Gears of War 2 – An amazing improvement over the original game

The titles that are responsible for the success of the Xbox 360 are the first person shooter Halo and the third person shooter Gears of War. This year Microsoft Game Studios have come up with the next installation of their third person shooter. As Microsoft Game Studios has promised, Gears of War 2 is bigger, better, meaner and a step ahead to the Gears of War 2.

As soon as Gears of War 2 was released on November 7, 2008, this epic game quickly found its way to the top of the charts. The primary reason for this was that this game is way ahead of its time. Its graphics are powered by the heavily upgraded version of the Unreal 3 engine. Cutting across alien flesh in Gears of Wars 2 appears hellish real!

GOW 2 is a direct sequel to its predecessor in the sense that it starts off exactly where GOW ended. The locusts are shaken but are not completely eliminated. In GOW 2, the Locusts have found a way to make giant emergence holes capable of sinking entire cities at once. Thus, the humans are restricted to small regions. We, the humans, have now decided to infiltrate and destroy the locusts completely by attacking their point of origin, which is an area known as the Nexus. This is a very basic plot in the first appearance, but the depth in the game-play is achieved by the sub-plots and smaller stories that keep you interested in the game till its very end. The background score is very dramatic and supplements the gaming experience very well. You gaming experience of GOW 2 will take you many places, including human cities, locust hideouts as well as inside a giant rift worm!

The look and feel of Gears of War 2 is very similar to the original, but it’s the small details that make it much superior than Gears of War 1. The game-play in the Gears of War 2 has been kept the same as the original game. You blast the enemy into pieces or rip them apart in two whenever you get chance and take cover behind a solid object to avoid the counter attack. If you enjoyed killing the locusts in Gears of War, then GOW 2 is a pure heaven for you.
One of the biggest changes in the game is the scale of the battle with locusts. Every battle looks like a genocide, as there are far more enemies on screen. The frame rate is extremely steady even in very large battles, owing to the improvements in the Unreal 3 engine. Other big changes to the game are that now you can even use dead enemies as shields and can even have a chainsaw duel with the enemies.

At the start of the game you get a new recruit Benjamin Carmine who is no other than the brother of Anthony Carmine, who in the first game got shot in the head by a sniper. Apart from killing locusts, Marcus Fenix has to prepare young Benjamin Carmine for the battles with the locusts. A very important is played by Benjamin's character in the game. One of things that will keep your interest in the game is the hilarious but rude one-liners that are exchanged between Dom and Benjamin. Locusts have captured Dom's wife Maria and Dom is enwrapped on rescuing her. Another new character in the game is Tai Kaliso, who is a silent but tough solider, for which Marcus respects him a lot. However, you will find later in the game that Tai commits suicide. These are just some of the sub-plots; the game is much-much bigger than just these.

The combat is exactly the same. The best weapon in the game is still the Lancer rifle and you will use it the maximum time. For a start, you will need the Lancer rifle, plus a Sniper or Torque bow and you are ready to start a battle. There are weapons, like mini-gun, that you’ll need in order to fight with much larger enemies. There are many new enemies out there – from the large flying reavers to boomers with mini-guns as well as a new super-agile locust. One small drawback that has not been corrected by Microsoft Game Studios is that even though enemies look meaner but they still aren’t smarter; they make dumb mistakes, which enables one to kill them easily. You will fall down, if you take too much damage, but you have 30 seconds of life. A teammate has to simply come next to you and you are ready to battle again!

The AI is still pretty much the same. There are no major changes in it. A single player game will take about 8-10 hours to finish.

One of the aspects of this game that makes it amazing is that up to 10 players can play at the same time, when you are playing the multiplayer mode. There is a new matchmaking system that gets you in games very fast. There is a small flaw in the multiplayer version as there is some lag when you are playing online. A new mode that is introduced is known as Horde. It is very much similar to the Unreal Tournament’s Survival mode, where AI controlled enemy bots and you battle it out for survival. The multiplayer package is very awesome, and is the icing over the cake!

The bottom line is that this is a must buy for any Xbox 360 owner. It is a great game with great graphics and an astonishing multiplayer mode and a wonderful storyline. I give it five out of five.