Gears of War 2 - singleplayer

Two years after the release of Gears of War, Epic Games have given us the sequel to their stop-n-pop tactical action masterpiece. And although the juxtaposition of tactical and action may seem strange - it applies perfectly in this case.

So far, I've been mainly playing campaign so my comments will focus on the singleplayer and co-op campaign mode. Multiplayer commentary to come in a later post.

The short version of this is - Yes, Epic Games have delivered a fantastic sequel worthy of the GoW franchise. And just like before, if you like action games and own an X360, you owe it to yourself to buy this game.

Story
The story picks up shortly after the end of the original Gears of War. By the end of the first game, you were able to kill the bad guys, bed the hot girls, cause mass destruction (using that funky new missile technology I talked about in my original review) and basically save the day. Actually, you don't get to bed any hot girls but hey, three out of four ain't bad (kinda like a modern Bond film, really!).

Unfortunately, that new missile tech doesn't actually kill off all the Locust (fancy that, military intelligence screwing up. I never would have guessed that would happen...). All it seems to do is really piss off the Locust as they are now launching an all out offensive against Jacinto, humanity's last remaining bastion of civilisation and beacon of hope for all humanity. Reinforcements are low and hopes are grim. Basically, the Locust are one step away from wiping out all humanity and playing Dance Dance Revolution on our grave.

By this point in the narrative, the COG (Coalition of Ordered Governments) has its back to the wall and has to resort to desperate measures if humanity is to have any hope of survival. The COG does the only thing it can do. It takes all remaining soldiers and launches an all out offensive against the Locust stronghold.

What a brilliant idea! I'm sure the Gears will only run into minimal resistance as they attack the Locust stronghold. After all, all the Locust will be surrounding Jacinto. Take that Locust! All our base are not belong to you!!!

And this is basically where the game starts. Reprising the role of Marcus Fenix, your job is to take your squad and attack the queen inside the Locust stronghold. Along the way, Dominic Santiago will be looking for his wife and, surprise surprise, the two routes actually converge. Over the course of the campaign, you will kill the bad guys, bed the hot girls, cause mass destruction and basically save the day again. Well, three out of four ain't bad right?

One of the design goals for GoW2 was apparently to make it "bigger, better and more badass". And you really see this come through in the campaign. In addition to the campaign itself being significantly longer, Epic Games have taken full advantage of advancements in their Unreal Engine technology. There are several scenes during the campaign where you are literally facing off against a Locust horde - something they were unable to do in the first game due to the limited number of locust the graphics engine could put on screen.

The other big thing that Epic Games tried to do with GoW2 was to make the storyline more emotional. This is basically where Dom's search for his missing wife comes in. During the course of the campaign, various cinematics detail Dom's and his emotions as he searches desperately for his wife. Unfortunately, the absolutely hammy script and godawful acting prevent you from actually feeling any of the emotions which Epic tried to invoke (although admittedly, the scene where Dom finally succeeds and actually finds his wife is done quite well).

To quote from my first GoW review - Story has always taken second fiddle in action games so I suppose its no surprise that GoW(2) didn't buck the trend.

Gameplay
The gameplay in the first GoW was, to be perfectly honest, superb. In fact, it was so good that, even if Epic didn't make any changes to the gameplay, they could still probably release GoW2 and have a best seller on their hands. Luckily for gamers everywhere, the people at Epic Games aren't quite as lazy as I am and have made a host of tweaks to the gameplay mechanics.

One of the most noticable tweaks is with the cover system itself. With the original GoW, it was quite easy for Marcus to accidentally slide into cover when you were actually trying to roadie run past the cover. In Gow2, although it does still happens occasionally, there are much fewer instances of accidentally jumping into cover. Which is great as I signed up in order to fight the locust, not the controls...

Epic Games have also introduced lots of new toys for you to play around with. Unfortunately, most of the new weapons don't really shine until you get into multiplayer or co-op mode. The problem is that you can only carry two guns. In singleplayer mode, this means that you invariably choose one long range weapon and 1 short and medium range weapon. For long range, I generally prefer the sniper which means my other weapon will generally be the lancer (and its awesome chainsaw - after 2 years, I still love that chainsaw animation!!). Admittedly, this may just have been a problem with my preferences, but I definitely felt that the sniper and lancer combo gave me the best chance of surviving any situation.

However, if you play the campaign in co-op, the new weapons really start to add flavour. At this point, you can grab the other weapons safe in the knowledge that your partner can cover any shortcomings in your weapon pairing. For example, at one point during the campaign, I was armed with the sniper rifle and flamethrower while my partner had the torque bow and lancer.

Our tactics were generally for one guy to go forward and draw fire while the other guy gave covering fire. So if he moved forward, I would stay back with the sniper rifle and headshot any enemies attacking him. Alternatively, if I moved forward, I would use the flamethrower from behind cover (the constant stream of flame from the flamethrower means that it is very effective when blindfiring from behind cover) to burn enemies while safely behind cover. This would force the enemy out of cover and allow my partner to hit him with the torque bow. All in all, a great strategy which worked really well for the most part (we were playing co-op on Insane difficulty).

Of the new weapons, my favourite is without a doubt, the flamethrower - not because it is the most effective but because it looks the coolest. Unfortunately, as a close range weapon, it isn't as good as the lancer (with its instant kill chainsaw). However, the flamethrower just looks awesome. Whenever you use the flamethrower on someone, you first see them light up as they burn. And then if you get the kill using the flamethrower, the dead body is just a charred husk. Too freaking cool!!

Graphics
Again, Epic Games have raised the bar for graphics quality on the X360. Despite being on the same hardware, there is a very noticable upgrade in graphics from the original Gears to the sequel. Possibly, the upgrade in graphics is really noticable because the game is a 3rd person shooter so you really see Marcus (and the characters have an incredible amount of detail on them) up close in lots of situations.

The campaign has also been specially designed to show off the strengths of the Unreal engine. Throughout the campaign, you end up in some really wacky situations which you suspect the developers only thought up so that they could take advantage of the new features of the Unreal engine. Having said that, the lighting effects in this game are incredible. There are a couple of areas where the game is pitch black except for a light from a nearby vehicle or from Jack (your friendly robot AI whose main job is to open doors).

Summary
Another great game from Epic Games and it really looks like they have created another must-have franchise on the X360. Come the end of the year, I would be very surprised if GoW2 didn't pick up several awards in the various gaming publications (although there are some very good candidates this year - its been a good year for gaming).

As with the original GoW, if you like action games and own an X360, you owe it to yourself to buy this game.