Orderoftheflame

Gears of War 2 continues the plot of Epic Games top selling title, following the story of the COG Delta Squad in their efforts to save the human race from the invading Locust threat.

For me, the original Gears of War was a very enjoyable game despite a good many flaws. Gears of War 2 follows on in a very similar way fortunately.

The gameplay is largely unchanged from it’s predecessor although a few more interesting moves and character animations have been added to spice up the gameplay. There are several new weapons introduced, although I found myself mainly using the exact same ones throughout the game as I did in the first

The campaign gameplay is considerably more varied than the first, with multiple vehicle sections (that fortunately aren’t as broken as the one in the first game), and lots of new locations. The number of different enemies has increased as well, although most of the new additions to the locusts hordes seem to be the same with different guns (although there are definitely some unique new creatures).

The campaign is obviously far far more enjoyable with a partner in co-op as you’d hope continuing from the first game, and the game is easily one of the best co-op games I’ve played so far this year.

At first glance it does seem that the graphics of Gears 2 aren’t much of an improvement over those of the first game, however on closer inspection it’s clear that the level of detail is considerably improved, particularly on character models. Later in the game once you get into the open environments, there are some extremely good landscapes that show off the other improvements to the new unreal engine.

Fans of the first game will be pleased to hear that the blood and gore level remains much the same, with headshots and chainsaw kills making just as much of mess as before. The new execution moves also add some interesting ways to get the 3rd person camera covered in the red stuff.

One of the main issues that many had with the first Gears of War was the story. It only ever seemed to explain just enough of the story to get by, and often jumped from one area to the next without explanation when it could get away with it. In Gears 2, Epic have appeared to have attempted to remedy this, but in doing so it feels that they’ve oversaturated the tale. Long cinematics with the characters take place in the middle of the level, often with the characters getting quite emotional (for giant killing machines in hulking suits of armour at least), then before you know it the gameplay resumes with the characters seemingly calm after the issues of just before.

The humour and voice acting however is superb, with all of the cast of the first game reprising their roles. Particularly enjoyable are the one liners and teasing that Marcus (played by John Di Maggio) and Dom throw at each other. Many of the other characters have enjoyable lines and scenes as well (particularly one scene where Cole gets hold of a microphone had me and my co-op partner in stitches).

The multiplayer aspect of the game for me has been a particularly mixed bag. I’ve found the new co-op game mode “Horde” extremely fun to play, especially at the higher level waves, and particularly when there are five people working well in a team together. Whilst I’ve not played a great deal of the competitive side of multiplayer, it has so far been quite disappointing for me. By reducing the power of the shotgun (considered vastly overpowered in the first game) the incentive to run out of cover has been greatly reduced, turning the fast paced multiplayer from the first game into a camping holiday where everybody waits of their enemies to run round a corner into their waiting chainsaw.

The photo feature (ala Halo 3) of the multiplayer game is a welcome addition, and one that I hope will start making it’s way into many more games. It would however have been nicer to replay matches and take photos then, as the ability to only take photos of live action whilst your dead extremely limits the chances of catching any fantastic shots that you personally make. All of the photos in this review were taken by me during my many spells of being dead during horde.

In the end despite it’s flaws Gears of War 2 was just brilliant as the first for me, and at some point I will most likely replay the campaign on the harder difficulties as I did before.

If you enjoyed the first game, you’ll most probably enjoy the second, especially if you’re not looking too take the story to seriously. If you are looking for something with a deep story that you can get into Gears 2 will likely leave you disappointed.