Gears Of War was one of the first big blockbusters on the Xbox 360, many wondered how Gears Of War 2 would top it, but don’t worry, Gears Of War 2 is everything it should be and more!
The main character Marcus Fenix returns with his best friend Dominic Santiago, with regular sidekicks Baird and Cole, and new recruits Tai and Carmine (the brother of the Carmine killed in the first Gears) completing Delta Squad. The game starts where the last game finished, where the Lightmass bomb that was dropped at the end of the game to destroy the Locust Horde didn’t. The story of the sequel somewhat focuses on Dom’s search for his wife Maria, which adds more emotion in the story. The main bad guys are the Locust Queen and the equivalent of General RAAM: Skorge, who carries a staff with a chainsaw on either end.
If you thought the stunning visuals in the first Gears were remarkable, the visuals in Gears 2 are truly exceptional, especially in HD. If you just take a minute to look around at the scenery instead of ploughing through seemingly endless waves of Locust Horde you can see that the attention to detail is amazing. Critics would say that Gears 2 is just more of the same with not many improvements to the basic game play and weapons. Many annoyances from the first game have been fixed though, for example no longer will you find Marcus or Dom diving into cover when on a Roadie Run. A few new heavy weapons have been added to the Gears repertoire, the Mulcher Chain Gun and the Mortar launcher which produces almost a mini airstrike!
Another additional feature is that Marcus will no longer die when the red skull fills on the screen; he often falls to the ground and the player can tap A to crawl towards squad members to be revived by them. However an ultimately frustrating moment was when I had been shot down and I had crawled to Dom and he just stood there! Nevertheless the AI Dom is generally more helpful than he was in the original. Vehicles are also much improved where Delta Squad ride on Locust creatures: Reavers and also a Brumak. Another stroke of genius is the addition of chainsaw duels where, in multiplayer, the player who taps 'B' fastest wins the duel and chainsaws their opponent in half!
Gears 2 also features a truly wonderful Horde mode where 5 players can cooperate over Xbox Live to take out waves of Locust Horde, with each player getting one life per wave, there are 50 waves in total, each one getting harder and harder making getting to the last wave almost impossible! Other multiplayer modes are still as good as ever, with the first Gears really setting the bar for online shooters, Gears 2 certainly makes online game play bigger and better and in general Gears 2 is simply that, bigger and better than its predecessor.
9/10
The main character Marcus Fenix returns with his best friend Dominic Santiago, with regular sidekicks Baird and Cole, and new recruits Tai and Carmine (the brother of the Carmine killed in the first Gears) completing Delta Squad. The game starts where the last game finished, where the Lightmass bomb that was dropped at the end of the game to destroy the Locust Horde didn’t. The story of the sequel somewhat focuses on Dom’s search for his wife Maria, which adds more emotion in the story. The main bad guys are the Locust Queen and the equivalent of General RAAM: Skorge, who carries a staff with a chainsaw on either end.
If you thought the stunning visuals in the first Gears were remarkable, the visuals in Gears 2 are truly exceptional, especially in HD. If you just take a minute to look around at the scenery instead of ploughing through seemingly endless waves of Locust Horde you can see that the attention to detail is amazing. Critics would say that Gears 2 is just more of the same with not many improvements to the basic game play and weapons. Many annoyances from the first game have been fixed though, for example no longer will you find Marcus or Dom diving into cover when on a Roadie Run. A few new heavy weapons have been added to the Gears repertoire, the Mulcher Chain Gun and the Mortar launcher which produces almost a mini airstrike!
Another additional feature is that Marcus will no longer die when the red skull fills on the screen; he often falls to the ground and the player can tap A to crawl towards squad members to be revived by them. However an ultimately frustrating moment was when I had been shot down and I had crawled to Dom and he just stood there! Nevertheless the AI Dom is generally more helpful than he was in the original. Vehicles are also much improved where Delta Squad ride on Locust creatures: Reavers and also a Brumak. Another stroke of genius is the addition of chainsaw duels where, in multiplayer, the player who taps 'B' fastest wins the duel and chainsaws their opponent in half!
Gears 2 also features a truly wonderful Horde mode where 5 players can cooperate over Xbox Live to take out waves of Locust Horde, with each player getting one life per wave, there are 50 waves in total, each one getting harder and harder making getting to the last wave almost impossible! Other multiplayer modes are still as good as ever, with the first Gears really setting the bar for online shooters, Gears 2 certainly makes online game play bigger and better and in general Gears 2 is simply that, bigger and better than its predecessor.
9/10
