I seem to have taken a momentary hiatus from blogging the past week.  Work has been insane and I’ve spent a significant amount of time wandering back and forth to my condo as I try and get it rented out to a new tenant.  That said, there really is only one true reason I haven’t been blogging: Gears of War 2.   I consider Gears of War to be the only reason why one should get an XBox 360 so I was obviously stoked when the sequel came out last Friday.   Christina has stepped up and accepted her widowed status once more as I spend way too much time delving into the game.

Gears of War 2 is essentially Gears of War with new modes and new weapons.  It doesn’t deviate too much from the formula of the first one and I consider that a good thing.  The new gameplay modes and weapons are generally all very welcome additions.  The campaign is fleshed out a bit more and co-op is still a major selling point and, for me, one of the biggest reasons to pick the game up.   The new multiplayer mode Horde is an excellent new mode that allows you to co-op with 4 other friends and fight off wave after wave of enemies.  A five-hour marathon on Sunday was an exhilirating challenge and resulted in me defeating all 50 waves.

The new Wingman mode is the mode I was most interested in when the game came out — there is nothing better than working with a teammate to defeat your opponents and this is exactly what this mode is all about as it turns the game into teams of 2 versus every other team of 2.  Unfortunately, this mode has left me a bit disappointed.  It seems the maps are too cramped and simply turn into frantic shoot-em-ups that seem more random than skill-based.  A few times when I had a good teammate, it was more enjoyable but overall, I don’t think this mode works when you 5 2-person teams as the maps really don’t seem suited to the Wingman mode.

My favorite deathmatch type mode has become Guardian, an improvement over the old GoW Assassin mode.  Allowing the non-leader team members to respawn as long as the leader is alive and not ending the map when the leader is killed changes this mode dramatically for the better.  If you can get the team working together in this mode, it’s an exceptionally fun mode.

Most of the new weapons and combat options are excellent.  The Mortar and the ability to use a downed opponent are personal favorite.  There are few things as enjoyable as downing an enemy and then using him as a meatshield as you pummel his friends.

Unfortunately, not all of Gears of War 2 is great.  They made many changes to the existing weapons that in general were a huge mistake.  GoW was considered a shotgun-fest and Epic obviously was trying to change things up a bit.  They tinkered too much, however.   While many people disliked the shotgun-fest, it did lead to close-quarters tactical combat — which is how I equate Gears in the FPS-world.  In Gears 2, the shotgun has become painfully slow and significantly weaker.  Tweaks in that direction were needed but Epic went several steps too far when they were degrading the shotgun usefulness.  This is made even more painful by the tweaks they made to the Lancer, aka the uber-weapon of GoW2 multiplayer.

The Lancer now pumps out more damage in close-quarters than the shotgun though there’s really no need for it with the unstoppable chainsaw.  The chainsawing attack of the Lancer is now the predominant way to kill people as you are virtually unstoppable when attempting to do it.   It is near impossible to reset people who are attempting to chainsaw in GoW2 so one either has to maintain their distance or get into one of the new Chainsaw duels.  If you both have Lancers equipped, you will now go into a duel to see who “wins” the duel.  This is basically a button-mashing contest and is easily my least favorite addition to the game.  There is a vacuum-effect that occurs when someone tries to use the Chainsaw, you can’t reset them to stop the chainsaw, and the shotgun is completed nerfed — this basically makes close-quarters combat essentially off-limits and not fun in the least.  The result is a game that works best as medium-range gun battles — fun but we already have Call of Duty 4 for that.

Epic is apparently already working on a patch and based on the number of complaints about the Lancer/chainsaw and shotgun, I expect some changes along those lines.  Until then, I’ll still enjoy the game but I really hope they made changes.  Gears of War had great longevity but I’m not sure GoW2 will have the same longevity, for me at least, if they don’t reduce the effectiveness of the chainsaw.