OMG! A Completely Fictional Character Uses a Totally Unreal Alien as a Shield!

I saw this article on Yahoo! this afternoon discussing Gears of War 2 and its violent content:

Whereas Gears 1 included an up-close attack that used a chainsaw blade on the lead character’s main weapon to dismember a foe, Gears 2 adds a reverse attack that actually slices an enemy in half — from the groin upwards. Elsewhere in the demo, presenter Cliff Bleszinski, the celebrated lead designer behind the Gears and Unreal series, showed off a new ability that let him use the corpse of a fallen enemy as a “meat shield”, soaking up bullets while he returned fire around its head. (para 3)

Interestingly enough, the details of this “complaint” aren’t exactly new.  The chainsaw kill move was present in the first game, and using enemy NPCs as shields is a comparatively old mechanic for videogames.  Why this now?  For one thing, GTA IV has opened up the door to this discussion (…again…).  Playing through the game, I do think Rockstar North is essentially giving a big middle finger to many of their social critics over the last five or six years.  Many little details take at least some of the objections stemming from Hot Coffee and poke at the audience with them, particularly the strip club sequences.