused to swap over to it from their M14's. So perhaps to make it more practical for dealing with the Locust they bolted the knife to the gun to try and make it more durable, but gave up the ability to remove the knife. I'm mainly going off of the comic panel shown at 6:15 because the appearance of the bayonet and it's holding area are completely different from the Gears 3 model.
The only time a reticle was really aimed through another reticle were aircraft sights where a post with a large dot or reticle is lined up with a target-style crosshair. The reason is because the direction and degree a gunner has to lead its target is dependent on where that target is relative to your aircraft's direction and what direction it is moving itself. So in a way, just like modern scopes have complex reticles for 'hold-overs' so to did aircraft sights.
I would want to see some guns featured from Borderlands 2, that game had loads of different variations of weaponry. I know it might be a bit too deep of a game to decide what to film, but for example it would be good mix to show some traditinal military arms from Dahl, some revolvers and rifles from Jakobs, maybe show how the makeshift guns are from Bandit, toss in a gyrojet gun from Torgue and then show some scifi designs from Hyperion and Maliwan. Last weapon could be something unique, like the SWORDSPLOSION, which is supposedly a Torgue shotgun, but it shoots sword(s) which will explode. You could play the game normally for a bit, but as the drop rates for the legendaries or later on pearlescents aren't great, there's great save editor around that lets you build all the guns from the long list of weapons and then drop down selections for the different gun parts. Edit: The save editor in question is called Gibbed's Save Editor, it's been a few years but I used to do a lot of testing with it to see which combination of parts would be the best for lots of guns I got, since all the parts change the stats of the weapons.
"dont know if in game this is meant to be a weapon in development as the war is On-going." which war do You refer to, Jonathan? the Pendulum wars, the Locust war, the Lambent Pandemic, or the Swarm war?
I think the Lancer GL is supposed to be more of a Lancer Mk4 than a Mk3 with the GL attachment. The overall body is a different shape and it has a higher rate of fire and ammo capacity. Also a shame that Jonathan didn't mention the Pike 40mm Mini Missile that Raytheon is making. It doesn't work on the M203 because it's very long, but on stuff like the M320 and EGLM it works well, and apparently is even compatible with the classic M79.
For the Retro Lancer I think the knife bayonet is fixed because Gears are concerned about losing their bayonet when they pull out of an enemy. They will unfix bayonets once they are back to base, but will keep bayonets fixed on missions at all times. Close quarters and hand to hand is much more common in (sci fi in general) but especially in Gears given how massive every one is.
There is a square bit on the Lancer Mk 3 where the stock meets the receiver that suggests it might be a button to collapse or extend the stock. As for where the ejection port is: I'm thinking it could be some sort of telescoping bolt mechanism that holds 2 rounds at a time on the bolt face. Perhaps it picks up a round as the bolt comes back, then slams forward like an open bolt machine gun to fire a round on the upper bolt face. Then it kicks the round under it up into the extractor. The magazine certainly seems to operate as a triple or even quad stack magazine if the suggested proportions of its casings and magazine body are any indication
Regarding the sights, in the original gears of war, the sights were just a two point iron sight with a circle in rear, and a thick “lollipop” shape up front. The footage shown here was from the ultimate edition, which notably tweaked a lot of the ingame designs
I would love to see him react to Generation Zero It's a pretty niche unpopular (very underrated) game so I'll explain the game real quick It's a first person open world shooter set in 1980's Sweden It's a vast open world where you fight robots with all kinds of cold war era weapons But alot of the guns are really stylized and I would love to see his reaction
Old game I played back in the mid 90s called Damage Incorporated, had a really interesting rocket launcher that also had an SMG/machine pistol secondary.
The Lancer is, in my opinion, the greatest firearm ever created in gaming. From the Mk 1 (Retro) Lancer, to the iconic Mk 2 Lancer with the infamous chainsaw bayonet, then the more modern and sleek Mk 3 Lancer, and finally the newly introduced Lancer GL; you just can’t go wrong with a Lancer assault rifle. If I could have any weapon from gaming, it’s a Lancer.
The books actually explain the development of the chainsaw bayonet. Marcus has his bayonet snap off trying to stab a Locust Drone during an encounter, and ends up speaking with his father about it, who designs the chainsaw bayonet. The book also mentions them having to service the Lancer and add fiel for the bayonet engine, as well as how difficult it was to actually use.
