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To start off, I played the first Gears for the campaign/co-op campaign. And I purchased this game for the same reason, so if you're looking to know more about multiplayer gameplay, check out another review. That said, this game plays very well, very much like a thrill ride for the most part. Story can use a lot more refining and better integration. This gets a 5-star in its own right. But Halo 3 and BioShock are still better games overall than GoW 2.
GAMEPLAY: A+
This game still plays like the first Gears, except with a wider array of weapons and features (ie, chainsaw battles, different modes of executing a downed enemy). This is a third person shooter, for those who have not played the first one. And also, expect a lot of blood and violence, so if you are parents considering this game for your children, this serves as fair warning.
The campaign takes longer to beat this time around (10-20h I think). The graphics are very beautiful and realistic, and a lot more 'vibrant'. The first Gears was in general a very dark and gloomy game. You see a lot more color in this one. Co-op campaign gameplay continues to be addictive and I think a strength in this game. It is still as immersive an experience for all players involved as the first Gears was.
Further, the creators definitely outdid themselves in design of the levels. You should expect to be pleasantly surprised with every single level that comes up. While you can clearly expect to see yourself running around in the streets battling waves after waves of Locust, you will also see another order of magnitude of fighting, with sometimes even as many as 80-100 Locust rushing through your field of view. To emphasize the creativity of the creators, there was also, at various points later in the game (spoiler warning), a section where you had to traverse a pitch-black tunnel to safely escort a vehicle across, and even a level where your squad somehow ends up inside one of the Locust beasts and had to fight your way out...
Overall, this game has been quite an experience. It deserves an A+ and Game of the Year awards.
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STORY: B
Given that this game promised to have more leads on the storyline of the series than the first one, it does a better job. A lot of the early story is centered around Dom and him trying to find his wife, amidst all the fighting. The voice acting is compelling for the most part, and you can tell a lot more easily that it's a dark time for humanity on this fictional planet. In the first Gears, playing through the story was mostly humorous because of the way all the guys were joking around in between fight scenes and the light talk that went on. In this Gears, those dialogues are still present, but with a lot more of a sense of urgency mixed in here and there. And cutscenes are well made. The script is definitely that of a cheesy scifi as some of my buddies like to call it.
Finally, instead of COG tags for collection, we have bits and pieces of 'collectibles' like newspaper clippings, ads, so on and so forth that in some cases contribute to the backstory a little bit, kind of like the way those terminals worked in Halo 3. All of these, when found, are put in some scrapbook that's accessible from the Main Menu, and arranged in a more or less logical order.
The reason the story only gets a B+: if you think about games like BioShock and Mass Effect and the Halo series with their very immersive storylines, GoW 2 is still not quite there. But it is closer to that state now than it was previously.
I won't reveal any more in this part, but definitely expect a lot more of a plot that serves as a backdrop to all the fighting that's going on. Epic Games did a good job of piquing your interest and making you want to learn more.
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CHARACTERS: B
The characters come across a lot more human in this one. I have mentioned that the mood in this game comes across with a lot more of a sense of urgency to beat the Locust. As you play the game, you begin to feel more and more of a connection with each of the characters and in some cases, almost have to just stop playing when certain characters die... Let's leave it at that.
All that said, the game needs a better scriptwriter if it is to convey a stronger storyline.
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REPLAYABILITY: A
With the first game, I recall beating it my first time around with a friend on Hardcore, and then on Insane, and then going around and helping each of my roommates and a good number of friends beat the game on both difficulty settings. The same will probably hold for this game. I think it's a thrilling enough of a ride that I wouldn't mind going over it over and over and over...
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To sum up, this game is definitely worth the $60.
PROS: This is all about gameplay and the feel of the game. Even on top of all the additional features and improvements, it is still undoubtedly Gears of War. The controls remain very intuitive and easy to learn. It's easily one of the best 3rd person shooters out there, in my opinion.
CONS: I think storyline could have been a lot deeper. I guess they are saving this for Gears of War 3. Violence may be a little too much for the unprepared. Right now, this is all I can think of.
FINAL VERDICT: A. This is a very well-made game. I have the tendency to buy games and sell them back when I'm done. But I think GoW 2 will probably be a mainstay in my library, just as GoW was. For that, plus all the +'s I have mentioned, I think this game deserves an awesome grade. Can I hear Game of the Year?
