I just hope they really go over the top when it comes to stepping up their game. So many first person shooters have come out since Gears of War. The novelty of the Unreal 3 engine has long worn off, the standards are now set way up in the stratosphere, and the general consensus will basically devlolve into "if it ain't better than Call of Duty 4, it will be the most cataclysmic disappointment since the mid-90's Theatrical re-release of the Star Wars trilogy." Epic has a major order to fill, and unfortunately, not nearly as much time as they had before to do it.

I just hope they observe the trends and new gameplay mechanics that have been instated recently. Because from the video I saw from the last GDC, there's only one new feature. You can now chainsaw people UPWARD instead of DOWNWARD. Call me a cowardly arbiter of low-faith if thine initial impulses demand you do so. But from a very honest perspective, I've not been given ANY sort of content worth getting excited over. Very likely this will change, but it's just my feeling.

So to answer your question, no, I don't think they'll pull a Halo 2. This is because I've been given no reason to even think that they will. Really, there's hardly enough content about Gears 2 that even warrants any sort of "what-if's."

Everybody else has pretty much hit it dead on. Consoles and PC's just aren't up to power yet.

Remember, video games (in comparison to other industries) are very young. They have only been in existence for half a century starting with the pinball parlor games, and when it comes to home consoles, we're talking a total lifetime of three decades if we start with the Magnavox home version of pong.

As for industries that have had much longer to mature, they too still have their shortcomings. Automobiles have been around for over a century, yet like Windows Vista they crash all the time. It comes to the whole cosmic sense of where we are as a civilization and as humanity. On top of that, we must remember what it is we desire, too.

Sure, maybe in ten years, they'll have the 1080p resolution down to a fine science, and achieving a normal-mapped 2 million polygon environment at 60 fps would become kindergarten caliber. But in ten years, somebody just like you will be hitting up the forums asking the same exact question.

"Hey? What the heck, guys? How come they can't get me that ultra holo-crack 5096p resolution at 120 frames per second!? The only game I've seen do that is Gran Turismo 15! Stupid lazy developers, DON'T THEY CARE ABOUT US GAMERS!?"

Trust me, developers aren't at all bothered by the picky types. If it wasn't for somebody going "eh, whadda-heck is'dis rubbish foo's!?" every five seconds at Infinity Ward, Call of Duty 4 would be called a cheap ripoff of Frontlines: Fuel of War. So stay picky and impossible to satisfy, gamers. The industry depends on it.

Well, let's be honest with ourselves here. GTA: San Andreas is, in my opinion, the first fall of the franchise. Still a good game, but a definite slide from the quality that was Vice City. A lot has been happening at Rockstar, and seeing how they're handling games like Bully (again, not a bad game, but still fulfilling the downward slide trend), I wouldn't set my sights too high on GTA4. Judging by the videos readily available on Gamespot, I'm having a lot of difficulty finding reasons to get pumped for the fourth installment. It just doesn't seem to introduce anything new, and relies too heavily upon the Armenian/East Eurpoean stereotypes to convey its humor.

With EA now potentially taking hold of the reigns, I see this as yet another reason to not get excited for GTA4. To which, I remove my cap, place my hand over my heart, and pledge my condolences prematurely to the series. It was a good run, with lots of great memories.

So. Saints Row 2, anybody?