Gears of War 2
 

Anyone else playing this at the moment?

Picked it up a couple of days ago since I'm a fan of the first. Good improvements overall but not without its scruples. I have to say though raining hell down upon the locust horde with a mortar is alot of fun.

Linear: Aka I refuse to play.

Make an aar of your playthrough though. :p

aar?

Gears of war 1 was not what i was expecting the camera angle put me off a bit but after a while i grew to love this game. Didn't know there was a GOW 2 out.

Agreed, boom-boom-this-way-please is medieval, and not in a good way.

After Action Report

Most of the time i'd also throw in with the "linear = poo" crowd, but GoW is one those series that works out because...

A. It doesn't sell itself on a single gimmick, rather, it adds genuinly clever gameplay mechanics and relies on no single mechanic but commands the use and unison of all of them.

B. It doesn't take itself seriously. At all. The story is sweaty man action movie nonsense and it knows it. I'm so tired of jRPG uber nerd stories present only for the sake of some wierd egotistical move on the part of the developers.

So yeah, I get along with Gears very well. I prefer open worldy-ness, but if you're going to make a linear game, Gears is a shining example of how you should do it.

Okay Gears 2 AAR report.

Okay my first playthrough was on Hardcore, fun difficulty with frustration thrown in with some cheap things going down. The overall storyline isn't anything to write home about, standard action junk with a few twists here and there that you can pick out. But there are a few moments that just make you go wow I cant belive they just did that. Especially with what happens when Dom finally finds Maria.

The gameplay remains largely unchanged except for the addition of heavy weapons which do 2 things. Kick major Locust ass, on the flip side though they slow you down to a crawl. Still fun to unleash a mortar or two on top of a congregation of enemies. And yes unfortunately the fights are just set pieces that can only be approached so many ways and usually from a very linear direction. 5 minutes action, 2 or 3 exposition or transition between fights rinse and repeat. Not so bad for me, I enjoy that type of shooter.

Sounds are changed, the guns sound meaner and much more like they should have in the first. The lancer which in Gears 1 sounded like it was spitting its bullets now sounds like its firing bullets with stopping power. The scream of a mortar as its bearing down on you isn't something you can miss either.

Overall I wouldn't give it the 9s and 9.5s its been getting in reviews. But I wouldnt give it anything lower than an 8. Nice fun game if you can put up with its linear nature.

Thats not an AAR, thats a review.

AAR's follow you actually playing the game, with screenshots.

like.

"Seeing the bicurious alien I asked it out for a date"

*Pic of alien*

The alien lied, so I shot it in the face and went home.