Gears of War 2 - Initial Impressions.

No, I haven't bought the game yet. (And for that, I'm actually glad) However, Mike brought his copy over yesterday and we logged about 7 hours of game play between Horde and Co-op.

Most of that time was spent playing about half-way through the main campaign, and I have to say that I've never been more disappointed from hype. Everything that I've heard about GoW2 is that the new campaign completely blows you away, and that it's so good, it'll make you never want to play the original game again. I'm having that exact opposite problem, I want to play GoW1 even more now than ever.

Here's an idea of why: several reviews I'd heard said that the first act of GoW2 (in the hospital) is a recall to the original GoW, playing much like the first game. Guess which part of the new game I enjoyed the most? That's right, the hospital.

Here are my problems:

There are not enough locust.

The original Gears was fun because you got to wade through locust like you would the swimming pool at the rec. center. It was brutal, it was maddening, it was frenetic, and hectic. There were a few minor breaks in the main game play, but for the most part it was a pretty standard pattern all throughout. The thing that really made it compelling was that, while very linear, you moved through the areas, and then found in an interesting to defend area, and then continued moving.

This game does not bother with this formula. Instead they give you much fewer enemies, 3 times the cut scenes, and a lot more gimmicky activity.

In Act 3, we hit an area where we needed to find our way into a building. We walked in the rain for about 10 minutes, passing a ton of really good cover which would be really fun to fight locusts from, but there was nothing to fight. When finally we encounter enemies, all they are is Wretches, which are the worst enemies in the game because they can be downed in a few shots, and just bum rush you, breaking the fun of the duck and cover fighting system.

They still haven't fixed the broken checkpoint system.

In the first gears, there were some points where it was hard enough that you'd die a few times trying to get through an area, and you'd be forced to restart at the beginning of a checkpoint. The problem is that the checkpoints are always triggered right before everyone sticks their fingers to their ears (and temples and backs of their heads as walking seemed to move their hands around) and listen to a series of long and unskippable dialog.

In most cases, having to go through that over and over in an already frustratingly difficult area could really break the flow of game a bit.

GoW2 seems to take this problem and actually make it worse. Of course, hardcore seems much easier, so death isn't as common, but there's a terrible example of this at the beginning of the second act (or end of the first, maybe it's hard to tell now as they don't list what the actual act and chapter numbers are now as you move through the story). In this area, you're on top of what amounts to a big rolling oil rig, a terrible vehicle in concept because there's no place that you're inside and armored, but instead you stand in the open on a huge platform, on which there only 1 mounted machine gun. You are tasked with shooting down Nemecyst mortars, which are big round projectiles that change course in the air quickly while heading toward your rig, after which, you are supposed to shoot down a Reaver, which is a big flying locust with locusts on it's back. Sadly, it took us a couple tries to figure out that you just have to take out the Reaver's crew, and not actually the Reaver (which seems counter intuitive since it is a sentient being and seems like it should need a crew on it's back to keep it from just exploding, but that's how the game works).

If you fail in those tasks, you're forced to sit through about a minute of first person cut scene, where scripted evens have to take place and you cannot skip it to get to the fighting.


Levels you think, "I'm glad I don't have to play that again..."

The first GoW had a lot going for it. Even the most difficult levels had me saying, wow, that was tough, yet I could see myself going back and playing it again, trying to better my score. This Gears, however, has the opposite effect. Challenging areas are making me feel relieved that I'd never have to play them again.

That's just wrong. I should feel that way about a game... especially not Gears of War 2.

I know I'll be playing through the co-op with Mike at least one more time (so he can get the co-op achievements on his console too), but in all honesty, I think neither of us are really looking forward to it. Not like the first Gears where there were points when we actually talked about wanting to play through an area again on another play through, this game has us almost dreading just finishing it the first time.

What does this mean?

I don't hate the game. I should be honest about that, I really don't hate it. It's Gears of War 2, and I dig that. But with all the hype that the campaign has gotten, such as quotes like, "it will ruin Gears of War 1 for you, I never want to play the first game again, the second is so good!" I feel like punching those reviewers, because this game has actually made me want to pick up the controller and go back to the first Gears all the more.

I will say that Horde is a ton of fun, and I will probably pick this one up soon simply to play Horde online with my friends, and there are other multiplayer aspects to the game that certainly make it worth owning. I'm just very disappointed so far with the campaign, and expected a lot more out of it.


I'm sure I'll be back with an update on some final thoughts once we've beaten the second half of the campaign. Perhaps something will happen to make it all worth while. But I doubt it.