Gears of War 2 is a tactical third-person shooter video game. It is the sequel to Gears of War. The game uses a heavily upgraded version of the Unreal Engine 3. In Gears of War 2, the Locust have found a way to make giant emergence holes capable of sinking entire cities at once. Marcus Fenix and the rest of the COG Delta Squad are now drilling underground to “take the fight to the Locust.” In a teaser of the first scenes of gameplay of Gears of War 2, COG soldiers engage in battle with a large army of Locust as they travel to drill into the underground region.

Gameplay

Gears of War 2 is a third person shooter with an emphasis on the tactical use of cover, and retains much of the same gameplay from the first game. The player, playing as either Marcus or Dom in the campaign mode, or as any of the human or Locust characters in multiplayer mode, can only carry a pistol, one type of grenade, and two other weapons at any time, though they may swap these for weapons found in strategic locations or left by downed foes. Each weapon can be used for normal fire as well as for melee attacks; the game’s signature Lancer, an assault rifle mounted with a chainsaw bayonette, can be used to instantly kill foes. The game introduces the ability to engage in “chainsaw duels” should the player attempt to chainsaw an opponent also using the Lancer; the player is presented with a controller button to press rapidly in order to try to win the duel. Gears of War 2 introduces three new weapons, a chain gun, flamethrower and a mortar cannon, that are heavy and cannot be kept indefinitely as other weapons, forcing the player to move at walking speed while carrying it in both hands. Existing weapons have been “tweaked” to improve their balance. Grenades can be planted on walls or floors as proximity traps that go off when an enemy nears, and have the ability to temporarily knock over foes when they go off.

Gears of War 2

The game encourages the player to use and move between cover effectively to avoid taking damage. The player’s health is represented by a red “Omen of Death” that fades onto the screen the more damage the player takes; staying out of the line of fire allows the player to recover their health. Depending on the game mode, if the player takes too much damage, they will enter a downed state which they can crawl around the map to get out of battle and seek help; during this time, a fellow teammate can revive him, an enemy may brutally execute the downed player, or the player may “bleed out” if too much time has passed. In Gears of War 2, the player can grab a downed character and use them as a “meatshield”, allowing the body to absorb damage but forcing the playing to use a one-handed pistol. Explosive weapons will simply destroy the character it strikes.

Campaign mode

The campaign mode allows for a single player or two players playing co-operatively to complete the game’s story mission as Marcus and Dom, respectively. A new Normal difficulty was added between the game’s Casual and Hardcore difficulties. Players in co-op mode can select different difficulties, and a Communal Combat System will adjust the game’s artificial intelligence to give both players a fair challenge. The co-op campaign can be played in a Drop in/Drop out Manner, with the second player able to join the first player’s game in progress. Instead of collecting COG tags as in the first game, players can search for story-based items such as personal letters and medical records, with discovered items being added to a War Journal.

The campaign features a deeper story with new characters, new weapons, and new enemies. New vehicles have been added to the game, such as the Centaur Tank. Players will also ride a Brumak in the game. Cut-scenes use the better facial rendering technology of Epic’s Unreal engine, and engage in more dramatic angles for the conversation, as well as using a video screen on Jack to talk with their commanders Face-to-Face.

Multiplayer

Gears of War 2 features an upgraded multiplayer mode that allows up to ten users to simultaneously play in teams of five-on-five. Gears of War 2 includes most of the multiplayer modes, including Execution, Warzone, Annex and King of the Hill and adds in three new modes. Guardian is a modified version of Assassination from the original Gears of War, but allows players to continue fighting after the leader has been killed, but losing the ability to respawn. Wingman splits all ten players into five teams of two, where both members of a team play as the same character. Submission, formerly known as Meat Flag is a version of capture the flag in which players attempt to Down an enemy controlled by the game’s AI and move its body to their team’s base to earn points. A Halo-like matchmaking system has been utilized for the online multiplayer. Players can now engage in multiplayer scenarios with any combination of human players and Bots controlled by the game, with the ability to set the bot’s intelligence level.
Horde is a new co-op mode for five players, fighting off waves of attacking Locust together, with each wave becoming more difficult. Horde Mode does not feature bot support as in competitive multiplayer, and can be played alone.

