Everything Gears 2 Should Be.

Bombers, am I ever glad I logged onto XBOX Live, and more specifically Gears of War 2 today. This weekend has been designated "Old School Weekend," which means that all of the original Gears of War's multiplayer rules apply to the hotly debated Gears of War 2. Specifically, they've toned down the matches to the original four-on-four and (most importantly) have removed concussive smoke grenades. Upon reading this, I nearly teared up with joy.

Now, to say that they've removed concussive smoke grenades isn't completely accurate. In reality, they've only removed the god-awful animation associated with them and replaced it with exactly what I recommended in my Gears of War 2 review, which is the single, uniform, always-takes-the-same-amount-of-time "cringing" animation normally attached to heavy explosives going off near the player (frag grenades, mortars, etc.). I cannot stress enough what a drastic improvement this is and strongly recommend that anyone previously frustrated with Gears of War 2 pop it in over the weekend and give it another go. Thanks for reading.

Well seeing as I never really played the Gears 1 multiplayer this should be fun for me......I like that they are changing it up a bit

So is this ONLY this weekend? Because I would prefer to have the smoke grenades thing be permanent.

chainging it to 4 players seems to have fucked up the matchmaking system... i was over half an hour before i gave up

This i stupid, if you want it to be exactly like Gears 1 why don't you just play that game?  What's the point of having a sequel if it's going to be exactly like the first one.

Dammit my friend still hasn't returned my copy... at least I bought Left 4 Dead today.

Have they resolved the latency and matchmaking issues? That's the only real thing keeping me away.

This old school idea is fine for the weekend, but not as a permanent update. I like things the way they are with GOW 2, with smokes knocking down people and all.

4 on 4 matches go by pretty damn quick though:D.

I prefer 5v5 but I agree that the concussive smoke grenades were a huge nuisance.

Looks like I'll have to put Gears 2 back in the 360.

I'd be more excited if this was a permanent thing. Still, I'll have to check it out...

Not exactly great fun when you get smoked and pop up through a bridge so it's nice to have them out for a bit.

I sold my copy of Gears 2 long ago but this does sound like a much needed improvement.

WHY DID I ONLY FIND OUT NOW ITS OVER D: !