The ineffectiveness of a fixed blade bayonet against the newly encountered Locust, as opposed to other human factions, is brought up in one of Karen Traviss' GoW novelizations. Partly to explain it, partly tongue-in-cheek. She was also the lead writer for GoW 2 and 3.
"Put the thing on the thing" -firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history.
I'd be totally fine with the GoW reloading mini-game being included in other shooters, both 1st and 3rd person. It's a really nonintrusive but immersive gameplay mechanic.
7:40 As I recently learned watching an old Forgotten Weapons video there was actuallg a bayonet specifically made to be duel purpose, the bolo blade bayonet. I was thinking about explaining in this comment but the video is really not that long so here: "US M1915 Bolo Bayonet - Dual Purpose Gear That Worked!"
I do agree about that. the Mk.2 does indeed have no stock, but at the time it was because it was made with the help of Epic Games. and Epic doesnt have any stock on any of their weapons at the time of UT2003/04 to UT3 so the weapons didnt have any stock. hence why the lancer didnt have a stock. But of course it got fixed in later iterrations like the custom mk.2 and Mk.3
In gears 5 at least there is a circular object with the blue light on it on the magazine area that rotates when the weapon Is fired. Maybe it sends the casing back to the ejection port?
There is an explanation for the bayonet change in the lore. The grubs have much tougher skin and the normal bayonets weren't working well so the COG switched over to the chainsaw bayonet was developed to cut through grub skin
It looks like the Gears 5 lancer weapon swap icon has the ejection port above the magazine, as the space above the pistol grip lacks detail. Perhaps some animation limitation prevented them from position it on the model, or the icon art team never actually looked at the in-game model and used their own knowledge (which is likely, I have a friend that does weapon art for games).
Canonically, the Lancer in Gears 2 is actually a different version than the Lancer in Gears 1. It doesn't say it, but it is actually the Mark 2. As for the recoil bit, the Retro Lancer doesn't have any recoil mitigation, where the Lancer does. The Lancer fuels it's chainsaw by basically using the intertial energy of the bolt to charge up the chainsaw's engine, which is why there isn't much recoil to it
Chainsaw came around cause the Locust hide was too thick, the blades broke most of the time unless you had a lot of momentum.
Tai improvised in a hardware shop where he killed a drone with a power saw, where Marcus went to his father (head of weapons development ) and asked if it was possible. Thus the MK 2 was born
that is correct the lancer mk1's bayonet aka the retro lancer was pretty much useless against the locust's thick hide and would either bounce off or break, also the small mag size and total ammo carried proved to not be sufficient for prolonged firefights
Was this explained in a comic or novel? Would love to read it.
Ah, I either forgot or never knew this :)
@@theoutlawking9123 Yup! Karen Traviss did a series of Gears of War novels that are actually quite good and do a magnificent job of fleshing out the world and the characters, including one that detailed Marcus' time in prison leading up to Dom breaking him out of jail and what exactly he did to end up there. I think Gears 3 resonated with me even stronger than it would have normally because I had a lot of anticipation of it because it not only resolved the plot of the games, but several plots in the novels. IIRC Traviss was also the lead writer for Gears 3.
Anyways the novels are Aspho Fields, Jacinto's Remnant, Anvil Gate, and Coalition's End. The prison novel is The Slab.
It's in the first or second novel, I have all the gears UE material. So much good stuff in them :)@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries
I like how he's coming from a place of love with his criticisms. He actually plays the games and understands the "rule of cool" while being a firearms expert. 👍 fun series to watch
Yeah, I like this video more than most of the others purely becuase it is just Jonathan talking about a game he enjoys. Same reason I watched the Left 4 Dead video twice.
They actually made a blueprint of the internals of the lancer, the really neat part is that the magazine is U shaped because it has to leave room for the chainsaw
So what your saying is with some alterations a real lancer is plausible even if impractical my desire to become a gunsmith furthens
I remember when someone actually did a calculation of that blueprint of the gun a foud out that the bulletin where the size of a .50 cal
You know it’s an iconic weapon when Jonathan spends an entire video covering it specifically
As a dev on Gears and a military man/gun nut, I cant tell you how enjoyable it is to watch this.
You're a dev on gears?! That's insane to hear man. :)
I think gear has always resonated with vets, so that’s awesome to hear that y’all have vets working on gears, thank you brother
Love gears please remaster Gears 2 for PC
The story of the MK 3 is that Marcus modified his own custom Lancers in Gears 4, which included a few improvements such as the improved sights and a carved wooden stock. Between Gears 4 and 5, however, Baird ended up using these new modifications to upgrade the COG's existing guns from the MK 2 to the Mk 3 (though Marcus still favours the one he made himself).
