This resort is now the home of daily Executions and the world's best hot cocoa.

If you haven’t played the original and adamantly refuse to believe that you should still go buy and play through the first game because it’s that good, then the next paragraph is for you. All other cool people, scroll on down.

In this third person shooter you play as Marcus Fenix, a Sergeant in the COG Army who is so bad-ass that he refuses to wear a helmet into battle. You and your mates comprise Delta Squad, and always seem to be on point whenever there’s a suicide mission. It’s like, they like you, but not really: you started the first game being rescued from a military prison and your father was passingly referred to as a traitor. Then creatures known as Locust popped out of holes in the ground with guns, and all the human settlements on Sera began sinking underground. Naturally, the Locust had to be exterminated, but your trip down into the depths of the world to detonate a massive bomb has only ended up pissing them off, and that’s where the second game begins. (This isn’t the dumbed down version. Plot wasn’t the first game’s strong suit - and for that matter neither is the sequel’s - but we’ll get more into that when we catch up with the rest of the group.) The action of the game centers around taking cover behind various objects, then popping out and placing bullets into big uglies.

The changes made between Gears 1 and 2 are numerous, and while most of them are for the better, there are a couple which are debatable. The addition of a Normal difficulty is welcome and only serves to encourage more people to enjoy the Gears 2 universe. Insane is, of course, still an option, but it is made slightly less punishing this time with a new implementation of being “down, but not out.” Now in the single player campaign your AI teammates have the ability to come revive you, and you can actively crawl to relative safety, provided the shot that downed you didn’t explode you into squishy bits of meat. This feature also works for your opponents in the single player and co-op campaign , and can lead to some very interesting Saving Private Ryan-esque moments should you choose not to finish off a downed enemy, instead waiting for his buddies to break cover and try to save him.

The dueling chainsaws sequence was cut from the production of Deliverance very early on.

Playing through the single player campaign on any difficulty will count towards any of the “kill x enemies in y way” achievements, and will give you a great picture of what the game engine is capable of. The sharply improved graphics and lighting, coupled with the increase in the game’s ability to have multiple characters onscreen at once leads to some amazing set piece battles. Gears of War 2 flexes this muscle early on, providing a gorgeous forest vista late in the first act as you rampage through a valley atop a Santar Tank. This sequence is breathtaking to behold and is your first encounter with Brumaks and terrestrial Reavers.

Riding a tank is tremendous fun, but can easily spoil you. The proceeding acts tend to fall back into the same linear stop-and-pop shootouts which characterized the first game, but this time around, having seen what Gears of War 2 is capable of, you’ll feel slightly cheated. Once Delta Squad heads underground, the game moves away from the futuristic ruined cities and becomes almost fantasy like, showcasing giant worms and ancient temples. This is great if you like tunnels and templars, but it feels less true to the game than the sequences you play through in the beginning or end. With a couple of seemingly unnecessary running sequences and what have to be called gossamer puzzle elements because the solution is invariably always your chainsaw, the time you spend walking in a straight line through the middle of the game will be the least memorable of all your Gears 2 experiences. Unless, of course, you enjoy seeing Mr. Fenix stick his finger in his ear again.

Even though this linearity is made more prominent by moments where you only have one teammate tagging along, hunting for the new set of forty-one collectible items can help to keep you engaged. Rather than spotting blue COG Tags, hidden throughout the world are various letters, newspaper clippings, placards and other tokens, each offering a small window into the Gears of War ethos. The option to take alternate paths is still present here, and while some of them are literally mirror images of each other, many are intriguing enough to warrant a play through both choices.

Of course, the main thing which renews the pace of the game is the host of new weapons (and changes to the old ones) that are immediately apparent. The standard issue COG Lancer has a throatier firing sound, and seems to have a bit less recoil. The flamethrower, Gatling gun (a.k.a. Mulcher) and mortar all feel sufficiently powerful and look very impressive when tearing through enemies. The Boomshot grenade launcher is now affected by bullet drop, which actually makes it that much more satisfying when you pull off a kill over some distance. But not everyone will see the changes made to old weapons as entirely positive. I will be the first to admit that my accuracy isn’t the greatest and I always appreciated the tight three round salvo of the Hammerburst, which inevitably put one or two bullets into my target’s head. The new version, however, is a single shot (albeit powerful) weapon that fires as fast as your fingers allow.

With only two primary weapons, one grenade slot and one pistol, weapon loadout is an important decision. And what used to be an excellent combination of Hammerburst for medium range and shotgun for melee is further hampered by the tweaks made to the shotgun. Lancer vs. Gnasher used to be a viable equation, multiplayer shotgun rolls not withstanding, but the new game mechanic of stopping power changes that, and how you feel about that will depend entirely on whether or not you were the angry dead guy with the chainsaw or the rolling jerk with the shotgun. (Guess which one I was.)

