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Showing reviews 226-230 of 257
 Nice improvement over Gears 1 November 11, 2008
Eric S. Olstad (New Jersey, USA)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
The first Gears of War remains one of the best games on the 360. Gears 2 improvements may not be so obvious if you are not intimately familiar with the first. Regardless, Gears 2 is an excellent game. It's a must have if you are a fan of the first and a must have if you are a fan of shooters. If you are not a fan of shooters, or at least 1st person shooters, then maybe you will find Gears of War more appealing as it is a 3rd person shooter.
Let me quickly recap what this game is. Skip this paragraph if you are already familiar. Gears of War is an over-the-shoulder shooter that heavily utilizes cover and dodge techniques. You can take cover on just about anything and you can jump out of the way of attacks. This, at the release of the first game, was quite innovative. Only Rainbow Six Vegas had a similar cover system, but no dodge. Since then other games like Dark Sector have taken on the Gears of Wars style gameplay. Gears of War is a gritty and violent game -- not intended for children at all. One of your guns has a chainsaw bayonet, for example (one of my favorite features by the way). You can carry 2 large guns, a sidearm and grenades. You are heavily armored and if take hits, you can retreat to cover to regain your stamina. If you lose your stamina, you drop to the ground and crawl where you are prone to enemy finishing moves. The enemy is a horde of humanoid creatures that live in the ground called Locust. They employ all sorts of brutal techniques with the hopes of eliminating humanity from the world of Sera.
So, the game is a great improvement over the first. There are a few new weapons, such as a flame thrower, a high caliber burst pistol, a large chain gun (that you don't have to drop your current weapon to use) and a mortar cannon. The new weapons are great, and the mortar makes the first appearance in any game that I am aware of. They implement it nicely too -- holding down the trigger for a duration to set the distance. There is also the ability to use enemies as human/meat shields, and they also include a large metal shield that works similar to the meat shield. These new additions on gameplay add greatly to the strategy involved in the game.
They also included more finishing moves that you can execute when your enemy is crawling along the ground. Each gun has its own move. You can still curb stomp or you can climb on top and punch them to death. And of course you can pick them up and use them as a meat shield. Each of the face buttons on the controller are mapped to one of those 4 different finishing options.
As far as gameplay tweaks go, the cover system is vastly improved though it may be a subtle difference. You can take cover on just about everything where as the first game it only worked on certain things. Jumping in and out of cover is also more friendly. Previously, the chainsaw kills were frustrating when 2 people went at eachother with the chainsaw. Now, they included chainsaw duels where you have to rapidly tap the B button faster than your opponent.
Basically, the gameplay is nicely improved. It's hard for me to think of way to improve it further.
The new multiplayer modes add tremendously to the replay value of the game. My favorite new mode is Horde, where you take on wave after wave of increasingly difficult computer-controlled Locusts with up to 4 buddies or comparatively matched people on Live. This is a feature that has long been lacking in shooters. Tom Clancy games have terrorist hunt, but it's nothing like this.
There are of course the tried and true multiplayer matches like king of the hill and this and that. Gears 2 certainly includes all of that, and I am very pleased with that as well.
I highly recommend this game.
 Unplayable Multiplay game November 11, 2008
D. Kaufman
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
The old adage comes to mind if it isnt broke do not fix it.Well instead of epic just fine tuning the multiplay from GOW1 they instead took the whole lobby system,shotgun system and play mechanics and trashed it.Also their are serious Lag issues here that in itself make the game a joke/unplayable again and again.
First off they had a great lobby system in GOW1 why did they alter it into this abomination.Your now waiting around for sometimes 10 minutes(yes ten minutes) and on a board where your guessing which game your in and who your playing.Its a crapshoot ! If you want to play ranked warzone well your out of luck here.Epic really dropped the ball here.Plus you can no longer just drop in unranked matches. The game from this perspective just go and play has been ruined I must say. The lag has you glitching all over the board and you just want to drop out but even this you cant do ,you must shut down your xbox.Than go wait ten minuites to get into a game you have no idea what type or area it will be in.
GOW1 was great ,Epic could have just revamped and upgraded the maps ( as they did and they look really great I have to say) fine tuned the players(as they did again) added some great weapons( as they did to some extent,the balance here is a bot off) and the game would have been awesome. The shotgun makes an odd pop noise here ,unlike gears 1 where it was authentic.Plus you cant shoot and run ,very little shotgun battles now.Some like that but really if you take out all the parts that made GO1 great than you are changing a great game not making it better.
