It was early morning, 4 am to be exact. It was black Friday and man do I hate waking up early. Yes I woke up at 3:30 am on black Friday in 2006 to head on down to Circuit City to pick up my Xbox 360. The deal they had was buy a 360 get any game of your choice free. So naturally I picked Gears of War because I remember reading that the press were giving it some high praise. And boy was that a great decision.
I played Gears of War multiplayer all the way until the launch of Halo 3. Despite the issues in the multiplayer I still found the gameplay to be totally refreshing and awesome. And damn did it look good. My eyes were bulging out of my head when I played through the single player. Until now I think Gears of War had the best graphics on a console.
Now here we are Gears of War 2 and from the videos we have seen before launch some of the graphics may have looked the same. This is fine since the first looked so damn good. However the question is has Epic created a game so epic (no pun intended) that it is better than the first? The answer is SHIT YEAH!. (O man am I going to get crap for saying that)
Gears of War 2 far surpasses its original in basically all departments. Its bigger, badder, and more bad-ass. All the way from the single player campaign to the multiplayer. From the looks of it I think I’ll be playing this one for a very long time.
Campaign
The game starts off right where the first one left off with Marcus setting off the light-mass bomb. GOW2 picks up in Jacinto, the last remaining safe zone for the humans from the locust. Here the COGS have decided to mount an offensive back at the Locust after been on the defensive for basically the entire war. That is where you and Delta Squad come in.
You begin controlling Marcus in an a hospital in Jacinto and you immediately feel this is Gears of War. The first level being the hospital has the same art design and feel as the original. Giving the player some familiarity with the game. After this level, which is the first act, it is just one hell of a ride all the way to the end. New environments and new gameplay stuff that I would never seen possible. Examples are like moving cover in the rock worms, fighting on the Derrick, taking out multiple Brumaks, an entire level of platforming (trust me its better than you think), riding Reavers, and yes riding the Brumak. And if you thought the first one looked good be prepared to be blown away. Every environment is always different. There is never the feeling where it all looks the same. And man the size and scale of these environments are just breath-taking.
It kind of sucks that both Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2 came out in the same week and I can’t help but mention the polish between them. You can clearly see the endless hours of polish put into GOW2. It seems that Resistance 2 needed more time because GOW2 just blows it out of the water.
Speaking of water in GOW2 there are boss fights as well. And I mean there are some some pretty huge boss battles. One in particular is a through back to Resident Evil 4 which I think is cool because most of influence for the creation of GOW came from Resident Evil 4. On that same subject you all know the new replacement for Raam. Well you will be crossing chainsaws with him and that is another intense boss fight.
Now the story. Epic claimed that this one is going to one epic story and that they have been working hard on the story. To some extent they have. But you still get the feeling that these huge testosterone filled guys would never have any emotions. However it does have its moments. There are two moments in particular which are so mature I have never seen in a video game. If you ever played Metal Gear Solid 3, it is on the same level as watching snake getting tortured. They seemed kind of out of place because you would be having so much fun and then WAM! it hits you right in the face. One of them has to do with the story of Dom with his search and if I go any further would be massive spoiler. As always GOW2 has its fair share of awesome one liners. Now some of them are OK but I’m glad they are there because there are moments where you just want to chuckle.
All together the story is just above average. Just like the first one It leaves the player with more questions making it seem more certain for a trilogy. All together the campaign is excellent and is much longer than the first so if you are going in for two player coup it is one hell of a ride. The best way I can describe the single player is like it is a Michael Bay film, has some cheesy acting at times and a somewhat good story but spectacular action.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer is excellent. Wait no it is fantastic. With so many new additions to multiplayer I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t pick up this game.
One of the new additions his Horde mode. Holy crap is this mode fun, it is essentially 5 player coup fighting off waves of enemy locust on any multiplayer map. Starting from wave 1 all the way to 50 with each wave getting harder and damn does it get hard. However this is my favorite mode and it is extremely fun to play.
With new modes which if you have read some of the previews are quite fun. Wingman is another one of my favorites. Think of it like Multi-team in Halo 3 were you 5 teams of 2, let the carnage begin. Submission (Meat Flag), which is essentially capture the flag except the flag is a human AI with a shotgun, and man does that guy pack a punch. With new executions and new maps and modes this is sure going to keep you occupied for a long time.
Final Thoughts
Gears of War 2 is an excellent game. If you have not purchased it I highly recommend you pick this one up. With singleplayer that just takes you on a roller coaster ride all the way to the finish. To Horde and multiplayer this is a sure contendor for a Game of the Year nomination. Looking at the list I think you are looking at my pick for Xbox 360 Game of The Year.
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