8 Times YOU Changed Video Games

Of all the memorable characters birther by the meaty beatstick that was the Gears Of War franchise, the family Carmine is right up there as some of the most impactful.

Which is mainly due to how they keep on bloody dying.

Coming from a slightly different angle to the other heroes of the COG war base, the four Carmine brothers signed up to fight because they loved to shoot guns, blow stuff up and get into fistfights. As you can already tell this is a clan with the self-preservation skills of a dog with a penchant for chewing electrical wires, and across the main games, you'll encounter and then shortly say goodbye to multiple Carmines such that it became a franchise running joke.

However, the real punchline came when Gears Of War 3 began hyping up its marketing campaign and chose to focus on the Carmines, in particular, to motivate and engage the playerbase. The studio and Microsoft as a whole started a tongue-in-cheek petition called "Save Carmine?" and players were presented with two pieces of clothing for their Xbox Avatars. One read "Carmine Must Die", the other "Save Carmine" and tracked sales of each would inform the fate of our latest Carmine, Clayton.

As luck would have it for Clayton, and for those at the Child's Play Charity to whom the proceeds of the sales went to, was saved by the kindhearted public who overwhelmingly showed their support for sparing the brother who'd already lost so much. Thanks to your actions Clayton survived the events of Gears 3 and went on to serve in future battles for the glory of mankind.