The story of Gears 2 kicks off six months after the end of the original title, although very little is known about the story of Gears of War 2, our preview here covers what we do know as well as some of our expectations for what is no doubt going to be the game on every console owner's mind, regardless of platform owned.
The Epic Games team have hired writer Joshua Ortega, who has worked on several games and comic books in the past. As such, Epic have promised a more emotional cinematic storyline to match the excellence that was achieved in the original's gameplay, the sequel has already proven to have received some dramatic gameplay enhancements which we'll touch on in a moment. The more emotional storyline is not too difficult to imagine, considering the first game's emphasis was more based around action while planting the seeds that should set-up the story for Gears of War 2. So far we know that a couple of new characters are introduced for both the COG and Locust, as well as a rather surprising Carmine returning who was thought to be killed in the original game. Perhaps he's a clone, although I don't think Gears is likely to take the over complex head-scratching story elements of a certain solid slithering snake. Maybe it's a relation or a twin, either way it's interesting to see the masked COG man (or woman?) back and at least should be playable once again in multiplayer as well as new characters Dizzy and Tai. As far as the story goes all that is currently known is the Locusts have once again re-emerged regardless of Delta Squad successfully detonating the light-mass bomb deep in the Locust's tunnels at the end of the original, and are now assaulting the last town in Sera, which is Jacinto. Marcus, Delta Squad and what's left of the COG are forced to once again step up to the plate to fight back against the unrelenting Locust Horde, or die trying. Dom, as he mentioned in the first game is still hoping to find his wife Maria amidst this chaos. Could she have even possibly survived this on-going war? This question, and no doubt many other story elements will be answered by the conclusion of Gears of War 2, and there will probably be further seeds planted for yet another game... good things come in threes after all, right?
Co-operative gameplay was the main hyping point coming from Epic as regards to their original title, while I think this takes second fiddle to the game's multiplayer component with the new enhancements, given the online success of the first title, even with all of its inconsistencies; co-op is of course just as big a factor for Gears 2, once again enabling two friends to team up and run and gun their way through the campaign in the form of drop in/drop out co-operative play of which we're promised will be a lengthier playthrough then that of the original Gears of War which released in November 2006. As well as offering up 2-player co-operative play for the campaign, Gears 2 introduces a new co-op mode named 'Horde', where a team of upto 5 players can take on various Locust's which has many different stages, each stage gets more increasingly difficult. This sounds like a great addition to the series and should add yet more replay value to what should be a much more addictive and connected game than the Gears original. Gears 2 also ups the player count total by an extra 2 players, taking the total maximum online players in a single multiplayer match up to 10 players. Whilst 6 or 8 players seemed a good fit for the original, the maps must be some what larger or even more open so you can see battles in multiplayer taking place across the map, thus keeping the familiar illusion of war going on whichever way you turn, regardless of campaign or multiplayer.
Design Director Cliff Bleszinski has stated that "Gears 2 is going to be bigger, better and more bad ass than the first game." While at first this sounded like blowing wind up your own proverbial trumpet, at least from what we've seen as regards to the multiplayer and campaign, Gears 2 is no doubt bigger, better and more awesome than the first game (Awesome? Yes, it's cheesy, perhaps a little less than 'badass' though). As far as the campaign is concerned, we have already seen that Gears 2 takes itself on more of an epic journey (pun-intended) with regards to some massive on screen butt-ugly monsters to deal with as well as plenty of Locust drones to keep you occupied in the distance; if early footage is anything to go by this probably sets up a rather pretty view layed out behind that of the ugly that is staring at you up-close, Gears 2 should certainly have more of these eye catching moments throughout the campaign. Gears of War 2 no doubt takes the player(s) on a more intense battle with wide open vistas to distract you from the ensuing chaos that is taking place all around you, it'll be interesting to see how the storyline unfolds too, it's supposedly so emotionally involving it will make us cry!? Pfft, we don't cry - well there was that one time, actually no, not on the 360 yet anyway... I'm more interested now, could this be the first Xbox 360 game to bring me to tears other than when I've suffered the RRoD? The original Gears never made me cry, it got me excessively infuriated at certain points, though this is all down to the online play which was excessively satisfying and even though I still play it daily, feels some what tacked on with regards to the lobby system. Epic clearly realise how popular the multiplayer for their Gears universe is now, so no doubt with the added time and learning from their first outing, Gears 2 looks set to deliver for the online gamers as well as delivering a lengthier and more importantly an emotionally charged action-packed roller-coaster ride of a campaign. The recent footage from Microsoft's E3 2008 Press Briefing has confirmed two new drivable things, we can't really call these vehicles can we? Whilst there probably are actual vehicles to drive in the sequel, this latest footage has confirmed that you can ride at least both a Brumak and a Reaver in Gears 2, this should prove most satisfying using the Locust's own big ugly beasts to obliterate their own species.
