Gears of War 2
Spoilers Included - You've been warned!
Now, I'm going to get the record straight and I'm going to say that at first I was thinking that Gears of War 2 would have the Halo 3 effect on me, and I was dreading that the game would become ruin Gears of War.
I can say immediately that I was wrong. Epic took Gears of War and then highlighted everything that was good about Gears of War with not one or two levels of highlighting, but three or four levels to make everything more satisfying.
The first thing I can say that has instantly improved is the graphics, which were brilliant throughout the game apart from the last boss and sometimes the eyes which when I looked at them they seemed to glow. That might have just been me though. When things look as good in the game play as they do in the cut scenes, you won't find me complaining at them. Sure, textures on characters sometimes take a while to load up just like they do on Gears of War, but that didn't really get in the way of the game play, and that's fine. It's like it was a major glitch in the game that disrupting my chainsawing of Grubs.
The chainsaw is back, and it's better than before. The chainsaw duels are entertaining, but are spoiled when someone comes up with a shotgun and tears you into pieces. I wouldn't complain, but when chainsawing someone you become immune to damage, as do they, and it feels like a slight betrayal from Epic. That said, I'm not sure that I've ever seen my brother win a chainsaw duel in every time he's had one, which leads me to thinking that it might be a bit bugged in online play, but then again I'm not much of an online player unless the game is that good.
This isn't the only change. Oh no. The Lancer gets less shots per magazine, which I suppose was needed considering how brilliant the weapon seems to have become (I don't think I ever got rid of my Lancer throughout the entire campaign, mostly because it was Dom's signature weapon). The Hammerburst also changed, but again I was okay with that since it was one of the other weapons that I liked from Gears of War, and Epic had made it better in Gears of War 2.
But despite the improvements of weapons Epic still decided on a single shot sniper, and I never got the point in the weapon. What was I meant to do, hope that no one comes near me while I'm trying to reload and hiding behind the biggest wall I can find? I'm not much of a sniping player anyway (well, I can't snipe against anything non-AI unless I'm having a good day on Counter-Strike: Source), so it doesn't make much difference, but come on! The Torque Bow is still a one hit one kill weapon if you've loaded it enough to make it penetrate and I felt that it was still just a better, more accurate, version of the sniper. Ooo, rara. Still, whenever I fired the bloody thing I killed a Grub of some kind with it.
When Carmine came back as a new Carmine out of four, I was wondering whether they'll be more Gears of War games. You know who you are at Epic thinking that this was going to be a good idea. Don't ruin the idea now. This said, the other new character they introduced, Tai, struck me as a bad egg as soon as I saw him. Seriously, the guy talked as if everything was going on for some kind of mystical reason and he was covered in bloody Gaelic Tattoos (or something like them). This didn't strike me as good character design and looked out of place, even in Gears of War where you have some of the biggest, henchest guys in the world. Sure he was big, but I didn't like Tai. In fact, I hated Tai, and I was glad when he blew his head off after being tortured by Locust. I took some small joy in knowing that "tough as a Brumak" Tai could be broken. Even more as he pulled the trigger.
Baird had character improvement. I wasn't much of a fan of him in Gears of War, but in Gears of War 2 he was a much more sarcastic, go-with-the-flow character and someone that I could relate to in a broader sense, and rose to be my favourite character, other than Cole, because of his wit. Cole was my favourite character again because of his slag off of the Queen, which, lets face it, was funny. And he got away with it, whereas if Marcus or Dom had done it, I don't think it would have sounded as good.
The lighting and colours in the game are improved along with the rest of the graphics, and its noticable. Rather than dull industrial steel grey and coffee brown, there's a few interesting splashes of blue and red on the weapons and armour, and many other colours on the terrain, which admittedly gets repetitive throughout the campaign.
The vehicle sequences throughout the game were exciting at first, but riding a Brumak or a Reaver quickly had its appeal wear off when you realise how easy the game is while piloting them, and the Centaur Tank was just complicated to control. Let's face it, it was. Defending Betty from Cysts was at least fun and made me feel back at home in a Space Invaders like style of game play (stop looking at me like that, would you?).
Cover was improved again, although the destructable cover was something I didn't like. If cover is destructable, shouldn't it actually be destructable Red Faction style? All I ever seemed to do was blow three inches of cover away with five rounds that could have been better saved until a Grub poked its butt ugly face out for me to turn into pasta.
Nevertheless, Gears of War 2 doesn't really fail to deliver, but I found it was just another of the standard super human damage absorbing, power armoured hero shooter games that started to become common ever since health systems were deemed inferior to recoverable damage where you can pull an axe out of your chest and say that you're up to running a marathon. Then again, I suppose then players don't have to worry about wandering around looking for medipacs or actually thinking about how they're going to go in all guns blazing before hiding to regain their health before they start suffering from deadness.