Now Marcus has something else to not protect his head with

With stopping power, charging straight into a firefight will cause you to slow down with each successive hit, forcing you to fight from a distance and wait for enemies to reload before advancing, rather than just absorbing bullets to close the distance. The problem with the new shotgun is that each blast seems to be calculated as a single slug, rather than dozens of buck shot. Coupled with its innately slow rate of fire, the gun consequently has very little stopping power at close range. This may be something that Epic eventually addresses, but for now the improved Lancer seems to be the obvious choice for both ranged and melee combat. Even blind firing the shotgun (or any other weapon for that matter) at an opponent just around the corner is now extremely dissatisfying, and rarely results in any exploding body parts other than your own. Beyond this, the one time you get to use the Hammer of Dawn can make you feel a little wistful, but the inclusion of the Boomshield, Gorgon Pistol and the ability to plant three different grenade types as proximity mines will keep you excited about downing and executing your new enemies in all sorts of horrible ways. And there will be plenty of opportunities to do so.

Boomers say, "Boom," Maulers say, "Maul," and Grinders say "Grind."
That's what happens when you abuse your Pokemon.

Flame Boomers, Maulers, Bloodmounts, Grinders and Tickers all make great tactical additions to the game, offering a nice balance of pure firepower in the case of the Grinders and Flamers, versus the melee strength of the Maulers, Bloodmounts and Tickers that make you want to always keep a short range weapon handy. Each of these new adversaries fits well into the overall strategy and challenge of the game, with the one exception being the Kantus. This foe has the annoying ability to revive enemies from a distance, which isn’t terribly outlandish, but they also seem to be the only bad guys to awkwardly make consistent use of the combat roll. What makes it awkward is that it seems to take the game a second to decide where the Kantus is in relation to the ground after each roll, which frequently causes the character model to noticeably shift up or down a few inches after a roll, making it very tough to land head shots. The only two missing from the party are the Kryll and Berserkers. The exclusion of the Kryll means fewer instantaneous deaths, which is very nice, but it would have been interesting to face off against the Berserkers once more, using some other inventive means of stopping their relentless charge.

Grabbing a friend and working through the campaign can be very rewarding, as once you get past the middle stages, the last chapter pays off in spades. Although there is no single battle that rivals the challenge of taking down General Raam, you’ll wish to face a hundred Raams with the arsenal you have at your disposal. Even though the plot of the first Gears of War took a back seat to all the action, the picture it painted was compelling enough to inspire its own graphic novel. The story this time around doesn’t spend much time in the spotlight, but still offers up enough detail to be engaging, throwing in a few twists and turns centering around Emulsion, and the real reasons Jacinto never sank. Dom’s plotline of his search for his missing wife Maria is also surprisingly poignant, as are the fates or your fellow Delta Squad members and the costs they each pay in this struggle.

 "The Horde," is actually composed of fluffy bunnies just outside the frame.
The layman's term for it is "Roid Rage."

Not only is Horde mode easy for everyone to get into and enjoy, Epic also helps to ease the transition from playing with someone cooperatively on your couch to competitively online. Anyone avoiding Live because they are intimidated by the idea of being called a “noob” or worried about being team-killed will feel comforted by the fact that there’s a multiplayer tutorial which runs you through the objectives of each game type, providing AI bots for you to trounce. That way, when you play your first ranked game of Meatflag, you won’t have to ask anyone what you’re supposed to be doing, and you can pretend that the reason you are losing is because your team sucks. Incidentally, in Meatflag you subdue a stranded survivor and drag him back to the score zone, which has the added benefit of allowing you to use him as a human shield. And should the smack talk turn toward you, just use this line; “Apart from what seems like a slightly faster mantle animation,” (which is what you see when you climb over objects), “the new cover system doesn’t seem appreciably different.” That is sure to get the room arguing and the eyes off you.

Once you get the hang of killing online you can start to mix it up, curb stomping your enemies or finding one of several other animations (after all, it’s the only way to win in Execution). Plant a grenade on some stairs and you have a nice little proximity mine that can watch your back as you snipe away. With all these features, plus free downloadable maps from the original game (which should make veterans feel right at home), there’s really very little reason anyone shouldn’t be playing this game.

Grab a partner and do-si-do through a round of Meatflag

Final Score: A

Comments (3)

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Michael said:

... Zombie Locust Horde mode...now you're talking! Zombie Brumack anyone?

November 13, 2008

WETSU76 said:

... Great review. I do miss fighting the Kryll and Berserkers. Zombie Locust Horde Mode sounds interesting, maybe after one of the locust zombies kill you you become part of the horde and come after your mates (like Halo infection), until the last man standing is taken out

November 13, 2008

Tyson said:

... best game ever. no more running through a clip of lancer rounds to shotgun me. not more active reload downs with the sniper rifle. yet headshots with the sniper are easier because you can catch more people using cover which is how the game is meant to be played.

December 05, 2008