GEARS OF WAR 2
If you go by the name Pickle, you probably just skimmed over everything else and got to this point. Gears of War 2 was another title that we unfortunately were not able to play. That being said, we did watch Cliffy B. play through the entire 2nd level of the SP portion of the game.
OMG it was awesome!!!!!!!
The graphics looks way better. The bad guys, the vehicles, the weapons – everything is awesome. The story starts with the Locust having the ability to sink entire cities. Everything has fallen except for Jacinto. Apparently the geological structure beneath the city has prevented the Locust from sinking the last human stronghold. But the humans realize that to win this war they must take the fight to the Locusts. To do so they drop people directly into the Locust hell to fight them from the inside. To do this, however, they must fight through everything above ground first.
What we saw was a fight to get to a drop point and OMG was it awesome. There was literally non-stop action through the entire level. Stuff was coming from everywhere; the portions of the mission were varied; and a variety of different tactics were available. The environments can be destroyed so you won’t be able to sit behind a single log for too long while sniping people.
Another cool feature was localized damage. By shooting Locust in the legs you can blow off their legs. It seemed as if the AI (both sides) fought better. How they move has also been addressed to prevent the ability to track them and anticipate their moves.
The chainsaw melee brings up kind of a mini-game where you have to tap B as many times as possible to get the finishing move. Instead of simply chainsawing through the chest, if you hit B fast enough and enough times, you will chainsaw the locust from the taint to the tongue! Bloody entrails everywhere!
You can use Locust as meatshields then toss them aside when they become bullet-ridden and useless. All in all it was amazing. I was in awe the entire time I watched. The battle itself was enormous and everyone played their part.
Multiplayer was not discussed as they are holding back a few surprises. Apparently there are loads more surprises and these will be revealed and confirmed at E3 2008. All that was said was that MP is way more robust, with more maps, more modes and more features that people have come to expect.
CONCLUSION
That was my trip and those are my thoughts. I am truly amazed at what looks to be yet another incredible Fall filled with awesome titles for the Xbox 360. I’m going to have to start saving now if I want to pick up all these amazing games. You should start saving too because you know you are going to want them!!
