Video game review: Gears of War 2
Ξ November 11th, 2008 | → | ∇ Gadgets |
One of the more noticeable differences between movies and video games is that movie sequels universally suck, and game sequels are almost always better than their predecessors. Movie sequels tend to be bland, shallow attempts to mimic the success of their predecessor, while video games take on board everything that made the original work, then enhance it.
Even so, Gears of War set a very high benchmark for any successor to match. The strength of the original was in its simple, unabashed machismo, so in the run up to the game’s release, we felt a niggling doubt that Epic could provide the same pulpy enjoyment for a second time without overcomplicating things, or just being too samey. Our fear was utterly misplaced.
Gears of War 2 takes the winning Gears formula and applies a very simple design philosophy: make everything bigger, better and more badass. In standard combat, enemies are far more numerous and the ranks have been swelled with additional varieties which require slightly different tactics to tackle.
The levels have been made a lot larger – not enough to make this anything more than a corridor shooter, but certainly enough to provide some welcome variety if you play it through multiple times.
Graphically, the differences aren’t vast but they are noticeable, and there are a few nice new touches including how certain types of cover can get chipped away by incoming fire. There’s also considerably greater variety in the type of environments you’ll be fighting in, and a little more attempt to inject some colour into the dingy palette.
Certain types of cover can now be moved, either through using portable shields, or having elaborate mechanisms that raise protective ledges out of the ground. And Epic has tried hard to make sure that at some point in the game you tackle every conceivable combination of enemies from every possible angle and direction and to make combat as varied as possible.
So, from a gameplay perspective, this is very much the same old Gears (complete with its superb co-op mode), but loaded up with enough new features to keep even the most jaded Gears player interested.
Like all the other features, Gears of War 2’s storyline has been turned up to eleven too. The predecessor was criticised over its short, disjointed plot, and a lot of effort has been made to correct that. The problem with this is that, in hindsight, less may really have been more.
For the first couple of acts, the game has a very annoying habit of doling out bite-sized chunks of plot after seemingly every skirmish. You end up playing five minutes of game, then having a minute of plot, then five minutes of game, then a minute of plot, and so on. It takes until the later stages until you feel it finds a decent pace, where a new piece of narrative feels like a reward, rather than a hindrance.
Because it does a great job of tying up the loose ends of the original, and because it has a few surprisingly poignant moments (one of which would probably get considerably higher acclaim were it not set against the backdrop of such profoundly adolescent entertainment), we quite prepared to forgive its ham-fisted delivery in single player, but it could get a little tiresome in co-op play, though thankfully you can skip through nearly everything (hitting Back to tell Anya to shut the hell up is a very satisfying feature).
The story itself is still as completely idiotic as ever. Marcus and his buddies are so brimming with manliness it’s a wonder you can still see their retinas, and their absurdly grim stoicism in the face of allegedly unbeatable odds is once again, hilarious.
For a while too, it looks worryingly like there might be some semblance of coherence to the narrative. Yet by the end it returns to typical Gears of War daftness so that you’re left with as many new questions as you’ve had old ones answered.
If you didn’t like Gears of War, then Gears of War 2 is not going to suddenly convert you. If you found it immature, boorish and stereotyped, then you might as well hold your head in despair; Gears of War 2 is everything the original was, and more. But that’s just the way we wanted it.
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