Review: Gears of War 2

The first Gears of War was a game that made the cover system famous. Epic essentially perfected upon the formula of a “stop ‘n pop” shooter with the game; delivering intense battles which forced you to make effective use of every car, rock or piece of furniture available for refuge from the barrage of bullets. The intense action, intuitive cover system, and over-the-shoulder perspective, inspired by Resident Evil 4, cemented Gears of War as a game that would define the modern third-person-shooter. And so it has.

How, then, could any developer improve upon such a genre-defining games? One could make a game that is even more of the same adrenaline-fueled battles.

Thus Gears of War 2 begins, starting you in a hospital which is soon taken under siege by the Locust horde. Much of the entire first act, while inside and around the hospital, will remind players of the first game; you’ll find yourself in a narrow hallway or cramped room, running to cover, blindfiring, popping out to take a shot, then back into cover to blindfire and regenerate health. In fact, many players may ask themselves if they paid for a “Gears 1.5” rather than a true sequel. Yet these moments, as reminiscent of the past game as they are, still offer awe-inspiring moments unlike those in the first game. For example, while fighting through the hospital you’ll find yourself looking out the window to see dozens of COG soldiers below fighting off their Locust adversaries. The sense of scale in moments like these is immense.

But Gears of War 2 is not content to just be more of what its predecessor has already done, instead changing up the gameplay and setting quite often during its ten to fifteen hour stay. You’ll travel everywhere, from the glowing-fungi-covered inner-caves of Sera, to a snowy mountaintop. The environments aren’t all cosmetic, though, as in one you’ll find yourself in a storm of “razorhail” (which as you can assume is a precipitation that will tear through your flesh like a cleaver through a cut of beef) hastily moving from overhead cover to overhead cover in order to avoid being obliterated. But one stage is so distinct, so different that it will stick in your mind above all the others. It’s a stage in which you are, essentially, in a platformer very reminiscent of the castles in Super Mario World; you’ll have to avoid giant crushers, which come from the ceiling, acid spewers, and even run for your life. It’s truly a level the experience of which no shooter can attest to.

Stringing together all these locales is the story, something which Epic has taken rather seriously this time. The plot focuses on Dom’s search for his lost wife (something briefly touched upon in the first game). Along for the journey with the original crew are new characters, specifically the lovable redneck Dizzy, and the spiritual warrior Tai. Dizzy is a character that is as shallow, fun, and lovable a character as you’d want him to be, while Tai is never really touched upon. In fact, Tai doesn’t have much of an introduction, as all the characters seem to know him, yet it is never fully explained to the player how Tai knows the members of Delta.

These AI-controlled partners are a lot smarter this time around. In the first Gears players felt as if they were babysitting their squadmates, whom always seemed to be running headfirst at the enemy without thinking to fire. This time around squadmates effectively use cover, blindfire, and tact to take on the enemy. You’ll find yourself able to pay more attention to the battle at hand than the health of your squadmates as they can now revive each other after being downed. In fact, you’ll actually see your squadmates taking down enemies this time around; they’ve really become an asset to the team.

Musical quality was something the original game excelled at; delivering triumphant melodies in the heat of battle. The sequel has not shied on this aspect at all. The music is great, but never in the way. Approaching film-quality pieces, the music helps deliver the whole feel of Gears of War 2, while never outwearing its welcome. It’s always there, setting the feel of the scene, yet you won’t really remember it after the fact. It doesn’t try to be so loud that it outweighs all the other sounds; it knows its place in setting the mood and doesn’t overstep the boundary.

The sound effects have greatly improved from the first game to the second. The guns now have the weight you’d expect them to have; the Lancer, which in the original sounded more like a toy than a gun, now has a hefty weight to each shot. The game’s effects are now much more satisfying; every gun sounds as powerful as it should, each shot to an enemy has the satisfying squish you’d expect.

The multiplayer of the original Gears of War was little more than an afterthought; something that seemed tacked on at the last moment. Players had to host a match, or join one already being hosted, game settings could not be changed after a game had started (meaning players had to create an entire new game to merely change the after a match is over), among many other problems such as lag and a “host advantage.” Yet the multiplayer still caught on with gamers the world over, allowing Gears of War to even surpass the numbers of Halo 2, the then-dominating online game.

