Gears of War 2 Review

9.3

Format Xbox 360

Developer Epic Games

Publisher Microsoft

Genre Action

75 Comments

Fans have always been disappointed when they didn't get to take on the gigantic T-Rex-like Brumack at the end of the first Gears of War. But one hour in to Gears of War 2 and we've already killed six. As much as we hate to say it, Cliffy B wasn't lying. The sequel really is bigger, better and more badass.

Since turning the Unreal Engine into a current-gen buzzword two years ago, Epic's gritty franchise has been copied and imitated by almost every shooter series going, but never topped.

Still, it's unquestionably not as fresh a concept these days. just look at all the Ghost Recons and Army of Two's littering the shelves. Epic always had its work cut out coming up with a sequel that was going to raise our eyebrows above the millimetre mark.

While certainly not as groundbreaking or fresh as the original was in its day, Epic has managed to deliver a thrilling ten-plus hour package of explosive entertainment and god knows how many hours of multiplayer carnage.

Gears of War 2 is a stunning technical marvel, sporting stand-out art design and some of the most impressive visual playgrounds we've seen in a console game.

The excellent gun battles and knock out set-pieces of the original are back. The cover system is tweaked and unrivalled. The scale of the bosses and sheer spectacle of the firefights put every over shooter from 2008 in its place. But Epic's sequel is still far from perfect.

Incredibly for this generation's most famous balls-to-the-wall action series, the most prominent mark made by Gears of War 2's campaign is its story, which has been thought out, expanded and taken far more seriously.

There are at least three major plot twists in game that take Gears from its straight out good-versus-baddie Michael Bay movie roots to something a little more interesting. At its core the second game is an 'Empire Strikes Back' episode tackling darker story threads of humanity's losing battle against subterranean invaders, plus co-op wingman Dom's increasingly desperate attempts to find his missing wife Maria.

It's all very well done without a stench of cheese or even risk of the soppy stuff overshadowing the core action. Gears 2 knows when to chuck in the 'F' word or have Cole go off on one of his Bernie Mac rants, cushioned between more sombre moments, one of which - and we don't want to delve near to the 'Oscar moment' review cliché here - is definitely among the most powerful put into a game narrative.

It should be applauded, because it's very cleverly and respectfully dealt with and something no one ever expected to be saying about this series.

Before you worry that Gears has gone all soppy though; don't. It hasn't and your girlfriend still won't want to play it after seeing you chainsaw enemies through the gut. There's so much action packed inside Gears 2's chapters it's almost sickening. each chapter is like putting a whole pack of Mentos into can of Diet Coke at once.

The core game systems - the guns and cover - have seen some tweaking and for the most part just work. Marcus and co use cover items more intelligently than before, and move between objects as smooth as butter. Previous issues where you attempt to dash past cover and end up locking onto it almost never happen, which is a good sign that the kinks have been ironing out.

Just when you think Epic has pulled out all the stops - and can't fit any more Corpsers on the screen at once - it'll throw two more at you. Maybe three. And a hundred Locust foot soldiers. And blow up the floor.

AI partners are actually useful this time; running in to provide support fire and reviving you when you're down (lesser on harder difficulty levels though). If only because they occasionally keep you from the game over screen, it feels far more rewarding to have Cole, Baird and co at your side.

One section in particular is hands-down the single best chapter in either Gears of War game. Annoyingly Microsoft won't let us tell you about it - and we wouldn't dare spoil it anyway - but we can say that it involves putting a chainsaw through something far more gruesome than a Locust's chest. You'll know it when you see it.

Gears' arsenal of weapons have been tinkered and skewed to sound even more powerful and each feels more satisfying. The Lancer is now a chizzled and deadly-sounding beast compared to the original's clunky and annoying rat-a-tat-tat gun.

Locust weapons aren't the last-resort selections they were in the first game, they're now strategic, powerful-but-slow alternatives to the COG's automatic-but-weak arsenal.

Thankfully Epic has opted to concentrate on this refinement work across all of Gears 2's guns rather than flooding you with new toys, and it makes for a particularly balanced multiplayer experience (although the flamethrower, shield, mortar and Mulcher mini-gun have relevant spots in the line-up too and are fun to use).

Teams have been expanded with five members instead of four, which makes the multiplayer experience feel a sight more frantic and also caters for larger multiplayer maps, which definitely look and feel grander in scale.

The player expansion trickles into the design of other areas of the multiplayer experience as well, including the addition of bots (not available in Horde though) and the awesome new game mode Wingman, which separates players into several teams of two.

One or two 'superweapons', i.e. the mortar, Hammer of Dawn or Mulcher mini-gun are placed as showpieces in the arena and players are forced to scramble for them. The introduction of Chainsaw duels serves only as an instigator over lag and "I chainsawed you first!" outbursts over Xbox Live. They are quite exciting though.

Putting lancer on lancer switches the action to a cinematic camera angle and challenging combatants frantically hammer the B button until a winner is decided. We're sure the technical process of deciding who mashed the buttons the fastest isn't very complicated, but it makes you feel like you actually did some work, at least.

But the most poignant addition on the online side is the excellent co-op bout Horde, so good is it that Epic's decided to slap it right on the front menu. Much like Unreal Tournament's Invasion mode, Horde sticks five players together on a multiplayer map and then challenges them to survive wave after wave of increasingly tough Locust baddies.

Cleverly, if you and your teammates fail to defeat a Locust wave (and they get bloody hard) you can choose to re-attempt it as many times you like. This encourages strategy among your teammates and you'll soon be splitting in to pairs, manning the Hammer of Dawn and backing up your comrades as they defend a besieged house as if it were Lord of the Rings.

It makes us want that four-player co-op campaign even more, though the variety in the new co-op campaign is fantastic and at times absolutely awesome.

But as we said, Gears 2 isn't perfect - not in the campaign mode, anyway. Disappointingly, the slightly off vehicle section in the first game's campaign has been multiplied and extended in length. Gears 2 will have Marcus and co hijack various Locust nasties for GTA-style joyrides, and storm through a forest in a tank the size of a monster truck.

While these sections are thrilling and quite fun the first time around, subsequent playthroughs remove the initial novelty factor, and driving off ledges and blasting at relentless waves of Locust troops can get quite frustrating in harder difficulties. We can see their place in breaking up on-foot combat, but we wish they could've been cut down a bit or put on rails and expanded into awesome forest derrick battles.

Another thing that bothered us was the sheer amount of underground cave environments, which take up a good third of the game. While far more varied and beautiful than the original's subterranean levels, cave environments near the end of the Gears 2 campaign become almost interchangeable, which is a shame after the beautiful and radically diverse settings from the first half of the game.

With those two complaints considered, we've come to the conclusion that Gears 2 could've benefited from a bit of de-bloating in the editors room, but its lack of perfect pacing is hardly a huge flaw.

These issues won't spoil your enjoyment though and Gears of War 2 definitely tops the first. The campaign is the meaty Hollywood blockbuster Epic promised, delivering ten of the most quality hours of gaming from the last 12 months (and even more in co-op and multiplayer).

Gears of War 2 helps to change the perception of the 'angry space marine' shooter by thanks to a compelling story at its core. There are points in Gears of War 2's ridiculous and explosive Brumack set-pieces that you'll wonder how you'll ever be able to go back to the original game without being under-whelmed.

And that's just about the biggest compliment we could give the team at Epic without saying it really is "bigger, better and more badass". Even though it is.

Don't forget to enter our compo to win Gears 2 COG tags and limited edition art books.

Andy Robinson