Gears 2 has some rather interesting new multiplayer game modes, and a slightly different variation on Assassination from the original Gears of War as well as the other popular returning game modes, including the likes of Warzone and Execution. While Assassination was tweaked and improved on in the original game following a title update, Gears 2 sees this game mode have a significant overhaul. Mainly the difference here is that should your leader be killed early-on during the game then the battle will still continue regardless, but once your leader is dead there are no further respawns for your team. This should make for some interesting scenarios and forces you to play and think as a cohesive unit, no longer can one leader charge in and destroy everyone with a shotgun. This happens a fair amount and continues to do so in the original title, regardless of game mode, and it's usually by the host player. Epic have stated that the main complaint from Gears 1 was the host advantage, they claim to have fixed this issue for the sequel. Here's hoping that come November 7 2008, that Gears 2 can be taken online straight away with no complaints from either team at least as far as latency issues and host advantage are concerned. The other big thing for multiplayer is that there is now a party/lobby system similar to that from Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3, so no longer should friends have to message each other to try and get in the same ranked match.
Gears of War 2 also has CTF, yes it really does, well... sort of. Capture the Flag is certainly a well recognised term across most online shooters, Gears 2 takes this game mode, smoke tags it and humps it when it's down. What? You've not played Gears online before? Well, you can do that with this flag, or rather the meat flag as it is better know in Gears 2. Meat Flag is a new game mode to the Gears universe and should prove to bring much needed flavour to what gamers expect from a multiplayer experience from the sequel. The game mode Meat Flag is essentially capture the flag but with a Gears twist, the flag is an actual A.I. stranded armed with a shotgun. It is upto the COG and Locust team to try and locate the Meat Flag, down him, grab and use him as a meat shield and slowly but surely bring him back to your spawn area to score the victory. The opposing team must down the Meat Flag to be able to acquire the objective and then bring him back to their base. This certainly sounds like a rather interesting twist on CTF as it will require players, much like in other titles with CTF, to cover their team mate successfully to ensure victory. The twist here is that the flag moves and can shoot and even kill you with his shotgun. Meat Flag sounds like it will be a rather fun experience, I am wondering on the difficulty of this stranded flag though, hopefully it's not easy to down him and he can do considerable damage to either team if you get in close, otherwise this may spoil the element of this new game mode. We're sure that Epic can balance this to either force you to attack close range as a team or pick off the Meat Flag from a bit further away with the Lancer to avoid taking damage. I have this vision in my head of all out chaos and it just looks like all out carnage. I'm envisioning both teams charging the stranded meat flag simultaneously and having an all out war ensuing to down the flag, eradicate most of if not all of the opposing team and attempt to recover the flag, one thing is for sure, Meat Flag certainly brings a little something different to the table for Gears-aholics and I certainly can't wait to try this new game mode. Meat Flag even carries over to the campaign as well, though it's referred to as the Meat Shield, basically it's the same concept but you can use your enemy to protect you from incoming fire while dishing out the pain with your pistol all before snapping the neck and disposing of your acquired enemy.
One other new game mode that sounds like it could be very entertaining is Wingman, could this possibly be the new favourite for small teams? It's basically the co-op experience expanded into the multiplayer, essentially it is just 2v2v2v2v2. It should bring the team of two closer together, much like Double Team in Halo requires you to stick together and support your squad-mate, this should make for some interesting encounters having multiple teams to focus you're attention on for the first time in multiplayer. Regardless of game mode, should you be killed early-on in multiplayer, you are no longer forced to change camera angles or just view your squad-mates in action, Gears 2 introduces a rather interesting screenshot feature. There's not much known about how this works exactly, all that we do know is that when you die you can fly around the entire map in first-person view and take screenshots which can be later shared with friends. Gears 2 does not include a Saved Films feature similar to that from Halo 3, which is a shame as it's something that would no doubt prove as popular as that seen in Bungie's shooter. The screenshot feature alone sounds compelling enough, it sounds like it is just intended to give a dead player something to do when killed in action and waiting for the round to end, in this it will certainly accomplish its goal. I know personally I would find that rather frustrating in only being able to take screenshots live of other people. Hopefully there's a bit more to this feature than meets the eye, saved films for sharing might be a bit of a stretch to expect, I'm more hoping to just be able to save entire game replays at the end of a match and view that locally on the Xbox 360 and be able to take screenshots of one of those amazing headshots or whatever, some crazy stuff can happen with some skill and a bit of luck in Gears that would certainly make for a good picture.