There's even a collectible in Gears 5 detailing the technical changes.
I love how naturally he flows from "the buttstock is too short but looks like it might extend" to "they've been fighting for years without a buttstock and so they choose not to use it"; as implausible the situation is realistically, that sort of reading of consistent internal logic tickles my lore pedant brain, even as someone without personal investment into the series. Fantastic as always, y'all!
I'd always hoped to see Jonathan cover Gears, very happy to see him give the lancer its own video
Same
I really want to see Jonathan break down the guns from The Order 1886
You'll get there, bud.
Would love to see this.
Don't worry lads it's only been 2 years keep asking it might happen in the next decade
That video would be longer than the entirety of that game.
YES PLEASE and I want a Sequel
I really appreciated hearing Jonathan’s Gears of war Judgement.
A bit sad we didn’t get him doing the Cole train goes “Woo woo.”
I didn’t think I could like Jonathan more, hours of Gears? There we go
Did you mind that starting in Gears 2, the barrel extends beyond the chainsaw? Feels like that'd make it more likely to snag on whatever you're sawing through.
Aaah, that did bug me originally actually, not sure why I missed it here!
You don't really cut through bodies in Gears 2 if I remember right, it still behaves like a "traditional" bayonet just with some more flare and I even played through Gears 2 chainsawing whenever I got the chance to. Even took that into Gears 3 and actually got chainsawed in return by one of the hive guards towards the end of the campaign just not expecting Locust to have Lancers.
The Gears 2 also shrunk the chainsaw by length, a bit of an oversight as the characters hands clip though the grip hole
To note on the retro lancer and the bayonette.. is because they bayonette (I'm spelling it wrong most likely) is because the knfe kept breaking off in locust hides hence the upgrade to the chainsaw
You spelled bayonette correctly actually
Since it comes from French "baïonnette" spelling it as bayonette is not completely wrong, the more common spelling is bayonet though. Either way does not really matter that much in my opinion.
@@CatsT.Myep. Language is more about understanding what is meant, rather than how it's spelled.
Definitely can tell what word you meant, so spelling it "bayonette" is fine.
A bit classier than usual, even :D
Unless it's from the bayonet region of France it's just a spicy knife blade
On the subject of the GL - it kind of reminds me of those Anti-tank rockets that launch 'horizontally', then shoot up in the air before coming down on 'top' of the Enemy that has been laser targeted. A 'precision guided' anti-personnel launcher similar in concept to a Javelin to compare to more real world weaponry...
I wanna see him tackle the guns of Killzone lol
They’re a bit odd, sometimes, but he’ll find them (particularly the Helghast ones) very interesting.
Killzone's one of the few games that had more "realistic" sci fi gun lineups. Then again, most of the Killzone guns are based around being kitbashed from real-world firearms...
This series works so well BECAUSE Jonathan was already a video game fan and it shows. He critiques the game guns but understands the historic significance of the designs and from gameplay balance perspective. Love this series and Jonathan's real world insight!
I like the reload minigame because it adds tension.
I always thought a good suppression mechanic would’ve been if the reload bar got more sporadic the more you got shot at.
It would be cool to see Jonathan reacting to the guns of Warframe
You can inspect the weapons in detail using the captura mode
The only reason I can think of why they haven't covered it yet is because it takes a lot of time investment to unlock the guns. I think Dave already plays Destiny 2 so its not a big problem for him there. I'm not sure though
@@dormikdelron i think that it's simpler to get guns in warframe, since you just have to either buy the weapons with platinum or buy the blueprint and grind the resources and craft it, which takes on average 12 hours to craft, not including getting the resources
@@dormikdelron There's a _lot_ of guns in Warframe that don't need all that much of a time investment to get, and most of the low mastery guns are more 'traditional' in their form and function then the higher level mastery stuff.
TBF though there's a _lot_ of guns that need a lot of time to unlock, either through rep grinding or material grinding that he wouldn't get to see unless they're already on the way to unlock them.
The motion captures of the game was done by a Vietnam and world war II vet. They also help around the shakiness and feeling of a actual combat. They even film themselves using Nerf guns simulating how they fire and how to properly take cover.
