Gears of War 2 Discussion Thread

[MinusTheBear]

The highly successfull and critically acclaimed sequel to Gears of War will be released on Friday November 7. Not many reviews out yet but IGN has one out early...here it is...it is pretty easy to assume if you liked the first Gears of War this will be a must buy. I am one of those BTW.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/926/926305p1.html

Summary

9.5 Presentation
The menus are very reminiscent of the original but the story is handed to the player in an entirely new way. Gears 2 stays at a very high quality throughout. New kill cams are very cool.

9.5 Graphics
Fantastic looking characters inhabit splendid worlds that feel truly alive. You’d be hard pressed to find a better looking game anywhere. Now if only they could fix the texture and framerate issues.

9.0 Sound
The sound effects bring you into the action perfectly and Jablonsky delivered on the score in a big way. Voice acting could use some work.

9.5 Gameplay
Some of the purest fun you’ll have. Instant gratification starts at level one and never lets up. It’s familiar for veterans of the first but throws in plenty to legitimize itself.

9.5 Lasting Appeal
Supposing they can fix the few multiplayer issues, there’s nothing stopping Gears 2 from ruling Xbox Live for some time to come. The photo mode is a great addition, too.

9.5 Overall
Incredible

 

[emorphien]

I finally started really playing the first one on Friday. Once I finish it I plan to get this. GOW the original is a great game, still great looking too.

 

[MinusTheBear]

Offline Bots Supported

Gears of War 2 will allow you to play bots offline (remember Perfect Dark Zero for the N64). So before you get smoked by a 10 year old online you can sharpen your skills. The details are as follows

- Supports up to 10 players (yourself + 9 bots or splitscreen +8 bots)
- Broken up into teams (5 bots vs yourself +4 bots or 5 bots vs 3 bots + splitscreen with 2 players)
- Level of diffuculty's for the bots ( Casual, Normal, Hardcore and Insane) and Insane difficulty is supposed to be very difficult.

This is a very cool addition.

 

[Audioholics]

Can you play co-op multi-player with bots (aside from Horde mode)? I'm thinking back to setting up maps with Unreal Tournament... Something I'd like to do with Gears... where you can host a private match, invite friends over Xbox Live! and play with/against bots.

Pipe dream or reality?

 

[emorphien]

That sounds fun. I just finished GoW yesterday (Thursday) afternoon. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to playing the second although I'll probably wait to pick it up used.

 

[MinusTheBear]

I picked up Gears 2 first thing this morning. I got to Wally Mart about an 1 hour after they opened. They were setting up the display when I got there. They had tons of copies.

I played the campaign for around 1:30 minutes. The sequel does not stray from the original. Same controls, gameplay and a slight updated unreal graphics engine. You can just pick this game up and play. There is not a huge improvement graphics wise but the environments are much better. There is a lot more going on and I am finding the envioroments are more destructable around you. The interaction with the environments is much better as well. There are more cinematics scenes (they have not been long but frequent) and have noticed more use of vehicles and turrets in the first 1 hour and 30 minutes of the campaign than there was in the original.

 

[Audioholics]

Tom went "undercover" to the midnight event and wrote about it:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/undercover-at-the-gears-of-war-2-midnight-event

 

[MinusTheBear]

Tom went "undercover" to the midnight event and wrote about it:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/undercover-at-the-gears-of-war-2-midnight-event

LOL. I would not be caught dead at a midnight release. I would be very uncomfortable, it seemd Tom felt that way as well. Tom was hanging with the gaming elite. When videogames starts to interfere with my wardrobe and I start getting Gears of War tattoes, its time to take a hammer to my xbox.

Those people seem like a bunch of lunatics. Doesn't suprise me.