Gears of War 2 follows the 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' rule and it works here.
Gears of war 2's story picks up about 6 months after the end of the first game. The Locust are sinking cities and Humanity only has one more stronghold, the City of Jacinto. This, coupled with the onset of a disease, Rust Lung, creates a feeling of immense desperation. It's up to the lead characters Marcus, Dom, Cole and Baird to stop the Locust onslaught and save Jacinto from impending doom.
As we have seen huge advances in Graphical fidelity amongst other games this generation, Epic had to make the game seem impressive using different techniques. For this reason we see the story deepen this time around and although it probably asks more than it answers, it feels as though the series is definitely superior to it's older brother. The way the story is crafted allows us to connect with the characters on an emotional level and genuinely feel for them at certain points. This was one of the main criticisms of the first game and it's nice to see Epic have addressed this.
The game play hasn't changed a whole lot in Gears 2. It features the same robust cover system, albeit slightly tuned, and the same control system. The weapons have also been tuned for the purpose of balance and aesthetics. The revival system has been refined to allow downed players to tap A and move towards a player on their team for revival. This allows for an exciting race between the person who downed the player and their race to execute them before they can be revived.
Gears of War was always known as a bloody and violent game and Gears 2 ups the ante heavily. Cliffy b often talked about the inclusion of more blood and he wasn't lying, Gears 2 adds a number of executions, as well as more detailed dismemberment such as the body splitting in 2 when someone is chainsawed. These are all complimented by realistic sounding squishing and crushing noises, which are as gruesome as they are cool. The Notorious Chainsaw has been tightened up as well with an added mini game to determine who gets the kill. When two players go to chainsaw each other at the same time a chainsaw mini game starts and instructs the players to mash b. Whoever hits it the most wins and cuts the other player in two.
Multi player in Gears 2 has undergone a series of changes, some radical and some not so much. For starters there are plenty more game modes to add to the longevity which the old game already possessed. There are the original modes of Warzone, Execution, Annex and Assassination but includes new modes Submission, Guardian and Wingman. Submission is basically Capture the flag but instead of a flag there is a civilian who you must shoot and drag to your capture point. The civilian carries a gun and can down you whilst your trying to down him. Guardian is a slight variation on Assassination in that keeping your leader alive allows the rest of the team to respawn limitlessly until the leader is killed. Wingman splits the teams into 2's and pits you against 5 other teams in an execution rules match. The problems that plagued the last games online modes such as glitching and Host advantage seem to have been lessened, although, it must be said, Glitching is still prevalent and continues to ruin the online game experience slightly. For these reasons I suggest a lan party or playing online with friends rather than regular online matches if this is possible.The Last multiplayer mode is possibly the biggest addition to the package. It's called Horde and involves killing increasingly difficult waves of enemies as a team of 5. The mode runs from Level 1 right through to 50 and allows you to play on all difficulty modes.
In all Gears is a fantastic package that also addresses some of the problems of the first iteration. New maps, new guns, new modes and new characters add to the growing success of the Epic and Microsoft franchise. Even though the story might not be up there with the best of them and people use glitches to their advantage online it doesn't detract too much from what is a brilliant action 3rd person shooter and I would advise anyone who is was a fan of the first or anyone just looking for a good, exciting gaming experience to go out and buy this game.