‘Gears Of War 2′ Is Locked And Loaded
Even while E3 was taking place in L.A. last week, the good folks at Xbox were around to make sure New Yorkers got their exclusive gamer fix too. At an event in the Big Apple, Xbox 360 previewed its fall line of games, including Fallout 3, Rock Band II, and the highly-anticipated Gears Of War 2. With all the hype surrounding GOW2 (due out in November), we focused our attention on getting familiar with the gory third person shooter through a friendly network game over some super-fructose X-Tini cocktails. Watch the trailer and read our first impressions of the game below.
GAMEPLAY: As a part of the elite team called the COG Delta Squad, the basic premise of the game is to defeat the Locusts who return from the game’s first installment, this time to destroy entire cities with one fell swoop. With a plot that simple, we figured we could breeze through it like other fast-paced shooters like Halo 3. We were wrong. Players with itchy trigger fingers are forced to be more strategic with their movements as they battle. But in case you’re on the brink of dying, and your teammate can’t revive you, there’s always the option in multi-player mode to peruse the map with the ghost camera and snitch on the competition by giving away their position.
WEAPONS: Everyone looks forward to the selection of army guns, but Gears Of War 2 is about how you use them. In our inventory we had the standard Lancer Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Boomshot Grenade Launcher, Frag Grenade, and Torque Bow. They’re all guaranteed to make the Locusts get down or lay down, but death by a grenade might be the worst way to go out. You can throw it, or plant it on a nearby wall (then crawl like heck) and watch the bodies fly, but players also have the option of stabbing themselves with it, out of pure desperation. If you’re savvy enough with the Lance Assault Rifle, an active reload technique allows you to let off a burst of bullets when you line up the moving bars in the gun’s display.
ENEMIES: To get the full feel of GOW2, we played in multi-player mode. It was a good excuse for us to blend in with the pros who got us past the first four waves of baddies like the Grenadiers, Drones, and Kryll. There are 50 waves (battles) per map, our team only completed four. Head shots are your best bet, which can add up to an achievement like in the Halo series, or another killer tactic is picking up your half-dead enemies and using them as a shield. Bang bang.