This time around, Epic definitely took multiplayer into a large consideration. Along with the traditional smattering of deathmatch variants (such as the classic Wingman and Execution and new King of the Hill), new modes such as Guardian, Submission and Wingman help keep the multiplayer fresh. Guardian, like the previous title’s Assassination, revolves around killing a particular player on the opposing team. Only this time, as long as a leader remains alive his teammates have the ability to respawn, giving players true incentive to taking out the enemy’s leader first while bringing the utmost importance to defending their own. In Submission players vie to capture the “flag,” only, in this case, the flag is an AI-controlled human. Adding to the regular “Capture the Flag” insanity, the “meatflag” does not like to be captured and will fight against all opponents to avoid capture (this mode makes heavy use of the game’s new “meatshield” mechanic, allowing players to hold a downed enemy as a shield).

Yet none of these gametypes change the inherent strategy as much as Wingman. The mode puts players into five teams of two in what can be considered this game’s “free-for-all” gametype. The winner in Wingman is not decided by number of rounds won, like in other modes, but by overall number of kills. This brings up a strange strategical mix where players have to play defensively in order to keep themselves alive, but at the same time offensively as slacking off on killing enemies could mean losing the match.

You have to feel sorry for these gametypes, though; as fun and unique as they are, they’ll still always live in the shadow of one other gametype: Horde. This cooperative mode pits up to five players against multiple waves of Locust on any of the fifteen multiplayer maps. Each wave increases in size and difficulty, with every ten waves increasing the enemy’s strength, health or accuracy, forcing players to work together in order to reach the fiftieth, and last, wave.

Allowing you to face off against your enemies are the multiplayer maps themselves. These maps include ten all-new maps on the disc and downloadable remakes of five of the first game’s maps (Canals, Gridlock, Mansion, Subway, and Tyro Station) that come free with every new copy of the game. The new maps offer all-new gameplay variety and seem to be almost perfectly balanced. Avalanche, for instance, has a mid-match, well, avalanche, that can effectively wipe out an entire team. This raises the terrain in the middle of the map, allowing access to weapons such as the Boomshot, while blocking off access to the previously placed grenades. There’s also Hail, a map in which the previously-mentioned “razorhail” will periodically fall down on players, making both teams rush for overhead cover. Even the remade maps have a unique look and feel to them, with Mansion feeling even more run-down and Canals given a winter setting (meaning no water, of course).

Tying the entirety of the multiplayer together is the new matchmaking system. Much like in other games that utilize matchmaking, Gears of War 2 has playlists including various gametypes, allowing players to choose which smattering of modes they want to experience. Using Microsoft’s own TrueSkill system, the game matches players up based on their skill. Once finding a match, users then vote on one of two gametypes and maps to play(unlike games such as Halo 3, players get to see, and vote on, both choices).

The overall system works very well, but is not without its hiccups; such as in cases where the matchmaking system decides to be overly slow. When in groups of one or four people, matches are often overly hard to find and it can take upwards of fifteen minutes to find one. There are also some balance issues. For example, you would expect that when shot, a player’s chainsaw would be lowered, yet this does not happen. Many times came up where a chainsawer was shot twice with a shotgun and the chainsaw still did not lower, allowing the player with the shotgun to be chainsawed by the nigh-invincible chainsaw user. There is even a glitch that allows the user to wield the Boomshield (a one-handed shield that is impervious to most bullets, though only allows its user to use pistols) with any of the game’s weapons. These glitches and unbalances are a problem; yet somehow do not detract from the overall enjoyment of the multiplayer experience.

Altogether, Gears of War 2 is an ultra-satisfying experience. It delivers on the intense, gritty combat that Gears fans have come to love, while also spicing up the variety to keep things fresh. The graphics are as lush and beautiful as you’d expect from a sequel to the best looking game of 2006, while the sound lives up to the standards the first game had set. The multiplayer has been given a lot of thought this time, delivering rich and unique modes that only the guys at Epic could offer. And while it has its share of hiccups in the programming, such as an overpowered chainsaw, these do nothing to detract from the overall experience of playing the quintessential shooter of 2008.

Score: 5/5

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