It’s been two years to the day since the release of the quintessential xbox 360 action shooter, Gears of War. With it’s gritty style, it’s tactical ’stop and pop’ game play, and it’s brutally violent kills, the game quickly became a cornerstone of the current gaming generation. Now, with the release of Gears of War 2, questions will be answered. What happened to land Marcus in prison? What has happened to Dom’s family? But most importantly, how does this game stack up to the original. Well, I can answer that last one no problem. “Nice!”

Opening with a quick training sequence, the player will meet up with some familiar faces, along with a few new allies. The game wastes no time jumping into the thick of it, plunging you into a crumbling hospital infested with hordes of locusts and a few nifty new ways to take out half a dozen of them in one shot (you’ll be looking at fuel tanks in a whole new way). It barely takes forty-five minutes before you find yourself aiming your fire arm at multiple brumaks and more than a few reavers. Enough of the story though, wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.

The game looks great, there’s just no other way to put it. While the first installment was no slouch when it came to graphics, the sequel packed on some pounds in the texture department. The city streets look even more run down and deserted than ever thanks to the amp’ed up textures of dirt, cracks, vines and what have you. The imulsion glows brighter and more vibrantly than ever, and the explosion of a body is twice as visceral as ever before. Up graded particle effects and destructible environments create an even more hectic feel as you catch a glimpse of the red, glowing tip of your enemies barrel. The new shading and blur effects also help to convey the rapid play style.

As for the controls? Well, simply put, Gears is Gears. Thankfully though, there have been improvements. The movement is a bit speedier, getting rid of those ‘oh come on’ moments that we all had in the first game. The cover system feels tighter and much more reliable (those ’sniped while under cover’ moments are all but gone). Oh, and as for mobile cover? Well you’ve got rock worms, cars, tables, giant metal shields, and oh yeah; other people. After downing an opponent, should you reach them in time, a simple press of the A button will take them from helpless victim, to helpful and very mobile cover. Grabbing an opponent is no longer all that easy though, those little buggers can crawl pretty darn fast (and leave an awesome trail of blood) by simply mashing the A button. Should you feel that you’d much rather simply end their suffering, well now you can do it in style. Every face button is now a different kill style. A grabs them up and creates a handy shield, B is just a good old fashion weapon dependent melee, X nets you a bloody curb stomp, and Y engages you in an MMA style bare knuckle beat down.  As far as I can tell, the Bull Shit, or BS, is pretty much gone from the online. No more shots with a shotty just to get melee’d a second later. The game just feels tighter over all, a much welcome improvement.

Speaking of the online, multiplayer is down right fun. There are new game variants to be played. These include Guardian (an altered version of ‘assassination’ where team members will respawn until the team leader is killed, in which case it turns into warzone.) Wingman (essentially a warzone style game with teams of two.) And last but not least, my personal new favorite, and the most hilariously frustrating game type, meat flag. This is essentially CTF with one little hitch, the flag is pissed and has a shotty. Using the new ‘meat shield’ feature, you (or a team mate) must down and drag the individual that has been deemed the ‘flag’ to the designated zone. In-case you were wondering, yes this game type is as ludicrous as it sounds. But the biggest and probably most bad ass new mode has to be horde. This mode is exactly what it sounds like. You and up to four friends will be going face to face with wave after wave of increasingly powerful locusts, good luck my friend, good luck.

There are, of course a few other new features added to the game this time around. New weapons are as follows. You’ve got the ’scorcher’, a flame thrower with a ridiculous range. The ‘Gorgon Pistol’, a new locust pistol that is essentially a mid range shot gun of sorts. And the new and improved ‘hammerburst burst’ rifle, which has traded in the three shot burst firing style for a meatier ak-47 style shot. The chain saw duels have also been tweaked. Now you’ve got a fighting chance, mashing B may very well turn the tides of battle. Some of the maps are also interactive, from avalanches that change the very terrain, to razor sharp ice storms that spill death from above, the new multiplayer maps will be throwing you for a loop from time to time.

The game is great, fast paced and epic as hell, I loved playing it and the ten hour career mode is pretty evenly paced, BUT, I do have a couple of complaints. The controls in the vehicle portions of the game are clunky and unresponsive, leaving you saying ‘thank god it’s over’ as apposed to ‘aww is that really it?’. There is STILL that damn lag with the textures more than occasionally and while not a game-play problem itself, it’s a bother in such a graphically intense title. A few frame rate issues just add to that last thing. The match making can be a little slow at times.

The good: Pretty much everything, Epic as hell

The bad: nothing a few firm ware updates can’t fix, for the most part

Graphics: 9

Sound:9

Game-play:10

Multiplayer:8

Replay Value:9

Overall:9.7

Close to perfect, but not quite. Go buy it, you won’t regret it

10 MORE DAYS! WOOO! I know you are all probably tired of me drooling over Fable 2, but just bare with me.

One thing I always noticed is that in MMOs, the whole point of the game is basically improve upon what you already have. Basically, adding 1+1 to get 2, then adding 1+2 to get 3, then adding 1+3 to get 4. Am I confusing you?

What am trying to say is that MMOs are stats games. Nothing ever really changes. You might get some new magic animations and reveal story lines, but the game play stays the same. You level up to become stronger, but all that does is introduce stronger creatures to you, which esentially is the same as when you were a level 5 paladin fighting a level 7 cave troll.

So the problem with this type of game play model is that everyone wants the best stats, meaning they need the best armor and weapons. Armor, being your appearance means your more likely to look like other players as they also don the same armor to better their combat advantage.

Peter Molyneux sets to change that in Fable 2

Glad to hear. I really dig assasins robes, but they do jack when fighting super mutant scoprians in broad day light.

[via kotaku]

I am surprised. I knew a new Halo expansion was coming, but I never thought it would put you in the body of someone else  besides Master Chief. The Halo 3: Recon expansion does just that.

I don’t even play Halo anymore (I stopped at Halo 1 for the PC), but this trailer makes me want to pick up Halo 3. Very dark and gives a sense of desperation.

I likey :3