| A look at the Gears of War 2: Snowblind Map Pack |
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The Snowblind Map Pack is the second to be released by developer Epic Games, that's not counting the Flashback Map Pack which was included with new copies of the game. The previously released Combustible Map Pack released shortly after the game's release, and cost 800 MS Points for three maps, which were Gold Rush, Fuel Station and Flood. As is the case with any game you enjoy playing competitively, new maps to do battle on are always a welcome addition. However, the previously released Combustible Map Pack is not something that was easy for many gamers to comprehend, for one, the value of the map pack and the point in it even being released at the time were questioned due to the online portion of Gears of War 2 being consistently unstable for the most part.
First, The Update
Here we are yet again, though it's now more than 4-months since Gears of War 2 released, and Epic Games have recently released their third title update for the game, which brings with it further gameplay tweaks, exploit fixes, an all new progressive ranking system and more importantly it takes steps to cut down on the lag with a region preference for public games. The update released earlier this week, and certainly, at least initially proved to be a disappointment with lag still being the major cause for mine, and no doubt many other Gears 2 gamers frustrations. As an avid Gears 2 online gamer myself, to my amazement just one day after the update had hit the game, I noticed an improvement in the game's performance online. This 'amazement' I initially brushed off as blind luck and finding a good host, but this proceeded to continue throughout the rest of the night. I was constantly finding games where I had no connection issues in. Now, it's not all so 'amazing', but it is a big turn around considering the game has been out for more than four months now. The tables seem to have swiftly turned, before the update, at least from my personal experience, the majority of games were almost unplayable due to lag, and many were in-fact unplayable.
Now however, after the third title update, it seems that this description has been turned on its head. I'm not wanting to jinx it, but the majority of the games I enter are playable, the host may still stand out like a sore thumb in some games, but most game's do remain playable. It's not perfect by any means, but four months on, and we're at the point of where the game is consistently playable, where I can jump online with friends, find a competitive match, and shoot an enemy point blank and that player dies, as do I when I get shot. That's all I ever wanted, for my actions in-game to actually have an impact in the match I am participating in, and this is something that is happening more and more. I can take the occasional unplayable game on the chin now, as I know it's just a bad connection, and I will almost certainly enter a better game next time. I expect this isn't the last and further tweaks will be done, but I hope that it continues to run as well as it is now, and further fine-tuning is done to try and cut down on the likelihood of joining a game that is completely unplayable due to bad latency.
Now, The New Maps
The upcoming downloadable content for Gears of War 2 is also set to cost 800 MS Points and will be available from Tuesday, March 31st. The Snowblind Map Pack introduces four new battlegrounds to Gears 2's multiplayer, two of which are refined versions of their Gears of War 1 counterparts.
We here at MSXbox-World were fortunate enough to get our hands on the maps and put them through their paces ahead of their Live Marketplace release. The Snowblind Map Pack, as you might have guessed contains winter themed maps. The maps themselves are not only covered in snow but it is actually actively snowing in the maps as well.
Gears 2 has always looked excellent visually, and the addition of snow while at first distracting it is something that makes them stand out from the crowd. It seems Gears 2's multiplayer maps are continuously moving away from some of the darker environments that were set in the original game's maps. It actually proves to be a nice contrast, while in Gears 2 we may have more brightly lit maps than we do the more patented darker maps, the likes of Under Hill for example, which features the sun brightly looming above the large bridge and down upon the map, which contains a building in the centre suitable for smaller skirmishes and close range shotgun battles. Outdoors however, it's the area leading up to the bridge that will be the main attraction, right at the back of the bridge is a Mortar, whilst at the bottom a Torque Bow can be acquired. The Mortar proves extremely useful when playing King of the Hill or Annex, and the Mortar just so happens to be the objective – keeping your enemies at bay is made much more easier with the use of that Mortar, as it's quite a run-up from the building at the bottom all the way to the top of the bridge where the Mortar is located.
The next map is Grind Yard, and while I feel all the new maps are entertaining for the typical Warzone and Execution elimination-style scenarios, some work exceptionally well for specific, objective based game types more than others. I particularly had a blast with the Guardian and Submission game types on the Grind Yard map. The map should no doubt prove popular and given the amount of cover on the ground, the balcony above that goes right around the edge and looks down on the central area, I foresee it proving extremely popular for Warzone and Execution in particular, more so than the previously mentioned Guardian and Submission. The Submission/Meat-Flag game type does prove interesting though, the majority of the map is wide open with lots of small pieces of cover scattered around. So getting the meat-flag and moving him out in the open is not going to be an easy task, which means it will be hectic, thus fun. The main area that stands out is a small tower located in the centre of the map, up above this there is a Mortar/Boomshot obtainable, with a nice little room to take cover in that you can peek down over to quickly eliminate enemies with your newly acquired weapon of choice. If you take a mad dash around the upper outside balcony, stairs are located at either sides spawn area, as well as in the centre opposite from the central tower. Along the balcony a Scorcher flame-thrower can be found up here, which naturally once taken down into the open, can prove rather lethal, especially if you get someone backed into a corner or boxed in up in the tower.