Gears of War has a heavy emphasis on cover, the cover system was less than perfect in the original, for the most part it did as you wanted but in the heat of battle it more often than not would lead to your death as you would stick to the nearest piece of cover as someone would be lining up a perfect sniper headshot, hammer of dawn kill or of course in those many events of the host chasing you down, a blatant one kill splattered to smithereens shotgun kill, or even a quick chainsaw-rev whilst stuck in cover momentarily, by accident, inevitably resulting in a bloody death. The cover system has been further tweaked extensively and upon release of Gears 2 should perform as intended. What this means is, you should be able to run past near-by cover without sticking to it. So if you run directly into a wall instead of around it and end up sticking to it, we can no longer blame that on the rather random performing cover system from the original game. Gears' covers system is not quite as much of a pain in the backside as it was when the game first released, it's received some title updates since then, performs much better as far as cover goes, yet Gears 2 is still said to take that same cover system up to the next level. Speaking of cover, Gears 2 introduces portable cover, this is basically a large steel shield that you can wield around whilst having your pistol equipped and being protected at the same time. This portable shield can be slammed down into the ground and essentially becomes a part of the levels many available pieces of cover, which in turn means you can switch then to another weapon whilst being behind cover to further hold the line against oncoming enemies.
Epic Games had to put up a little skirmish with publisher Microsoft Game Studios to keep their gory yet extremely satisfying chainsaw kills in the original title, which paid off for the developers. Gears 2 takes this title defining kill that little bit further. Initiating a chainsaw from behind on an unsuspecting enemy results in chainsawing from the crotch up (hang about, can I have some ice first please?). Chainsawing straight-on results in the the typical chainsaw that you have come to expect from Gears 1, though chainsaw duelling is the new thing for Gears 2. Should both opponents be chainsawing then this will initiate the chainsaw duel, which results in chainsaws clashing, revving, with sparks flying and the person to press B the most times during this duel will chainsaw his opponent in half, almost instantaneously. The actual chainsaw duel to someone getting chainsawed in half is said to take as long as the typical straight-on chainsaw kill in the event of only one person revving up their Lancer. It all takes about the same length of time, meaning you're not left vulnerable any longer during a chainsaw duel than you would be catching an unsuspecting enemy off guard, which is good news for the person chainsawing as you are no longer invincible for the animations period like the original title. Sniper's will surely have a field day with people who excessively like chainsawing then!
Confirmed is also one new poison grenade, this will instantly kill anyone tagged or in the immediate proximity. This grenade when detonated blows out a rather large cloud of deadly poisonous smoke, this effect sounds like it works similar to that of the Garden DLC map which is available for the original title from Xbox Live Marketplace, anyone familiar with that map and the Longshot location should have a good idea of how this poisonous smoke works. Basically being in the clouds proximity will damage you're health, exposure for too long will result in death. The smoke grenade also proves much more useful in Gears 2, chuck the grenade and a nearby enemy will become disorientated by the initial blast, at least very briefly which will leave the player or bot vulnerable, momentarily. That's right, Gears 2 has A.I. bots, if Epic's Unreal Tournament III is anything to go by, then the bots should certainly prove a welcome addition to the Gears sequel, as they perform extensively well in UT3 and blur the line of UT3's rather shoddy campaign with online play rather convincingly. Back to Gears 2's grenadier escapades though, this is taken rather interestingly further with essentially every piece of cover becoming taggable, much like an enemy is taggable with a grenade in the first game, here however the grenades when attached to cover essentially act as a proximity mine detonating if an enemy walks by and in range, the blast inflicts severe damage or instant death depending on the grenade.
There's also now a further extension of ways to dispose of downed enemies as opposed to just shooting a downed enemy to quickly finish him off from a safe distance. Whilst an enemy is down or crawling away from danger, you can approach and perform some specific actions using the controllers face buttons, these include the curb stomp, quick melee, the meat shield where you pick-up and use your enemy as a shield against oncoming fire, and lastly the new over-the-top weapon specific executions. Some examples of the latter include using the Longshot as a sledgehammer, the Torque Bow to kick off an enemy's head among others. We're slightly disappointed to hear that ripping off a downed enemy's arm and beating him to death with it has been cut from the game, all the other gory executions look more than satisfying though. Gears 2 features some new weaponry to boot, most noticeable here is the inclusion of a flame-thrower, which is officially known as the Scorcher. This deadly flammable weapon can toast nearby enemies quickly, score an active reload and the flame will go much further, it is also proven to work considerably well whilst blind firing, just imagine the amount of damage that can be inflicted with this thing! Whilst not confirmed, we assume that every available weapon will have its own specific dreaded execution move, it'll be interesting to see how the Scorcher comes into play in this manner, no doubt it should heat things up dramatically.
We are most certainly looking forward to the release of Gears of War 2 come November 7th and we certainly can't wait to get our hands on the full game and all of its campaign, co-op modes, multiplayer and excessively gory delights which will be sure to keep us hooked and have us reeled in for years to come once again, much like the original title! Things are most certainly looking bigger, better and more "badass" indeed.
Preview By: Wayne Julian
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