I know all of this because I used to have the limited edition copy of gears of war 1 with a inside look of the game DVD.
In the latest installment teaser trailer, E-Day, Marcus has a retro lancer and he does indeed release/take off the knife during it. Granted it's super quick and in shadow, but it happens and maybe you can do it in game 🤷🏻♂
In the Gears of War E-Day trailer, we do get a small glimpse of how the bayonet detaches from the retro lancer.
Trying to think of how that ejection mechanism could work on the MK 3:
1. Bolt come back, and the spent case is pushed horizontally into a tube.
2. The next round is fired, and gas pushes the previous spent casing back to the ejection port.
3. When the bolt comes back after the second round, it hits a lever that kicks the case out the side (maybe those little cutouts in the port visible at 12:29)
Aw. I was hoping you would mention Marcus's custom lancer from gears of war 4. That's my absolute favorite lancer design.
Lancer GL is my favorite, cause as much as I love the Chainsaw, the GL just gives off classic "M4 with M203" vibes!
I really liked how they introduced the Retro Lancer in with the passing comment referring to the huge recoil and heavy damage to make it the video game AK of the Lancers about how the kick would basically take your arm off and how they all hated the gun.
I really really wanna see him Break Down the Guns and Tanks of Valkyria Chronicles
The retro lancer was also a higher calibre.
More like the difference between rifle rounds and kurtz rounds.
It'd be really interesting to see him break down the iconic gnasher shotgun, torque bow, and boomshot
Jonathan would always tease his interest in this franchise! Super happy to see it finally covered.
For some reason "mounting on a pec" was pretty amusing to me as a phrase
Homonymous with _mounting on a PEQ,_ which means installing AN/PEQ-15
I think vermintide 1 and 2 would be cool, maybe you could have Jonathan and your melee weapon expert analyze it together.
The first collaborative video!
Would be awesome.
Skallagrim did that a little while ago.
It wasn't too much of an _'in-depth'_ analysis, but, at least he did it.
Kruber & Saltzpyre got the best weapons, honestly.
Gears is one of my favorite game franchises so to see Jonathan go over the iconic lancer specifically, and then the other awesome weapons in the series in the next video makes me so happy. Even better that he's also a big fan of the games.
I wonder why this didn't pop up in my recommended when it was uploaded though.
Same
So glad Jonathan played Gears!! It's one of those turn-your-brains-off and have fun kinda game series!!😁
So. Much. Gears.
Honestly, I'd say that only really applies to the first game, the second and third had a lot of effort put into their setpieces and story. Haven't played 4 or 5, though.
@@marcellosilva9286 Four is decent, though the end felt a bit rushed. Haven't played 5, but from what I hear, I (at least) wouldn't enjoy it.
I have only played the first one but I felt like there was a tactical element with using of the covers
It’s about time you’ve done a review on gears. Well done!
Finally, I always wanted to see him take a look at the gears guns
I am surprised they didn't get the canon blueprints for the Lancer Mk 2 to show to Johnathan.
Jonathan should break down the weapons from *METAL GEAR SOLID 3* before the remake comes out.
So many weapons in MGS3 to react and comment on like the Patriot's infinite ammo magazine, the EZ tranq gun, Snake's customized officer M1911A1, Snake whittling the pistol grip to use a knife for CQC, Ocelot's SAA juggling skills, The End's paratrooper tranquilizer Mosin Nagant, the Davey Crockett recoil-less nuclear launcher and Eva's chinese mauser clone.
There are so many more other interesting trivias and weapons in MGS3
On that note, i think mgsv is more interesting, the many franken gun in there
Lso just for funsies, have him react to Ocelot's gun spinning in that game.
You're pretty good.
@@phucletran2860he already did V
i really thought he would look into how the chainsaw was powered or how it avoided the 'gun' part of the gun, still a nice video!
now this is a shot in the dark here, but my headcanon is that the clip on bayonet wasnt sturdy enough to stay on the rifle while fighting close up, so the jury rig solution to the retro lancer was just to bolt the knife in place with whatever bits of metal bracketing you have available. even the model looks like they just drilled a hole in the side of the rifle and stuck a bolt through it.
They didn’t change the bayonet to a chainsaw because of technology upgrades but because the locust skin was so thick and hard the bayonet would have a hard time going through it
10:20
I can't believe Jon missed the hilarity of the player "stealth-killing" an enemy with a giant chainsaw.
