Gears Of War II Review
Another new feature there is to the game is your arsenal. You still have the weapons in GOW1 but a lot of neat and cool weaponry has been added to GOW2. In the original you had a very little variety of weapons it was always the machine, the 2 pistols, and the shotgun. But in the sequel you have shields you can put down and use as cover, you have many grenades such as the poison grenade, you have heavy machine guns that create a swarm of bullets toward your enemy and can shoot missiles right into your enemy from a distance. The single player mode is solid and interesting.
But the real fun is when you play multiplayer. The scales and arenas are much bigger and also you have more freedom. They are not just limiting you to just outdoors or just indoors, so they combined those 2 scenes and put them into 1 map. Giving you the choice to go indoors or stay outdoors. The executions are also different. You have your classic curb stomp but now you can get on top of your enemy and beat him to death or you can even pick him up and use him as a human shield. You can let him get nailed by the incoming bullets from other locusts or you can break his neck. Also the melees are slightly different from in the original GOW1 game. Depending on how you melee your enemy and your position to the enemy, you will slice him vertically or shove your chainsaw into them and grind.
In multiplayer mode there are 10 new maps and 3 new game modes. Those 3 new game modes are; Submission, Guardian, and Wingman. Submission is like your normal CTF except that the flag is a person who you have to carry over to your side of the field, giving it an interesting turn from the normal CTF. Guardian is kind of like Team Deathmatch. You can spawn back into the field only if your leader is still alive, if an enemy kills your leader then you cannot spawn anymore. And the last mode, Wingman is a bit new to games. Wingman creates teams of 2 and your objective would be to kill the other teams. But Wingman revolves around you reviving your teammate when he needs you. And GOW2 gives you a very interesting game mode called Horde Mode. It's like Firefight in Halo 3 ODST (those of you familiar with that). It's when you take on Locust waves at a time until your whole team is dead. The waves will continue to get harder and bigger as you progress through them.
The game does have some minor setbacks to it, that won't really hurt the game that much. The controls are a bit wierd in some cases and not very helpful when engaged in driving vehicles and in the single player mode there were too many unresolved plot problems that may leave you sad and frustrated. Also the lack of a Co-op mode was rather disappointing. But the split screen made up for all that.
Bottom line is that Gears Of War 2 is a great game that any buyer would want to get and play!