Munkeh111

User Score
9.5

Presentation - 9.5
Gameplay - 9.5
Value - 9.5

Gears of War was a great game, but it had a few issues a poor story and poor campaign, and they have left most of the rest of the game as it is. They have brought in Josh Ortega, a comic book writer and he had done a decent job. They didn't bother trying to make you feel for Marcus, he is the definition of badass, and as they developers have said, you should be able to make your playable character feel like he is you. Dominic Santiago, who accompanies you through the story, is given a story, and while it is certainly better that the first game, it is not going to be winning awards, it is miles better than the first game. What is does a much better job of, is looking at who the locust are, which improves the story leaps and bounds, as does seeing the Seran stronghold of Jacinto. The story is bigger in terms of scope, with entire cities collapsing, and it feature more than just Delta squad. The story does suffer from middle of the series syndrome, but that is to be expected...

The graphics are still phenomial, and this time there is a colour pallete, there are greens and reds, and it is just less brown and a much better looking game. You are also accompanied by many more people, and often see many more enemies on screen, as Cliffy said, it is bigger and better.

There have been many small changes to the cover system, but none of them are really noticable, it still works great, and even more smoothly this time. The campaign is now longer and more varied, still playable in co-op. There are a wider variety of locales and extra weapons, the flamethrower, mortar and mulcher, which are feel different. However, the core gameplay is still intact, you still roll and roadie run around with the active reload system, and it feels like you are playing the first, but just biggger and better.

The enemies are also far more varied, with at least twice the variety. All Epic have done it taken what they had done in the first game, and just mad it better, and responded to all the critcisms. You now take on all the larger enemies, such as the Corpser, which was a boss in the first, and you dispatch several of during the course of the game, and the Boomer, who was fought in the PC version of the first game, but only seen in the Xbox version. More badass indeed!

Another complaint in the first game was that it got repetitive, well now the levels are more varied, with a tank level midway through the game, which certainly does a good job of breaking things up, though may be a little long. There is also a fantastic level at the end, which is just such a relief after fighting through so many locust, it is just perfect placement.

The story is much longer, 10-12 hours and is far less repetitive. The multiplayer, as with any shooter these days, is where most of your time is going to be spent, and certainly at launch it was broken. The matchmaking system, using a true skill rank, was awful, sometimes taking half an hour to connect. Once playing one of the game modes, it can be fun, but due to the high amount of ammo you have to hit someone with to kill them, with regenerative health, the game revolves around shotguns, smoke grenades and chainsaws. It is just not balanced right. However, it is still bigger with games being 5 a side as opposed to 4 in the first

However, there is one major exception, horde mode. You, and up to 4 other players face upto 50 waves of locust. It is incredibly fun, and justifies its place on the main menu. You don't have to just stick to your shotgun, but just huddle up and kill locust, it is just brilliant, one of the best multiplayer modes.

The multiplayer is being fixed by title updates, but it was still initially broken. The most recent update added a CoD style rank system, as opposed to the previous true skill rank.

Overall, Gears 2 is what Clifffy said it would be, and it improves on the first in every way. There are still 1 or 2 issues, but it is certainly a must have game, improving in the areas of weakness that the first had.