Score: 92%

In short:

Gears of War 2 is a third-person co-op action game for the Xbox 360. It’s mostly awesome and you should play it.

In slightly more detail:

Gears 2 picks up where the first game left off. If you didn’t play the first game, it won’t be much of a problem, although some story elements may seem confusing to you. I recommend playing the first game before this one for a couple of reasons: it’s great, and if you play it after this one, it won’t be so great. That’s because Gears 2 tops the first game in literally every way.

The core gameplay involves you (and a buddy over Live or split-screen, or an AI with very little I) taking on the Locust horde before they conquer the planet for their own mysterious reasons. You wield a pretty wide assortment of weapons this time, including newcomers like the mortar and flame thrower. Aside from the cooperative play, the real hook is the cover system. The game is structured so that unless you routinely take cover upon entering an encounter, you WILL die. You go in and out of cover by pressing the A button. I personally prefer the cover system of Rainbow Six Vegas, but this one works fine.

In addition to the regular fighting, there are short cinematics used to move the story along. These are usually entertaining, and if you’ve played the first game, you’ll catch a few references that will slip by newcomers. A minor complaint is that your character, Marcus Fenix, is always shown holding the Lancer rifle (the one with the chainsaw), regardless of what weapon you are actually holding.

The action is also changed up by “vehicle” segments. I put that in quotes for a couple of reasons. First, I’m using the term vehicle very broadly here, but won’t go into more detail due to spoilers. Also, in a couple of cases, you could call these “turret” segments; you aren’t actually driving, you are manning a turret. I found the turret sequences to be far more difficult than the rest of the game. Part of this is due to the turrets often not moving very quickly. Even when they weren’t hard, they weren’t very fun.

There are a couple of boss battles, but they definitely break out of the mold of what you might expect. There isn’t a lot of “shoot the eye when it opens” action. You also will probably feel cheated by the last boss, since the encounter is a complete push-over.

You may have heard about how this game’s story was going to be all dramatic and intense; while it is true that there is more emotion than the first game, it certainly didn’t have me in tears. There is a key emotional scene during the game, but I found it very strange that it really isn’t brought up again later, at least not in discussion. I know that’s vague, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Click the link below for the second page.

Pages: 1 2