I bought Gears of War 2 on launch day and took it over to my friend Pete’s house, where me, he, and yet another Pete played through the entire thing splitscreen over a period of 48 frenzied alcohol- and Red Bull-fueled hours. As one Pete put it, “it was like a day and a half of chainsawing aliens, broken up by a nap and a walk.”
So, the verdict? Gears 2 is excellent. I recommend it for children as young as seven anyone who loved the first or wants to really get their adrenaline pumping with the absolutely outstanding sequel to one of the best shooters ever.
I’ve got a longer review in the offing, because there’s one specific thing I want to complain about (a thing so bad, so appalling, so shameful, that I am going to knock a point of Gears 2’s score for it), but it may take me a while to work up a suitably wordy diatribe. In the meantime, take this as an early warning.
I can’t wait to hear what it is you want to complain about. It sounds gut-wrenchingly, heart-burn-inducingly awful.
I’m loving the game. But there are too many timing puzzles.
And what’s with being inside the worm? I am dubious.
But still, loving.
Here is my take on the game:
It’s really a lot of fun. I played it through entirely and never got bored with it. No game does combat better. It just feels so visceral and the gunfights look incredibly cinematic.
I always thought that fight near the fountain in the first game was one of the best sequences of the game – where you are defending the fountain from attacks from all sides. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in that and the developers picked up on that as there are a number of sequences with a similar feel.
The flame thrower is awesome. Lots and lots of fun.
Thinking back on it, the story didn’t make much sense at all really. I still have no clue what about 75% of the game was about. Then again, a game like this is all about kicking ass, so the story is really not all that important. But still, it was completely non-sensical. For the first part of the game we were trying to stop the villians from accomplishing their goal, then, all of a sudden, we were deadset on accomplishing the villians’ original goal. It was an odd role reversal.
Also, the game didn’t feel that challenging. While we played on “normal” level instead of “hardcore”, we never really had too much difficulty with any particular scene or fight. Sure, we had to try somethings a handful of times before succeeding, but it was pretty rare.
The co-op Horde game is a lot of fun. It’s just you and your buddy against wave after wave of villians. The horde consists of a wide mix of villains, some I don’t recall from the game.
There is one guy called a “Butcher”, who is this giant fat Loctus with a meat cleaver in one hand and a hook instead of a hand on the other arm. It’s unpleasant when he gets close enough to use that on you.
I also saw something that maybe in the main game, but we never saw until we played the Horde. My buddy was wounded and trying to get me to revive him. As he was crawling towards me one of the Loctus’ jumped on his back and pummelled him to death with his fists. Brutal stuff. I didn’t last much longer after that.
Matt, I’ve just noticed this piece (thank god for the Tap at Random feature), but noticed you never followed up with a review.
I’m intrigued now. What was the awful thing about it that you hated?
It was that ridiculous crawl-through-the-worm thing. The level might as well have been called “We got drunk and overdid it with the green particle effects, so follow the NPCs and maybe you’ll survive.”
Plus crawling through a worm is silly. And making you do it twice is especially silly! Nonetheless, it was an awesome weekend. My liver doesn’t thank me, but everything else does.
Ah, I’m pretty sure the only reason I didn’t just assume it was that part anyway was because my brain has tried to suppress it.
Ridiculous scene. I also hated the ending, although in fairness I tend to hate most videogame endings.
I am looking forward to Gears 3. I guess it’s a sort of guilty pleasure, in a way.