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There's an unfortunate trend in action games nowadays: dividing content in a game so that it favors either fans of single-player gaming or multiplayer gaming (more so towards the latter in many high-profile franchises), but rarely letting fans of both feel like they're getting the most out of the whole experience. Often, the multiplayer experience is useless to those who are offline, or is just not that enjoyable for those who don't have the time or lack of interruptions to go through a series of matches without being seen as a quitter or bad team-mate. The good news is that Gears of War 2 is not one of those games; in fact, each of the 3 core experiences (Campaign, Multiplayer, and Horde Mode) can be enjoyed to some extent either alone or with other players. Sure, a botmatch will never really have the same level of excitement as an online match against real people, but it still beats not being able to get any enjoyment out of the multiplayer part of the game.For those who aren't familiar with the Gears of War franchise, the first Gears of War was a different take on the kind of testosterone-laced, big-budget action gaming genre dominated by the likes of Halo, Call of Duty, and other such shooters. Coming out in 2006, it was in effect the big unveiling of Epic Games' Unreal 3 engine. As opposed to most other shooters, Gears of War eliminated the ability to jump, and instead placed an emphasis on taking cover and third-person gunplay. You followed a group of ridiculously steroid-enhanced, armor-clad soldiers on a planet where humanity is beseiged by a mutated army (the Locust) rising up from the underground as they try to locate a high-tech bomb over the course of a couple of days, and deploy it against the Locust forces. While Gears of War wasn't the first game to use the cover and shoot mechanic (see Killswitch or 007: Everything or Nothing), it did popularize it greatly, and attached glossy production values to the gameplay. The problem was that the game felt more like a tech demo at times, and didn't have the scope of say, the original Halo: Combat Evolved. The game felt somewhat abbreviated, and attempts to provide variety, such as a lone nighttime vehicular section, or avoiding darkened areas where light-sensitive flying swarms attack, felt somewhat undercooked.
Gears of War 2's campaign, on the other hand, feels like a game first, and tech showcase second. Taking a page from the Call of Duty franchise, GOW 2 moves the player through what seems to be a constantly changing series of events, while still keeping the core gameplay concepts intact. To this player, the shifts away from the 3rd person, cover-based firefights are much more smoothly integrated into the game, whether they involve riding shotgun on a huge, mobile drill as it advances through mountainous terrain, driving a tank across an ice-covered lake, or flying a monstrous creature in a surprisingly entertaining rail-shooter segment. Whether fighting it out through delapidated city streets, exploring a snow-covered village, advancing through enormous underground citadels, or attempting to make it out of a creepy, weed-overgrown, Resident Evil-inspired abandoned facility in the middle of a metallic hailstorm, the situations you're placed seem to neither last too short a time, nor overstay their welcome. In fact, only the very ending battle is a letdown, in that it is too easily won. While the somewhat clunky speed you move at takes some getting used to, the game is otherwise smoothly executed, with one notable improvement being the ability to grab still-living enemies and use them as shields. As before, the campaign can be played co-operatively, although this time co-op is more smoothly executed. While the game is as linear as it gets, there's nothing wrong with that here. It's an over-the-top, ridiculous thrill ride, that's not meant to wax poetic on the nature of humanity (although there's one surprisingly effective scene that I won't spoil which stands out from the rest of the overly macho gruntfest that characterizes the story).
A new addition to the franchise is Horde mode, which lets either a lone player (in Training Ground mode) or a team of players try to survive as long as possible against an onslaught of enemies, while racking up points. In many ways, this is like a modern, 3D take on Smash TV, but with more organic settings. The mode was influential enough for Bungie to take notice, and add a similar "Firefight" mode to Halo Reach and Halo 3: ODST. The multiplayer modes, which can be played offline with bots by a single player within the Training Grounds menu, are team-oriented, and include modes such as King of the Hill and Submission (aka "Meatflag").
If there's a negative about the game, it's that it popularized the use of "Day 1" downloadable content; in other words, content that was taken out of the game (in this case, 5 multiplayer/horde maps), and has to be downloaded using a 1-time use code linked to your gamertag. Ostensibly, this is to create an incentive to buy the game new, which is understandable. However, as we've seen, this idea has snowballed out of control once other developers started abusing it. (This overreliance on digital distribution also afflicted the Game of the Year edition, which, unlike the Fallout 3 GOTY edition, doesn't contain the additional content on a disc, but rather requires downloading the new content (around 19 extra maps, also available as the downloadable All Fronts package) using a code.)
