Eurogamer Expo 2008 Hands On: Gears of War 2 multiplayer
I’m not a huge fan of multiplayer. I’m all for sharing, but people coming over to my house to eat my food, drink my beer, tread mud into my carpet and then divide the screen into four parts for a death-match doesn’t whet my appetite. Being called a jerk by a 13 year old that does nothing but spend everyday that I work playing the game and becoming a mighty opponent - it starts to grate. So when EuroGamer invited us to quaff their drinks, munch their munchables and grind some London filth into their floorboards, how could I refuse?
Gears of War 2, then. Four burly marines and an alien race to extinct, with only curiously placed concrete blocks between them. Two teams of four, eight Xbox 360’s each armed with a plasma screen, and that all important LAN cable. Commence.
It has to be said that I forgot how gritty Gears of War was, with its gothic overtones and debris-filled ruins with which to run and take cover in. I’d also conveniently skipped the video released earlier in the year showing off the destructible scenery, explaining my first three deaths, of which there were many. Turns out wooden doors aren’t as bullet proof this time round. Sadly, the scenery isn’t as destructible as I was hoping. Bullets penetrate thinner surfaces but you don’t get chunks of masonry flying off as a clip empties into a pillar or splinters sent spraying into a room when you destroy something wooden. It just isn’t as carnage ridden as my anarchy-filled heart was expecting.
But that’s not to say it wasn’t fun. Have you ever been chainsawed from the front and behind at the same time? I have. Turns out you can clash lancers to stop the chainsaw sequence, though I’m certain there’s more to it than smashing the buttons in hope of a remedy whilst squealing like a little girl. Straying out into the open will have you cut to ribbons in seconds, so thankfully there’s a lot of cover around which seems to be more thoughtfully placed this time around. Pillars and blocks of stone appear to have fallen due to poor maintenance and bad weather rather than just plonked there by a developer to make it more fun.
The basic Gears formula doesn’t appear to have been tweaked much and as such the only changes I could find seemed to be cosmetic. There’s a few more options available when flicking through the level cameras in-between deaths such as watching through the eyes of your teammates as they battle away, and a few more animations to Marcus have been added, such as when you rush the reloading sequence and jam your gun in the middle of a firefight.
It remains to be seen what secrets and innovations the single player modes will hold, especially since we were herded in only when the developer maintaining the system was happy that it was ready to go, and then chucked back out the second the game finished. You have to wonder if they were hiding something they didn’t want the press to see. Either way, our first glimpse of Gears of War 2 was a joy to behold and if anything strengthened its pre-order position.
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