Gears of War 2 review (360)

Cheers Epic/Microsoft. We appreciate you creating one of the most anticipated games of the year, exciting us all with promises of defeating Brumaks this time around, and giving us more questionably homo-erotic cover-taking warfare. We just wish you’d bothered to send us a review copy, then we would have taken a look at it back when it actually mattered. Now it’s too late to dissuade three million of you from purchasing the game based on a few paragraphs of my text. Actually you’re right, it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference, but in the hope that it teaches you for the inevitable Gears 3, here’s what we think.

Okay, so I’m hardly going to slate the game; I’ve been enjoying it immensely myself, but there are a few points that I think need addressing and shouldn’t be ignored based on the fact that it’s still overall plenty of fun. Before all that however, despite no-one besides Epic will probably even care what we have to say at this late stage, here’s a quick recap of what we’re talking about.

The cover system

Gears of War took the Xbox 360 by storm, with a fantastic exclusive to show off their nice new next gen version of the Unreal Engine (v3 at this point unless I’m mistaken). It was one of the first major games to really get a decent cover system working correctly. Essentially a 3rd person run and gun shooter, being able to slam your body against whatever there is around you by hitting the A button is remarkably well executed, allowing you to pop out from cover, take a few shots, and move back in with a beautifully quick and reactionary system. The fact that the game looked pretty damn stunning at the same time may have contributed to the success too.

Essentially you’ve got an alien race known as the Locust that have been watching too many Tom Cruise movies and actually hidden themselves within the planet of Sera, only to pop out in various ‘emergence holes’ to take on Humanity and generally cause chaos with their varying troop types and weaponry. Based on another planet, an obvious sci-fi edge lines the game from our own technology to fictional places and the tone of the game is held with some solid if slightly cheesily macho voice acting including the lead character Marcus Fenix (still) voiced by John Di Maggio; Bender of Futurama fame.

And we’re back

The second game brings us in pretty soon after the first game’s missions. Apparently the war wasn’t ended by the massive Lightmass bomb attack on the Locust infrastructure, but coincidentally a new idea for how to defeat them once and for all develops and you’ll be in the thick of it from the get go. The controls are familiar and apparently slightly improved. Actually, everything seems tweaked and improved, which is kind of what you’d hope; visuals are generally stunning, with some effects being both gruesome and brilliant from injured friendlies leaving trails of blood as they crawl to an other blood effect that I daren’t spoil which takes gruesome to a whole new level.

Unfortunately, the only area that seems to have suffered is the actual game design. The flow of the single player campaign is varied and progressive, but has a few serious flaws that really left me with a sour taste. Whereas the first game gave us a couple of tremendous boss battles with Bezerkers, blind lumbering beasts impervious to your bullets that smash through scenery to get to you if you make too much noise, this game gives you nothing even remotely as exciting or terrifying.

Glorifying the Gears

Indeed it seems like the designers had a brainstorming session where they listed what would be cool to include in Gears 2 and just threw them in without any thought of what was missing, or how these features would fit into the flow of actually playing it through. Sure, you’ll get to fight atop a massive moving tank with Locust forces grappling up to try to reach you, and a load of other moments that aren’t already revealed in official trailers, but we’re lacking much of a crescendo or payoff anywhere.

Sure, you’ll fight the aforementioned Brumaks a few times in the game, but you’ll be given weaponry so powerful that it’s never really a challenge beyond aiming it properly. There is even a fantastic build up portion that has you infiltrating a lab and consecutively switching off turrets that are impeding your progress as you get deeper into finding what is buried within.

And the secret enemy within is…?

It’s a complete let down. Let’s face it, we all knew they were going to burst through the glass. We expected such a dangerous enemy that you’d have to retrace your steps switching the turrets back on in an attempt to slow it or them down as you escape to your vehicle outside and the heavy weaponry. What do you actually find? An enemy that can be taken down by holding the B button to activate your weapon’s chainsaw and getting close enough to cut it in half in one swoop.

Fair enough, it’s got to be a challenge to get that close to it though, right? No, these ‘Sires’ have no ranged weaponry which means that after a massive build up to a potentially exciting fight they run directly at you and into your chainsaws. No excitement, no danger, no payoff. And it doesn’t even end there. The final two ‘levels’ are a complete waste of time. Again another build up through the last third of the game to empower a certain type of new enemy, only to find a mutation of this enemy into the scariest thing you could hope to see while deep in Locust territory. Of course you’re carrying a super weapon and don’t even have to hide in cover for the ‘battle’. Another waste of a potentially great moment.

Saving a friend

It’s such a frustration for me that these issues weren’t considered before release, or perhaps early enough to change, because it seriously impedes my ability to give this game the score I was hoping it would receive. Fear not though, the rest of it is superb. Some other fantastic moments mean that the game isn’t devoid of greatness beyond its standard shooting section that Gears 1 saves the new game with. An aquatic boss is visually astounding and totally satisfying, while a rather poor visual effect for ‘Razor-Rain’ doesn’t decrease the fun of the unique gameplay attribute.

The most pleasure from Gears 2 has to be in multiplayer, and I’ve very much enjoyed playing the campaign with friends in ever more challenging difficulties. The dialogue that you’ll hear as your friend needs you to save him however is nothing compared to the new five way coop based game type known as Horde.

Lots of enemies then?

Essentially you’ve got one of the multiplayer maps, and up to five of you must group together and defeat an ever toughening ‘horde’ of locust. It really shows the power of teamwork and is immensely satisfying to claw victory in each round back from the edge of defeat. 50 rounds of random enemies, weighted in difficulty to provide a growing challenge on plenty of different maps mean that you’ll happily go back to try a few more rounds or secure a better point to defend yourselves from.

Standard multiplayer fare is tweaked by the ‘MeatFlag’ which is essentially a living flag to capture, using the new gameplay mechanic of using a human (or rather locust) shield. Wingman gives you and a friend the task of defeating other teams of two to become victorious while my favourite multiplayer gametype gives each team infinite respawns until their randomly chosen leader is killed, and then it’s simply a case of exterminating the opponents before they wipe you all out.

Yes, there’s plenty of content there, and while the issues about the campaign structure are important, and perhaps some of the cover placement in said campaign seems a little too coincidentally placed to help you, Gears of War 2 is immense fun, and will entertain you from start to finish. It’s not hard to recommend the game to fans of the series, but Horde is enough for many others (perhaps fans of Left 4 Dead) to dip in and see what all of the fuss is about. Probably grab a cheap copy of the original too, just to catch up. Let’s just hope that when developer Epic sits in their studio counting their money and deciding on what could happen in Gears 3 they consider that it’s not just the story that needs a satisfying conclusion.