The original Gears of War's multiplayer proved to be a surprise hit for most of us, and more surprisingly it contained several excellent maps that fit the bill and proved to offer up a good game no matter the game type played. Fuel Depot is the next map to make the jump from the original to the sequel. Whilst I was anticipating this upcoming map pack, mainly because I was re-imagining the old days from the the original Gears, but more so than that, I envisioned Fuel Depot as a perfect map for Horde play. There's no doubt that we all love a bit of Horde from time to time, and eliminating wave after wave of Locust on Fuel Depot is sure to delight, as I and others can attest to after our recent eventful 5-hour session in completing waves 1 through 50 on the map. Horde certainly offered up a lot of thrills in the later waves, and there's a couple of areas that are noteworthy enough to hold out in during those later waves. Speaking of good old times on Fuel Depot, being a map that shipped with Gears 1, it proved exceptionally popular for controlling the long range weapon in the Longshot Sniper or of course obtaining the Hammer of Dawn, this made it a map that was heavily used for Warzone/Execution play, and I'm feeling the urge already to fall into old habits. Being as large as the map is, and containing the prior mentioned arsenal of weaponry, inc. grenades near either spawn area, then it also fits the bill for the likes of Annex, which proves to be exceptionally entertaining. Naturally, most of us know that Fuel Depot is a fairly large map, containing a large bunker at one end of the map, as well as a heli-pad inc. helicopter and large warehouse contained in the centre of the map, the latter of which holds the Hammer of Dawn/Mortar. At either side of the warehouse is of course a container, which like the original contains the Longshot Sniper, and as the round switches, this changes to the Torque Bow. The layout is almost identical, the look of course is vastly different, given the snowy theme on offer in all these new maps. What I particularly like about Fuel Depot's appearance is that the map is also much darker, which gives it an even greater contrast as flakes of snow calmly fall to the brightly lit snowy ground, all during the not so calm battle.. Certainly, the snowy and darker visual style is one that out does its original in every conceivable way.
The Snowblind Map Pack contains two maps from the original Gears of War, Fuel Depot as has been mentioned above and lastly, Courtyard. Many Xbox 360 gamers will not likely be familiar with this map, and much like Gold Rush from the Combustible Map Pack, both maps were only available in the PC release of Gears of War. Courtyard was actually the largest of the PC-only maps, and in my opinion at least, it was the better of the PC maps. For one, the map is large and featured several high profile weapons on the PC. The Courtyard map in this Snowblind Map Pack is of course identical minus the newly introduced snowy theme. On the ground floor at the back, like in the PC version is the Boomshot, which switches to the Torque Bow on the next round. The only real difference in regards to this and its Gears PC counterpart, is that on the PC there was a Hammer of Dawn available at the bottom of the main set of stairs, there's nothing there now, however at the top of the stairs is a large area of which will typically be the Longshot Sniper or Mortar, depending on the round. Grenades are also available, though they're underneath the main area, just to the side of the main stairwell is an entrance leading to the grenades which opens out at both sides of the main stairs. There's also another small set of stairs on either side of the map leading up to the spawn area for either team, and proceeding on down either side will lead you up top to the Mortar/Longshot Sniper area, basically it can be used as an alternate route up top instead of taking the main stairs from down the centre of the map. Submission proved to be more entertaining than most game types, no doubt it's on par with Annex, both game types seem to work really well with the scale of the Courtyard map, and it's easy enough to oversee the action with Longshot Sniper, or acquire the Mortar on a different round, moving down the steps slightly and taking care of an enemy meat-flag or hill capture by firing the Mortar down at the Boomshot/Torque Bow area, which is conveniently blocked from a Snipers view up top with a long wall. Guardian works pretty well too, even if the leader ends up dead and you remain as the last man standing for your team, there's plenty of room to spread out and force the opposing team to split up and attempt to tackle them in smaller numbers.
Final Thoughts
A Map Pack release following a highly touted game update is something that we've seen before with the Combustible Map Pack releasing after Gears 2's second update, this did fix many known game issues. Although the problem back then was a simple one, a releasing of Premium-DLC when the game still contained the lag issues that have been plaguing the online play since launch, well that seemed like a mistake from many perspectives. The scenario may be the same as before, with regards to the third update, although it has attempted to address the latency issues that most of us have been suffering from.
If you play Gears 2 regularly online and have now found that since this third update that the online performance in regards to latency has much improved, at least for the majority of matches played, then 800 MS Points for four maps, for a game that is played frequently, is no doubt a worthy purchase. After all, spreading blood and chunks of meat across pale white snow is sure to prove pretty entertaining.
You can enter our exclusive Gears of War 2 Snowblind Map Pack give-away here
Posted By: Wayne Julian
Date: 2009-03-29
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