I have to say, I knew what Iw as getting into when I bought this game and I wasn't sure if I had sufficient levels of testosterone to play it and enjoy it. The Unreal engine makes everyone about 5x more muscled than they need to be and you could practically snap a railroad spike with your main character's neck.
Characterization is weak and the story is sub-par, copy paste humanity versus inhuman threat that has them on the verge of extinction. I understand it makes for an epic story (Epic games, is that how they got their name?) but its been done so much. It makes your enemy impossible to humanize when they aren't even human, I understand I am supposed to hate them but surely there's a better way than just telling me "Yeah they are genocidal. They are bad." If I was captured by the Locust and they told me the same thing about humanity, I'd be inclined to fight
for them by the game's logic.
Most of Gears 2's story comes in the form of your squad-mates (Dom) search for his missing wife. He'll remind you of her every chance he gets ("I gotta find Maria, Marcus!"). Other than that, it's status quo for any shooter. Humanity Good, Aliens bad.
(plot spoils)
But... the story aside, I actually really liked the game. I'm gonna play it some more after I get done typing here and that's pretty impressive a feat, that I would go to these great lengths to bash it but then crawl faithfully back to it. The cover system is fantastic, easy to lean and once you get it down it never feels clunky. Running and gunning is a bit hit and miss, but that's not what the game is meant for. You're meant to jump behind cover and evade only when you need to. Of all the shooters i've played on the 360, though, gears 2 is by far the smoothest, thanks in part to the heavy focus on cover. You get time to think about how to tackle the enemy and line up your shots before hiding behind the walls again. It's great fun.
Online play is a frustration cess-pit, however. All people do is spam the jump roll, covering huge distances and getting close before you can do a single thing. After that, it's chainsaw heaven. Either that, or they will one shot you magically with the grenade launcher. Half the time in Multiplayer I would die but really have no idea what I did wrong, there's no indication one way or another.
Online play is redeemed with the "Horde" mode, where you and 4 friends team up against wave after wave of AI locust. On the right maps, and when you bring people who have an IQ higher than 70, this is AMAZING fun. The first few waves are a push over, but when the Ai starts to get Grenade launchers, suicide bombers and minigun users, this gets crazy. Its made better in that the AI is completely relentless. It will attack, attack, attack until one side is completely destroyed. It, unlike many people online, also knows when to use cover.
If anyone is on the fence about Gears of war 2, I would recommend it. Just don't expect anything other than a mainstream shooter with great gameplay. This is not a game that you're playing for the plot.
Re: The "What are you playing?" topic.
#Hillary4prism
Originally Posted by Fragony
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