European game developers are now so superior to Japanese and American developers it isn't even fair to compare them. It's like comparing Wii sales to PS3 sales.

These are the trophies we European kings of gaming now hold over the rest of the world.

Best graphics ever seen in video games (Killzone 2 and Crysis)
Best racers this generation ( Burnout Paradise, GRID)
Best selling game on a HD console this generation (GTAIV)
Best selling RPG (Fable 2)
GOTY 2008 and highest ranked game of 2008 on game rankings (Little Big Planet)

That pretty much covers every thing, as you can see Europe dominates the rest of the world when it comes to gaming. America might hold the title for most over hyped games of all time (Halo 3 and Gears 2) and Japan can lay claim to best selling non game this gen (Wii Sports) but all the cool gaming accolades belong to Europe.

First time I played through the campaign in Gears 2 I thought it was worse than the first game. But I've started it again on hardcore and I'm collecting all the collectables and I'm enjoying it a lot more than my first time through. It really does have some nice levels and set pieces. And the harder difficulty makes it far more enjoyable as you can die very quickly if you don't think about what you are doing. I think it's better than the first game, and I agree, that last courtyard battle is awesome.

As Cliff would say, bigger badder, better.

Crysis lol, Killzone 2 kills it stone dead. Crysis runs about 15FPS when you max it out graphically, then it still can only barely touch Killzone 2 which runs at a steady frame rate with better particle effects, animation, style.

It's all over Hermits, Crysis is old news, old badly optimised tech. You need a new game to champion as you are now second best to Killzone 2.

I like it, put a lot of time into the single player. It has some very annoying respawning enemies, and you travel around far to much in cars, but I love sniping people in the long grass and setting fire to crap. Online is ok, could be better, could be worse.

Overall I think it's a very solid 8/10. It has problems but they're not enough to ruin the game, but they shouldn't have been there in the first place, game could have been fantastic without them. The African setting is one of the best game worlds I've ever seen.