Cameras in the multiplayer modes have also been improved significantly. Rather than static views from different points on a map, the new Battle Cam allows players to pan around a map as the camera focuses on areas of intense fighting, and the Ghost Cam allows a player to roam freely around a map. A photo mode is also featured, with each photo taken by a player rated on the amount of action in the shot and can be uploaded to the official Gears of War website.

Gears of War 2

Plot

With the COG army continuing to lose large numbers to Locust raids, the COG plan a counter-attack against the Locust by sending troops in Grindlifts deep below the surface to attack the home of the Locust, the Hollow. Though they suffer losses due to the leader of the Kantus monks, Skorge, the human forces continue their plan. After their descent, Delta squad, consisting of Marcus Fenix, Dominic “Dom” Santiago and Benjamin Carmine, later joined by Augustus Cole, begin to search the Hollow and discover that the Locust are taking prisoners, as they managed to save Damon Baird from imprisonment. Delta squad finds another imprisoned squad member, Tai Kaliso, who has suffered wounds inflicted by the Locust while torturing him. Though Marcus tries to arm Tai for a fight, Tai instead commits suicide, the physical and emotional trauma too much for him to bear. Delta squad continues to search the Hollow and discovers that the Locust are using a giant Riftworm to eat away at the rock structures at the outskirts of Jacinto in hopes of sinking it. They try to evacuate, but are swallowed by the Riftworm. The squad manages to kill the worm from the inside, but Carmine is killed by parasites.

Delta squad manages to escape to the surface only to be given orders to investigate a nearby abandoned COG outpost where they encounter experimented creatures and learn of a back door entrance to the Hollow in the nearby Kadar Mountains. The team fights its way to the caverns in a Centaur tank and discovers that some Stranded have taken shelter near the entrance. Marcus orders Cole and Baird to evacuate the Stranded while he and Dom search further. They find more prisoner cages and Dom convinces Marcus to help him seek his wife. They manage to find her, but the Locust torture has left her too traumatized and unable to communicate, so Dom chooses to euthanize her. Marcus and Dom continue their assault on Nexus, the Locust capital, and are soon joined by more COG forces from the surface, including Cole and Baird. Delta squad is able to break through the Locust queen’s defenses. They discover that the Locust have messages from Adam Fenix, Marcus’ father, that suggests an alternate way of ending the war, in case they can’t take out the queen; to sink Jacinto in order to let water flood the Hollow and wipe out the Locust. They learn from the Locust queen herself that she is pursuing the same plan not only to wipe out the humans, but to also destroy lambent Locust that have been exposed to Imulsion and are attempting to overthrow the queen. Marcus realizes that humans must sink Jacinto first, before the Locust mobilize and escape to the surface.

Gears of War 2

Delta squad escapes the Hollow on a pair of Reavers, defeating Skorge and his Hydra, and then return to Jacinto where a mass evacuation is underway. The COG have decided that they can sink Jacinto using a Lightmass bomb and Delta squad is ordered to clear debris out of the way in the main sink hole, allowing a helicopter to safely transport the bomb into the caverns. Marcus orders Cole and Baird to assist with the bomb, while he and Dom manage to kill a Brumak driver, hijack the Brumak, and use it to arrive at the Hollow and fulfill their objective. As the helicopters arrive, the Brumak, exposed to high levels of Imulsion, begins to mutate. As it changes, it attacks the helicopter transporting the bomb, which falls into the Imulsion. The Lightmass bomb lost, Marcus comes up with a plan that includes killing the lambent Brumak as a replacement for the bomb. He uses the Hammer of Dawn to kill the Brumak, which explodes, taking out the last supporting structures of Jacinto which sink it, flooding the Hollow with water. As the COG forces and civilians evacuate, a voiceover of the Locust queen talks about unintended legacies.

Post Author: admin

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 10:36 am and is filed under XBox Games Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.