The chainsaw duels if the other failings of this game werent so great too would in itself almost ruin game.Gone are Gears 1 sneak ups with the shotgun and now its a free for all of shotgun attacks .Very lame and boring and takes the skill factor to about "0". And the duel chainsaw attacks pressing b like crazy is a joke too.Like playing ateroids from the 80,s.Just smash the buttons.No skill no fun just crazy.
All in all the game has taken all that was good about gears 1 out of the game,made it absolutely stunning to look at, added lag that is so frequent you drop out of games on rountine just due to that,has a horrible menu that you cant just jump in any more and play and you have no clue what you will be playing.Taking the shotgun and chainsaw elements out of the gears type gameplay is a real shame too as now its like your not even playing gears of war but a whole new game.If they wanted to make a whole new game than they should have by why did they ruin this one? The horde mode is fun but again severe lag,horrible menu and lobby system too.
If Epic doesnt at least fix the lag and flickering issues this game will never be played like the last one. I guess people will get used to the altered weapons but the lobby system I doubt it thats a disaster.Just go play and you here ten people complaining about framerate,lag,weapons and the horrible lobby system.Their were never complaints about this while playing Gears 1, but now their is1 Says alot when you get ten people in room all complaing ,dropping out due to lag too
I give the game a "C" in its persent form ,if lag is fixed and lobby system where you can pick a game and get in it relatively quick like gears 1 than I would upgrade to a "B".The other issues are just too much to overcome to give it a better score.
Must buy for Gear Heads November 11, 2008
Jonathan R. Collier
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
GOW2 is worth every penny. New weapon selection as well as some of the old favorites is great. A.I. is far superior to the first (they will actually save your butt when downed). Sound track is intense and guides you through the campaign. On-line is fantastic with the addition on Horde, new style (respawning) execution and Meat Flag. Matchmaking has made it possible to link up with your friends and destroy your enemy. Get ready for some action!
 Gears of War v2.0 November 11, 2008
Brian Long (Ogden, UT USA)
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
I thoguht it was rather ironic that the game includes a achievement title "Seriously 2.0" That seems to be the mantra of the game. Its Gears of War with better graphics, a few new weapons, and a few new enemies. This is by no means to say the game is bad, but I'll save my nits for the moment.
GoW 2 follows everyones favorite smoking-since-childhood Sergeant Fenix. The COG has decided to go on the offensive, having been backed into the one remaining habitable city of the world. Fenix and his squad are sent on an attack against a nearby settlement, drilling down into the caverns of the Locust to take the fight to them.
The new level designs are pretty, and have the look of actual underground caverns rather than dark, dank sewers like most shooters. Theres local plant life and animal life that doesn't try and eat your face, which is a nice deviation from the norm. Theres an appearance by a weird Darth Maul esque Locust, and a new species of Imulsion eating creature that also fight the Locust, as well as a few new characters which are shuffled around with a little to much speed.
The problem, and really the only problem, is that this is by and large Gears of War version 2.0, or better yet, Gears of War Episode 2. Theres not enough new material to justify the full price. Sure theres some new toys and skins, and the storyline is gripping, it has plot holes you can drive a 20-meter wide worm through, and WTF moments abound during some of the explanation, but otherwise, the game is a rehash of encounter by encounter fights we all know and love. Again, this is not to say the game isn't fun, it is, but its all more of the same. Theres no new sequences like we've gotten from Half-Life, no interesting new game mechanic to change it up any, and while the levels are pretty, some have a problem with flow, and theres that nagging feeling of repetition.
All told, it plays good and it looks good, but has a faint overarching taste of bland and uninspired. I didn't go into this expecting revolution, and there wasn't any, but there was a genuinely fun game that can kill quite a few hours, but the difficulties been ramped down and the story is starting to grind. While being kept in the dark is a good way to stretch out a good plot and keep players interested, keeping the player totally blind gives a feeling of annoyed helplessness, rather than the overwhelmed feeling they were able to create in the first installment.
 dont pre order !!! November 10, 2008
C. A. Gonzales (las vegas)
8 out of 50 found this review helpful
i pre ordered the lancer and game. its monday the 10th and my game is not expected to be here till the 12th ! but if i order it today i could get it by tues !! where is the sense in that !!!
Showing reviews 226-230 of 257
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