Gears of War 2 (XBOX 360): Review

Gears of War 2 takes itself too seriously. Even though the game features dinosaurs that wear machine guns and missile launchers, even though one of the game's Non-Playable Character teammates talks about everything in terms of basketball, says bitch a lot, and is black, even though it has assault rifles that have chainsaws (because grenade launchers aren't bad-ass enough), this game manages to be too much stuck up its anus.

Take the protagonist's friend/co-op buddy or Non-Playable Character: Dominic Santiago™. The game makes one of the goals to search for his wife (the game doesn't say so until later, but you see it coming). Cutscenes try to make you actually care about her, and they fail.

It would have been way, waaaay better if Epic Games had instead made Dominic obsessed with finding his husband, and gave the protagonist, Marcus Fenix™, an IQ of 3.

Just imagine...

First lines by lead characters:

Dictator Richard Prescott™: Shiver me timbers! There be many a locust horde ready a waitin' to board our sanctuary!

WENCH!!

Anya Shroud™: Yes sexy?

Wiener Richard Prescott™: Where be Corporal Dominic and Sergeant Marcus?!

[Scene changes]

Dominic Santiago™:

O woe!

Where art mine gay lover [Developer must come up with creative, yet politically correct, name]

Johnny Depp™?

Shalt see him I again?

[Marcus Fenix™ stares at him and drools]

That would be the best introduction to a game about steroid-using men who save humanity from orcs ever.

Now, I'm not trashing the story-telling. I'm just saying it could have been way more fun and way more insulting to women and minorities. The lead writer, Joshua Ortega, did an excellent job making the game's lines entertaining and the plot conducive for varied gameplay scenarios, and he and the lesser-human writers deserve cookies and beer. Some critics give hate to the seemingly unconnected-to-the-main-plot research facility part of the game. To that, I remind everyone that the story isn't to be taken seriously. Gears of War 2 is not the video game equivalent of Pride and Prejudice, and it's not trying to be. (Okay, so it tries to be Pride and Prejudice for a bit, but, some how, it fails.)

So what I'm really trying to say about Gears of War 2 is that it should have been (and the sequels better be) a comedy.

Could you imagine the box art of GoW2 if they had done this?

Title: Pony Princess of Depressing Death 2: Bigger, Badder, and More Bad Ass

Description on back of box: "Humanity's baseball players must save humanity from a race of orcs who use steroids so much that they look terrible. This game features guns, chainsaws, and dinosaurs."

Rated eC for Early Childhood.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot to discuss the gameplay part. The gameplay is good. It is mostly comprised of running into cover and shooting things from behind that cover. You can always run up to the enemy and chainsaw them to death, providing that you can get close enough and providing that have a chainsaw.

The reasons why the gameplay is good is because of two things:

One: the game puts you in manifold shooting-from-cover situations, so the core gameplay experience is not monotonous.

Two: when you aren't shooting from behind cover, you are riding things, driving things, carrying boxes (woo!), and shooting things while doing those three.

This game is a lesson about the importance of variety in games and the importance of shooting things. Even an achievement highlights that (use every weapon and you get the "Variety is the Spice of Death" achievement).

But the gameplay isn't perfect. While playing co-op split screen with my Danish flatmate Carsten Hoilund, he told me that switching weapons using the D-pad was difficult. I myself had no problems, so I assumed that the reason he couldn't select the desired weapon using the D-pad was because he was Danish. [Note: playing co-op with someone you don't hate is more fun than playing with yourself (lololol), and co-op is easier since you lose only if BOTH of you die. Extra Note: if you're a hardcore gamer, you will probably enjoy this game most on the hardest difficulty since the casual and normal modes are easy; insane difficulty is unlocked only after you've beaten the game on another difficulty mode.]

Later, after my Danish roommate had moved back to Vikingland, I began to have problems fingering the d-pad. Obviously, this meant I really missed my friend and that part of his Danish spirit had become part of mine, making me eat healthier food and suck at switching weapons in Gears of War 2.

The friendly AI, however, is pathetic. Only when you have three friendly NPCs shooting beside you does the AI feel like it's helping you fight more than being live-duck-in-mouth annoying. You can consider the NPCs as an extra challenge :)

My only other complaint against the campaign is the very last gameplay sequence. I beat it by holding down the trigger button for around fifteen rubber-ducky-pounding seconds (You don't want to know).

The last parts of the game are easy compared to the other parts, but I'm not complaining. If every game made the ending the hardest part, games would be even less interesting, no?

The best way to play Gears of War 2's campaign is to play it with a friend in the same room with two screens and two XBOX 360s (and two controllers and two chairs and two sets of clothes — unless you really like each other — and etc.).

Now for the multiplayer. The competitive multiplayer is boring. It's all been done before, and better. To console gamers, all the modes may still come as novel, but to the PC gaming master race, it isn't. It's also annoying that at the end of competitive matches, the game talks about your team's awesomeness or suckness as if you're twelve.

The multiplayer mode that can be lots of fun is Horde (the non-competitive multiplayer). What happens in Horde is five players (you want five) start a map and work together to survive increasingly challenging hordes of AI-controlled, steroid orcs; ideally, the team survives for all 50 rounds (which wins a self-esteem-boosting achievement). If you die during a round, you respawn the next round. Every time you beat a round, the game tallies your team members' scores, and every score is accompanied by a gun shot sound, except for the total round score which comes with an explosion sound. This is much more eloquent than the annoying announcer at the end of the competitive matches.

Every ten rounds of Horde, the game resumes sending small hordes at you but increases their efficacy (health, aim, sexual performance, etc.). Usually, players decide to defend one area. You will not survive unless your team uses teamwork, and well.

And that is the problem.

I don't think beating Horde is impossible when no one communicates (sometimes, on XBOX Live, that's preferable). And often you can just tell what others are trying to say when you see their chainsaw going through an enemy's body. What makes teamwork a problem is that PEOPLE KEEP DROPPING OUT. And unlike Left 4 Dead, people can't drop in on a match that has already started.

And that's it.

Pros:

-It's not going to win a pulitzer prize, but the silly plot and most of the dialogue are a win.

-Varied gameplay experiences and environments in the campaign; good pacing.

-Features guns, chainsaws, and dinosaurs.

-Horde mode can be very fun.

Cons:

-Some of the writing sucks, especially most of the "wife" stuff. Ironically and sexistly, the part where something really bad happens to her ends up being the most effective sequence with her.

-The only fun, not-too-cliché multiplayer is Horde, and the only way to enjoy it is to play with people who won't drop out (AKA your non-dropping-out friends).

-Friendly NPCs in campaign mode have lettuce for brains.

-It is hard to switch weapons if you are Danish.

-The ending sequence will come off to many as laziness on the developer's part.

-Shadows and texture quality in the game show the XBOX 360's obsolescence. (PC GAMING! RAWR!)

Worth getting? Yes. But not for $49.99.