Instead they use these few levels to help move players across expansive terrain and with perhaps one exception, they’re as nuanced and fun to play as the feet on the ground levels. Fortunately, Epic Games avoided that trap in their vehicles. I find that they tend to ruin the experience, stripping away the tactical nuance found in most shooters and replacing it with a rail-shooter aesthetic. Vehicles of Mass Destruction: I’m not a big fan of vehicles in shooters, especially vehicle levels. And if you don’t take care of these stragglers they’ll come back to take you out. Now you aren’t the only one crawling around looking for a little help. (On the harder levels, you just die.) There are also a number of new ways to take out a downed enemy, including using them as a “meat shield.” I found the tweak that has the biggest impact on the single-player experience is the Locusts’ new found ability to revive one another. For instance you can now crawl around after getting knocked to the verge of death, seeking someone to revive you.
This time around the changes aren’t as evident, but still make for a much deeper experience. Single Player Tweaks: The original Gears brought a lot of refinement to the shooter genre. There are times when the ragged landscape fills with a sea of Locust, when enemies are in the sky, on the hills and swarming up from underground. This time around Epic Games goes out of its way to remind the gamer not only what’s at stake, but just how large the effort is. Instead of feeling like part of a world-wide effort to save humanity, it felt more like a handful of guys taking on a bunch of Locust. And the key encounters among that collection of maps are tightly paced, managing to maintain your interest no matter where you are.Įpic Battles: One of the problems the original Gears faced was that players never got a proper sense of scale for their encounters. Instead of forcing gamers to slog their way through endless subterranean and oppressively dark settings, the game delivers fragfests in Alpine forests, dilapidated hospitals, across the expanse of a massive city. Tight Pacing, Eclectic Maps: With 29 chapters spread out over five acts, Gears of War 2 has plenty of room to stretch its legs. Does that mean we can expect some story to go along with all of those chainsaw kills and blood baths or will plot continue to be superfluous as the franchise marches ever onward toward its culminating third game. With Gears of War 2, Epic Games promises a title that is bigger, better and more badass than the first. There was that short, rather unsatisfying story, the shallow, almost stereotypical characters, the paltry eight-person multiplayer engagements. Gears of War hit a lot of high notes when it was released in November 2006, but despite all of the high scores and hoopla surrounding its release, the game missed out on plenty of fantastic potential.