Gears of War 2, "breaking news: skulls look awesome"

So you powered through Gears of War in a day or two with your friends on co-op (or by yourself, you poor lonely soul) on an energy drink rave with spare time on your hands. What next, an old question with an old answer, the sequel.

Gears of War Two, oh boy! Who doesn’t love the great Marcus Fenix, war hero or Augustus Cole the loveable and muscular ebony soldier of brute force….and Dominic Santiago their Hispanic friend. Oh yeah and Baird that really smart white guy, that almost every FPS has, like half-life and Gordon Freeman, or Call of Duty 4 and the entire British army SAS (Special Air Service) team. For all you Halo fans thinking about Master Chief, remember, he MAY be a black guy under that Spartan helmet.

So Gears of War leaves off after the lightmass (bomb) offensive from Gears 1 that apparently failed. The lightmass bomb didn’t pack quite the punch that the COGS had in mind. Yea a ton of Locust died but who cares about a few Locust casualties? Those guys were sent on suicide missions anyway. The unfortunate and dangerous thing is that a big piece of the Locust army is still intact, big enough to destroy the last human bastion of Jacinto anyway. Jacinto…sounds like a city that belongs in Final Fantasy 7.

So the storyline in Gears 2 is noticeably improved due to Epic Games hiring professional writers to spruce it up. However although a nice storyline is important, the Gears one is within acceptable bounds, not too awful, although it did leave a lot of questions unanswered and a giant cliffhanger at the end, it is part of a trilogy so no loss of points for the game there.

The graphics for the game are one of the best. It is a compliment to people who don’t have good amazing graphic video engine PC’s. Epic really took advantage of the 360’s hardware. The sound is pretty good, yet nothing amazing, the melancholy moments have the appropriate music and so do the blood-pumping action sequences. The voice acting is good, as expected, and most of what comes out of the characters mouths are not only tolerable, but funny. I would like to cite that when Ben Carmine says “Eh, stand up like a man!” when he revives an ally, it is for some odd reason incredibly hilarious. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s a rookie and he’s speaking in a condescending manner to veteran fighters.

The controls are pretty much what you would expect to have in Gears of War 2, its standard to Gears 1. It’s easy to take cover, roadie run, fire, and aim (from behind cover as well as blind shoot). The button layout is easy to memorize especially if you’ve played Gears 1, it’s the same really. The game play is also very similar, and slightly repetitive. The driving segments are torturous if your hand isn’t steady and you will be finding yourself cursing the Gears vehicles. Basically you have your guys, fighting the enemy guys in usually open spaces with covers such as boxes and railings and you can take aim by sticking your head out of cover or blind shoot from behind cover if you want to be cautious. The wall glitch in the cover system has been fixed and now you can bunny hop from cover to cover and move forward while pushing back enemies. However there is one small issue with the cover system, when you roadie run and you touch a cover spot even slightly, most likely your character will jump into that cover spot as if he was magnetized to that spot. You can lob a grenade pretty easily and with good aim, however in multiplayer mode it is very obvious to the enemy players that your about to throw a grenade with the aiming system on it that makes you spin it around before throwing (so for that surprise smoke grenade you want to wreak havoc with you should probably blind lob it). More on the multiplayer will be written later on. One more thing I would like to add about the game play is the co-op, like in the first one, makes you restart the chapter segment if either player dies. Personally I think that the living player should be able to play through the segment and have the dead player revive at the successful finish of that segment.

The weapons and items have been expanded on in Gears of War 2. The Mulcher machine gun is a handheld machine gun that deals out massive waves of bullets that will mow down your enemies, considering you don’t overheat the blasted thing. The addition of a flamethrower is definitely nice, now I can serve up my locust extra crispy! Yum! New Locust types were of course added to the game, with new little abilities that you will find out about soon enough.

The AI in the game is pretty fair. The level setting doesn’t really affect the AI method of fighting much, but it really controls the amount of fire you can take before being downed or dying. Anybody who has played an FPS and can beat it on normal with no problem can play Gears on Hardcore without breaking much of a sweat. However on Horde mode (which is where you and your friends face 50 waves of oncoming and increasingly more difficult locust) when you break through wave 30 even if your settings are on casual, you may get a little jolted.

Now for the multiplayer mode review section, oh good. Let’s start off by saying that it may take you a bit longer than you are usually accustomed to, to find a match. The pairing system for the Gears multiplayer will take a while to find suitable teammates and enemy players for you. Also the Gears system, although it looks for “an opposing team of similar skill” you will find yourself paired up with players that could kill you in a minute. The maps are pretty nice if not repetitive in feel. There is a nice little flashback map pack that is sold with Gears 2 which takes maps from the first game and incorporates them into Gears 2. this should appeal to anybody who enjoyed those old maps. There are standard modes of play in Gears 2 multiplayer: Territories, Elimination, Horde, and Wingman. Each of these modes has a subsection. Territories mode has submission, annex, and king of the hill. Submission is a capture the flag mode, where you must take an NPC character back to your team’s base (yes the NPC will struggle against you). Annex and king of the hill are well, territory capture modes, the team that controls the areas for the most amounts of time wins. Elimination mode has Guardian, Execution, and Warzone. In Guardian there is one team leader on each team and the players of that team will infinitely respawn until the team leader is killed, after that it’s a slaughterhouse. Warzone is a standard team death match game, and Execution only lets you kill enemy team players with one shot kills and execution moves. Horde as explained earlier is when AI locusts spawn in waves (that total to 50) and your team must stand its ground through each wave of ever increasing difficulty. Wingman is basically a game for those who have close friends or like two-man teams. In Wingman there are five teams of two that compete in a classic death match style.

Take a long hard look at this thing, Itll be responsible for 80% of your deaths in Gears of War 2 Multiplayer

The main comment I have about Gears 2 multiplayer is the amazing overpowering of the Lancer. The game should be called Chainsaw of War. The constant chainsaw spamming makes it hard to have a smile on part of the time in most multiplayer death match games. The chainsaw doesn’t even stop being revved if you shoot the wielder (without downing him).

If you didn’t get chain sawed by that huge guy behind you, his friend with the shotgun will finish you off with a shot to the face, which is a nice nostalgic kick back to Gears 1 multiplayer where shotguns ruled with iron fists. Planted grenades, they can be very helpful and very annoying. They are hard to spot if well hid so be careful when raging into the enemies base, you never know from what angle you could explode at any given moment. Also do not plant YOUR grenades in obviously seen places. Although you cannot set them off yourself by walking by them, your enemy can certainly shoot them, and blow them up in your face if you’re near them and the grenades are sticking out where they can be shot. Another big tip, watch out for torque bows, these are commonly used in Wingman. The torque bow when fully charged is a one hit kill if you get directly hit by it. If you see a torque bow user, do not attempt to sniper him unless you are sure you can make the shot. Stay under cover and make your way around to the bow handler, and take him out with a good chainsaw or fist melee. These are basically the ground rules for multiplayer to keep in mind, especially when against seasoned hardcore players.

All in all Gears of War 2 is a solid FPS that will keep you entertained for a long time. Playing the solo campaign on different difficulties and playing co-op mode will ensure a high replay value. Multiplayer mode is very fun to play with friends, and Horde mode is just a blast! Beat all 50 waves and get a swanky achievement too! This is a definite buy in my opinion but if you don’t care about multiplayer, or are new to shooters, rent it and see what you think. I give Gears of War 2 (the wife hunt) ((lol couldn’t resist cracking a joke about Dom)) a bloody 8 out of 10