Top 10 Causes of Death in Gears of War 2 Insane Difficulty

I recently completed Insane mode on Gears of War 2 by myself and considered all the times I got wasted. I died a whole lot from start to finish, and while it didn't go as badly as I thought . . . it was a rough ride. I figure I'll also use this as a chance to test out the list feature and see if I can actually get it to work. I'll start simple with a top ten, because ten is a nice number. And I guess, as a warning just in case, this will contain spoilers. Cause . . . it's through the whole game. For those people who haven't beaten Gears of War 2 and somehow haven't found out already, you've been warned. Heh.

Basically, any time I had to restart at a checkpoint is counted as a death for some perspective.

List items

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  1. Reavers

  <b>Reaver Missiles</b>: At No.1, more than anything else in the game. I was blown to kingdom come millions of times by Reaver missiles. It feels like fake difficulty sometimes, because the Reavers have no attack animation for launching one-hit-kill missiles. They don't even have to be looking at you and can fire out of the corner of their mouths! I hid behind a barrier for a minute waiting for a Reaver to shoot it's missile at me so I could dodge it. Then, when I got tired of waiting it killed me as soon as I popped my head out. Anytime a Reaver showed up, I ran for the hills . . . and died a few dozen times before actually getting past it.

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  2. Bullet

  <b>One Bullet Too Many</b>: Easy enough, getting shot to death is No.2. It took me a few seconds to adjust because I forgot how quickly you can die in Insane mode just from a few shots to the dome. Just like in Gears of War Insane, a Locust dude with a pistol can waste you in no time flat. Grenadiers with shotguns will eat you up. Even the Hammerburst is more than enough to put some blood on the streets.

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  3. Satellite Dish

  <b>Protecting the Com Array</b>: Near the end of the game you're tasked with protecting a series of com dishes from Reavers. For whatever reason, I failed hundreds and hundreds of times before finally pulling it off. I don't know if it's my lack of skill with turrets, or leading targets, or what, but this ranks as No.3 as the place where I died/failed the most. I even completed the objectives and still lost because the bomb the Reaver dropped blew up the dish as the game said I passed.

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  4. Tickers

  <b>Tick, Tick, Ticked Off</b>: Man, I was blown up by these little guys over and over again. It's a little tough to melee them because you have to jump out into the open and get shot to death. Kantus are pretty bad about summoning them BEHIND you, so you get blown up before you know what's going on. Plus you have an annoying boss battle where between a hail of gunfire, ink bombs, and falling pillars- tickers!

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  5. Cover System

  <b>Stickin' to the Wrong Wall</b>: Just to be clear, this is when I make a dumb mistake and take cover up against a wall in clear view of a mortar or Locust firing squad. Really, more than a few of my deaths were about jumping out into the open instead of moving up, jumping over a wall into a crowd of Wretches, etc. Although, it kind of sucks when your team takes all the good hiding spots and refuse to let you in because there isn't enough room. Heh.

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  6. Centaur

  <b>Stupid Vehicle Sections</b>: In my opinion, Gears of War 2 is marred by its vehicle sections. Whether you're driving the stupid tank, riding on an unsafe assault derrick, flying a Reaver, you're in for real pain. The ice lake killed me endlessly. I was shot down dozens of times on a reaver. By the time I got through these sections I let out a sigh of relief that I could get back to shooting dudes and taking my life into my own hands.

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  7. Leviathan

  <b>Fish or Be Fished</b>: The fish monter you have to kill after fight over boats got me again and again because I'm pretty bad about timing the run into it's mouth. I couldn't tell if it closed faster on Insane mode, but I got chomped again and again. One of the tentacles even took down the boat because I got caught on a crate and couldn't move. I died more than I thought I would on the stupid fish monster.

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  8. Dominic Santiago

  <b>Teammate Suicide Missions</b>: I got Dom's picture, but really, Baird was bad about it too. A few times they went out and launched a suicide mission without telling me. They run right into the most dangerous part of the firefight, get whacked and then expect me to save them. This got really bad in the Locust Underground right before the queen. Dom was more about getting shot than helping me out. Way to go Dom. And Baird, you're crazy too.

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  9. Mulcher

  <b>Mulched!</b>: This is actually more like Mulchers and turrets. These weren't nearly as bad even though they'll waste you in a second or two if you're caught out in the open. When I did get killed, it was because a Grinder showed up around a corner or right behind me and cover was a little too far to make it.

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  10. Torque Bow

  <b>Taken Out by the Torque Bow</b>: If I had to guess before hand what would kill me most, I probably would have picked the Torque Bow. Theron Guards are surgical with these things, but they didn't really make their mark as many times as I thought. I was only blown up a couple of times through the whole underground, a few weren't even a direct hit. I count myself lucky.