That being said, Gears of War 2 epitomizes what a linear game sequel should strive for: provide a fuller, longer campaign, add new gameplay mechanics, refine what works, add new modes, and make all aspects of the game worthwhile and playable for both solo and multiplayer oriented gamers. Sure, it might be laughably gory, and far too "manly" for its own good, but it's a damn good time, and you'll get your money's worth.
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The prototypical third-person cover shooter, "Gears of War 2" is a solid rush of now-standard gameplay conventions and action movie dialogue. It has its charms, and is a pretty solid game, but isn't without its problems.GoW2 operates under the same basic principles as the first game: you play as a bulky space marine, using cover-shooter mechanics to carve through waves of enemy monsters. Most shooting is either done "blind" (shooting from behind cover) or popping out and shooting. Like in the first game, there are a few things that separate it from other cover shooters. The first of these is the "active reload" system, where timing your reload properly allows you to do it faster or even improve the damage of your next magazine. The second is melee combat, most famously the "chainsaw bayonets" mounted on the standard assault rifle. However, for the most part GoW2's combat is formulaic, like the first.
There are a few new weapons to spice things up, though. These include a gatling gun (that must be mounted on cover and cranked to fire) and a mortar launcher (good at distances, but less so at close range). The action is intense and fast-paced, but the main issue is that even with varying weapons, you're still basically doing the same cover routine over and over and over. There are a few sequences to break up the monotony, but they don't disguise the fact that the main game is kind of simplistic.
Multiplayer is one of the game's strongest points. There are basically three kinds: cooperative, competitive, and horde mode. Cooperative refers to the ability to play through the campaign with multiple players. It's simplistic, but fun. Competitive refers to the standard set of multiplayer modes deathmatch, capture-the-flag, etc. Horde mode is an expansion of cooperative mode that allows up to five players to try to survive against waves of enemies. It's probably the most interesting mode, and allows for the most strategic options (figuring out where to hole up, setting traps and killzones, etc).
The game's production values are good. It's visually exciting, if a bit repetitive. The guns sound neat, and there's certainly nothing more ominous than the revving of the aforementioned chainsaw-bayonets. Gears of War 2 is most fun as a multiplayer game it's the kind of game where you can get some friends together and play all afternoon. As mentioned, it gets kind of repetitive, but the multiplayer experience is enough to overcome that.
Rating: 8/10.
We purchased this game with our own funds from a game store.
Honest reviews on Gears of War 2 - Xbox 360
Gears of War 2 Circa 2008GOOD:
Intuitive cover system, the cover systems (called Stop-n-Pop) works well and is easy to pick up it also makes for a fun realistic gameplay experience.
Great Co-op Gameplay allows two players to go through the entire game from start to end.
Multiplayer Hoard mode allows up to five players to fight up to 50 waves of enemies on the multiplayer-maps using team work.
Intense multiplayer versus action with plenty of different modes to choose from.
Gorgeous graphics which look even better then the first title, and the animation looks better too.
BAD:
The plot is trite and too over the top at times, as well as being confusing.
Vehicle and turret shooting sections are not very fun and can be tedious.
IF IT FITS YOUR TASTE:
A Sci-Fi First third Person Shooter (Camera behind the player) with quick pacing (Although slower gameplay then lets say Halo 3) that has an emphasis on shooting from behind cover and big explosions.
Cover Play's a big role in this game much like it did in the last, similar to that of Mass Effect and
A Team orientated game especially in the multiplayer sections like Hoard mode
This game is not meant for children or the immature; this game is gory/bloody/violent and has many foul words, although you can turn off some of these features.
Co-op, online versus and Hoard mode will keep you playing this game long after you beaten it.
GAME IT'S MOST ASSOCATED TOO:
Gears of War (Xbox 360/PC)
Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360/PS3)
Dead Space (Xbox 360/PS3)
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ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Some limited collector's editions of this game (that can be found on Amazon) will give you a real to life replica of the Lancer Assault Rifle for home use.
In the limited collector's edition you can get a download for a Golden Lancer Assault Rifle for use in multiplayer only.
Downloading the `All Fonts' (A.K.A. Dark Corners) collection package from Xbox Live Marketplace gives you a ton of new multiplayer maps (which can also be used in Hoard mode as well) and a cut single player/co-op story chapter called `Road to Ruin', which can be played either stealth or "guns blazing".
By beating the original Gears of War on Hardcore mode you can unlock characters (like Kim and Carmine) for use in multiplayer for Gears of War 2.
By beating the game on hardcore mode you can unlock even more characters for use in multiplayer as well as a new difficulty `Insane'.
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