So they don't tall about it in the gears universe as the games primarily drop you into the more interesting time of the universe. Your standard cog soldier from G1 and G3 were very bulky and for the older soldiers it definitely showed. This cones during the long pendulum war with a portion of the COG hierchy focusing on research into creating supersoldiers. One of these projects was a steroid compound stim for trainees and led to soldiers have heavily augmented strength. This coupled with the older proto cog armor being incredibly heavy and durable with the lighter variant chest peice being incredibly heavy, led to the older soldiers being incredibly bulky with enhanced reflexes. Later soldiers wich were streamlined were given a watered down compound and lighter mass produced armor. This added muscle and durability allowed soldiers to fire low caliber weapons like the lancers with relative ease. Even allowing them to fire the 70. Caliber revolver and carry extremely heavy weapons with ease. In the later games of G3 G4 and G5 soldiers went away from the genetic alteration in opt for use of technology to supplement forces and gear with heavy ordinance being handled by M2 Dee-Bees.
This is the one game I was always hoping to see get covered, can't wait for part 2
We need a new GOW game!
The thing in Gears that is still a bit of a question mark for me is that they use the M1 clip as their ammo icon. A very specific weapon's means of reloading, whilst most games use a generic line of cartridges, a magazine icon (usually curved AK-style or STANAG-style), etc. The M1 Garand clip is specific to just the M1 Garand.
Gears 4 features Marcus' custom Lancers. Which removes the mag lock and adds a wooden stock and the rearward ejection port. Then in Gears 5 we find Baird's blueprints for the MK3, which comments on Marcus' upgrades and implements them into the new design,, along with the grenade launcher variant.
i think it's odd that more games do not employ some sort of reloading minigme. it's great way to do things and the folks who invented it were happy to share the idea with other developers.
if i ever create a shooter, rest assured it will have a dynamic reloading system, a la Gears!
Maybe the low recoil could be explained by a constant recoil system like the one in the Ultimax light machine gun developed by James (Jim) Sullivan. Forgotten weapons or maybe it was InrangeTV did an episode where they interviewed him about it, and fired it full auto with one hand!
I think it would've been neat to touch on Marcus's custom lancer from Gears 4- he has four, and what do they all feature?
Wooden buttstocks. High-grade wood I imagine, all things considered. Probably how the Lancer developed into Gears 5.
Finally the Gears 5 lancer gets the love it deserves. It’s honestly my favorite one to use, it feels so much more accurate and punchy
Its literally the weakest lancer code wise
@7:24 To quote from an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech Adept: "From bronze to iron, from iron to steel, from steel to chain-teeth, from chain-teeth to power weapons; so forward marches the machines of war."
You did mention the Mark III Lancer getting rid of the weird magazine arm and actually gaining ejection ports but didn’t mention the bizarre proportions of the magazines themselves? They’re gigantic, especially compared to the ejected brass or the size of the ejection ports which gives an idea of the size of the cartridges they’re supposed to hold. Does the thing hold multiple stacks of ammunition as well as being stacked front to back? The magazines on the Lancer series are just weird.
I did in the recording session :)
I've been waiting for this since I heard about this series!
You forgot to include the modified lancer from GoW 4, wich in my opinion is the coolest looking. It has some sort of mg42 wooden shoulder stock, looks very solid
Great video as usual! Would love to see Jonathan cover the guns of Enlisted in the future! So many cool prototypes and experimental weapons in the game!
Good idea to dedicate a whole episode to the lancer considering how many iterations there are.
Fun fact, in gears 4 old man Marcus Phoenix made his own improvements to the mk 2 lancer, as in he was the genius to finally add a buttstock to the thing made of old wood. Which is why the mark 3 finally has one in gears 5.
I think that "arm" bit for the magazine was taken off from the MK3 because the front magazine grip is likely what's keeping the magazine in place in a similar way to how an AK-47's magazine stays in place.
Edit: also, the ejection port being towards the rear of the gun, likely is because that handle above the magazine where the port would normally be is where you put your hand when you activate the chainsaw bayonet, that's actually where that specific handle usually is on all the Lancer variants obviously except the Retro and GL variants
4:20
The reticle in the front sight is slightly different than the one in the rear sight, mainly in that its actually a point in the middle with wide arrows in all four directions while the rear sight is a plain cross.
This may actually be a better sight than most since you're simply trying to position the aforementioned arrows to be ontop of the lines of the cross, with the top and bottom arrows liming up the Y rotation and the left and right arrows lining up the X rotation.