On to the "horror" aspect of the game. It's only brief, and you might not have noticed it, but I did. Now, I'm a person who would quite happily play Project Zero 3 or Silent Hill 2 at midnight with all the lights off. That gets my horror thrills going quite happily. Gears of War 2 surprised me. I got when Marcus and Dom raided that labratory, and the fact of the matter was because I wasn't clicked into horror mode. I wasn't expecting all the atmosphere that came with the lab, and I certainly got scared at that part of the game just simply because I've never encountered a shooter that actually has real horror in it (or am I one of the few people in the world who didn't find Half Life 2's Ravenholm scary because it was so cliched and poorly done?). Looking back at it, Gears of War 2's lab was nothing more than glorified Resident Evil 4. Needless to say, I was impressed. Epic did epic by actually implimenting horror correctly into Gears of War 2.
There was also the cut scene where Dom found Maria. Again, I was surprised and I felt sympathy for Dom. The emotions were real, the acting was well above the standards of other games I'd played, and I suppose the whole cut scene got me in closer with Dom than it ever had before.
Another surprise was waiting to spring its trap on me; Adam Fenix. Adam frikkin' Fenix! Just how had he learned about Jacinto's weakness, and how it could actually destroy the Locust? Why did the Locust Queen respect him? As many questions were "answered" in Gears of War 2, I had a dozen others cropping up left, right and centre and overwhelming me. Why does the Imulsion effect Locust? What is Imulsion? Who are the Locust? Why wasn't the Locust Queen butt ugly like Cole expected her to be? Where did the Locust come from? Why immediately start a war on the humans at all? How did humans get to Sera? How did the Locust get to Sera? More and more of these questions came up and the more and more I thought about them, the more I wanted to find out. Epic, stop playing cliffhanger with me and give me my plot exposition, damnit!
Now, as much as Gears of War 2 surprised me, and I'll admit I enjoyed it, but the last boss fight against the Lambent Brumak looked, well, crap. It looked half down and rather rushed during the game play, the graphics seeming to have been dropped as if it had been put there at the last minute to give players a boss fight and even the beams from the Hammer of Dawns were pathetic compared to what they looked like earlier in the campaign., and actually fighting it was basically fighting a glorified Berserker from Gears of War. I was sad about Skorge dying earlier on the Hydra. If you got to refight Skorge then I don't think I'd have minded so much, but you kill the Lambent Brumak and then the game ends and Epic tried another emotional card with Marcus not being able to contact Anya, although I felt it was rather obvious that she survived on the Raven that Cole was on. Just why did Marcus care about Anya? There's more there than meets the eye.
As if the ending wasn't bad enough, I also couldn't believe just how many large, scary big ass monsters I'd gotten to kill or help kill alongside my brother. A few Seeders, a horde of Reavers, seven or eight Brumaks, a Lambent Brumak, a large fish, a Riftworm, four Corpsers, a Torture Beast, Skorge's Hydra. I wouldn't have been surprised if half a dozen Corpsers attempted to eat you all at once... oh wait they did... Dom and Marcus: Professional Monster Killers. In addition I'm half willing to bet that the Razor Hail replaced the Kryll as well, as they both pretty much had the same effect in tearing you to pieces for stepping outside of the safe zone, but I don't think anything could replace a Berserker. Epic, give me my plot exposition and my Berserkers, damnit!
Well, if I played games on the 360 online, I'd start rambling about Gears of War 2's online modes right about now, but as it is I don't play them online, unless I steal my brothers account while he plays on the computer and I kill some Americans/Russians/Middle-Easterns/British blokes on Call of Duty 4, so instead I'll mention Horde Mode.
Horde Mode, just like the online multiplayer, gives you up to four team mates in which you and them can run around a multiplayer map killing Locust and avoiding all getting killed and surviving as long as possible without being killed and actually thinking about placement. Oh, good times. There aren't many game modes that I find fun that aren't a main part of the game, but Gears of War 2's Horde Mode is definitely a good, fun mode that you can play either cooperatively or if you want a laught try playing Horde Mode competitively to get the most points and kills although still with some cooperativeness to undown your partner/s if you can. Even on single player Horde Mode can be fun because there's more thinking going on than in usual play.
Some people can say that Gears of War 2 sucks because of its bad Multiplayer, but I don't buy that. I couldn't give a rat's arse about the multiplayer and while some of you may be asking how I'm getting my money's worth out of the game I'm easily getting my money's worth from it because of the Campaign and Hode Mode. There's something satisfying about the game and on the whole it's a rather solid game, if a bit dodgy around the corners, but it's like dolly mixture. Cheap Asda dolly mixture maybe but it's still dolly mixture. If there was a game I could complain about not getting my money's worth from then I'd be tempted to point out Halo 3, Call of Duty 5 (World at War for the people who'll refuse to call it Call of Duty 5, as I know there will be) or Half Life 2 (although Half Life 2's online isn't so bad, but considering I get that free from Counter Strike: Source that really doesn't make me feel bad playing that for the umpteen million Gig that Half Life 2 eats). If you don't like Gears of War 2 then go back to Gears of War, and as for me I think I'll go play Horde Mode for a little while.
