The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Gears of War 2 ain’t nuthin’ special.
It’s the same game, with the same ridiculous dialog, and essentially the same weapons, with some new locations, new gimmicks, and new plot that doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s completely from the “longer, better, more bad-ass” school of game design.

But you know what? That’s pretty alright.

Due to my new Gamefly subscription, I put some of the co-op games I’ve always meant to play on there. I wasn’t going to play through them alone or more than once, but they would be a good ride. Gears 2 fell under this, and it was the first game I got! (Of course, unluckily, RE5, another co-op game, was the second game I got. I didn’t need two co-op only games, Gamefly!) So I sat down with Jonathan and Spaeth, alternating, as I played through the whole game, shooting some dudes from behind cover and yelling out my witty catchphrase, “Eat shit and die!”

It’s a fun time. The co-op is well-enough designed, and the base shooter gameplay is still as good as it ever was, because it is exactly the same as in Gears of War. The “we’re separated” sequences are shorter, to minimize frustration, which is nice, and now your AI partners can revive you, which also helps lower the difficulty. The way you and your co-op buddy can pick different difficulty levels is also appreciated. Jonathan picked Hardcore for most of the way through, since he played through Gears multiple times on higher difficulty levels, while I just stuck with Normal for the casual fun I wanted. We died just about the same number of times, so the difficulty system must have been doing something right.
There are many more “gimmick” levels than before, and while some suck or are kind of annoying (It’s just frustrating flailing around on a Reaver where you can’t hit anything) I’d say the game is probably better as a whole for the changes in pace. It is certainly a longer, and more complete game than Gears 1.

But yeah, the new adjusted Locust gun is pretty neat, and the Flamethrower is pretty fun… but it’s just more Gears. If you get this, you know what you are getting into. The only thing I’m sad about is that I didn’t get to try Horde mode before I sent it back… but RE5 is awaiting for my co-op time, and I wanted to get something more single-player oriented… like, say, a little Red Faction: Guerrilla. So into the mailbox it went.
Fun times, though. Fun times.