Awesome analysis of the Lancer. I never noticed they removed the magazine holder arm thingy. Escape From Tarkov just added the PKP and PKM GPMGs and SVT/AVT rifles. The animations look raaather good. Would be cool to see yer opinion on them :)
The reason the lancers don't have buttstock is because all the people in this game compensate for recoil with their thick, beefy arms and their refrigerator of an armour. Even the women are Amazonian.
7:57 Maybe that's an intentional change in universe? The Lancer MK2 started being fielded because the MK1's knife couldn't break through the skin of the average Locust Drone. But I believe that some people didn't really like the MK2 and stuck with the MK1, kind of how in the earlier days of the M16 some soldiers refused to swap over to it from their M14's. So perhaps to make it more practical for dealing with the Locust they bolted the knife to the gun to try and make it more durable, but gave up the ability to remove the knife. I'm mainly going off of the comic panel shown at 6:15 because the appearance of the bayonet and it's holding area are completely different from the Gears 3 model.
The only time a reticle was really aimed through another reticle were aircraft sights where a post with a large dot or reticle is lined up with a target-style crosshair. The reason is because the direction and degree a gunner has to lead its target is dependent on where that target is relative to your aircraft's direction and what direction it is moving itself. So in a way, just like modern scopes have complex reticles for 'hold-overs' so to did aircraft sights.
reloading in gears was such an essential point of the PvP and it really brought a point of balance across the field
About time he talked about Gears guns :)
Also you guys missed the Custom Lancer from Gears 4
I would want to see some guns featured from Borderlands 2, that game had loads of different variations of weaponry. I know it might be a bit too deep of a game to decide what to film, but for example it would be good mix to show some traditinal military arms from Dahl, some revolvers and rifles from Jakobs, maybe show how the makeshift guns are from Bandit, toss in a gyrojet gun from Torgue and then show some scifi designs from Hyperion and Maliwan. Last weapon could be something unique, like the SWORDSPLOSION, which is supposedly a Torgue shotgun, but it shoots sword(s) which will explode.
You could play the game normally for a bit, but as the drop rates for the legendaries or later on pearlescents aren't great, there's great save editor around that lets you build all the guns from the long list of weapons and then drop down selections for the different gun parts.
Edit: The save editor in question is called Gibbed's Save Editor, it's been a few years but I used to do a lot of testing with it to see which combination of parts would be the best for lots of guns I got, since all the parts change the stats of the weapons.
I want part 3 of this series!
"dont know if in game this is meant to be a weapon in development as the war is On-going." which war do You refer to, Jonathan? the Pendulum wars, the Locust war, the Lambent Pandemic, or the Swarm war?
I think the Lancer GL is supposed to be more of a Lancer Mk4 than a Mk3 with the GL attachment. The overall body is a different shape and it has a higher rate of fire and ammo capacity. Also a shame that Jonathan didn't mention the Pike 40mm Mini Missile that Raytheon is making. It doesn't work on the M203 because it's very long, but on stuff like the M320 and EGLM it works well, and apparently is even compatible with the classic M79.
YOU GUYS MISSED A LANCER! The Custom Lancer from Gears 4 that had wood furniture and a flashlight!
For the Retro Lancer I think the knife bayonet is fixed because Gears are concerned about losing their bayonet when they pull out of an enemy. They will unfix bayonets once they are back to base, but will keep bayonets fixed on missions at all times. Close quarters and hand to hand is much more common in (sci fi in general) but especially in Gears given how massive every one is.
There is a square bit on the Lancer Mk 3 where the stock meets the receiver that suggests it might be a button to collapse or extend the stock. As for where the ejection port is: I'm thinking it could be some sort of telescoping bolt mechanism that holds 2 rounds at a time on the bolt face. Perhaps it picks up a round as the bolt comes back, then slams forward like an open bolt machine gun to fire a round on the upper bolt face. Then it kicks the round under it up into the extractor. The magazine certainly seems to operate as a triple or even quad stack magazine if the suggested proportions of its casings and magazine body are any indication
Regarding the sights, in the original gears of war, the sights were just a two point iron sight with a circle in rear, and a thick “lollipop” shape up front.
The footage shown here was from the ultimate edition, which notably tweaked a lot of the ingame designs
I would love to see him react to Generation Zero
It's a pretty niche unpopular (very underrated) game so I'll explain the game real quick
It's a first person open world shooter set in 1980's Sweden
It's a vast open world where you fight robots with all kinds of cold war era weapons
But alot of the guns are really stylized and I would love to see his reaction
Old game I played back in the mid 90s called Damage Incorporated, had a really interesting rocket launcher that also had an SMG/machine pistol secondary.
just when you'd think Johnathan couldn't be more likeable than he already is, you realize he's a Gearhead, f yea Johnathan, you rule
The Skorpion pistol grip being longer looks like just an aesthetic choice to match the clip length.
also in gears 2 the chainsaw extends out when you reload i always though that was a nice touch they took it out in the later games saddly
The Lancer is, in my opinion, the greatest firearm ever created in gaming. From the Mk 1 (Retro) Lancer, to the iconic Mk 2 Lancer with the infamous chainsaw bayonet, then the more modern and sleek Mk 3 Lancer, and finally the newly introduced Lancer GL; you just can’t go wrong with a Lancer assault rifle. If I could have any weapon from gaming, it’s a Lancer.
The books actually explain the development of the chainsaw bayonet. Marcus has his bayonet snap off trying to stab a Locust Drone during an encounter, and ends up speaking with his father about it, who designs the chainsaw bayonet. The book also mentions them having to service the Lancer and add fiel for the bayonet engine, as well as how difficult it was to actually use.
Jonathan i do like the SE5 reload minigame! a Great addition!
The ineffectiveness of a fixed blade bayonet against the newly encountered Locust, as opposed to other human factions, is brought up in one of Karen Traviss' GoW novelizations. Partly to explain it, partly tongue-in-cheek. She was also the lead writer for GoW 2 and 3.
"Put the thing on the thing" -firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of firearms and artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history.
I'd be totally fine with the GoW reloading mini-game being included in other shooters, both 1st and 3rd person. It's a really nonintrusive but immersive gameplay mechanic.
I always loved the reloading min game being optional. So rewarding or you could just get the guarantee when you didn't want to stress.
7:40
As I recently learned watching an old Forgotten Weapons video there was actuallg a bayonet specifically made to be duel purpose, the bolo blade bayonet. I was thinking about explaining in this comment but the video is really not that long so here: "US M1915 Bolo Bayonet - Dual Purpose Gear That Worked!"
Why the Lancer specifically instead of just reacting to all of the GoW weapons?
Quality takes time.
I do agree about that. the Mk.2 does indeed have no stock, but at the time it was because it was made with the help of Epic Games. and Epic doesnt have any stock on any of their weapons at the time of UT2003/04 to UT3 so the weapons didnt have any stock. hence why the lancer didnt have a stock. But of course it got fixed in later iterrations like the custom mk.2 and Mk.3
My explanation for the ejection port not lining up is the brass is designed to go back with the bolt and then eject 🤔
The Gears Lancer and Halos MA5 are probably my favorite videogame guns and definitely some of the best looking
In gears 5 at least there is a circular object with the blue light on it on the magazine area that rotates when the weapon Is fired. Maybe it sends the casing back to the ejection port?
There is an explanation for the bayonet change in the lore. The grubs have much tougher skin and the normal bayonets weren't working well so the COG switched over to the chainsaw bayonet was developed to cut through grub skin
The bayonet on the retro lancer can be removed by using the ring underneath the blade. Once the ring is pulled, the bayonet is free from the gun.
The way I’ve seen it with the lancer GL is that the launcher is like a miniature javelin with the munition being a cluster missile.
now go look at the gears eday trailer to see how they un attach the bayonett
It looks like the Gears 5 lancer weapon swap icon has the ejection port above the magazine, as the space above the pistol grip lacks detail. Perhaps some animation limitation prevented them from position it on the model, or the icon art team never actually looked at the in-game model and used their own knowledge (which is likely, I have a friend that does weapon art for games).
My first thought about the crosshairs were that maybe when you lined up the x's the colour changes perceptively
This video gives me the idea of Jonathan breaking down all of the AK series/platform rifles in Tarkov.
Wasn't expecting this
Canonically, the Lancer in Gears 2 is actually a different version than the Lancer in Gears 1. It doesn't say it, but it is actually the Mark 2.
As for the recoil bit, the Retro Lancer doesn't have any recoil mitigation, where the Lancer does. The Lancer fuels it's chainsaw by basically using the intertial energy of the bolt to charge up the chainsaw's engine, which is why there isn't much recoil to it