Not a lot of games can quite measure up to the standards set by Gears of War for the Xbox 360. Sure, it may not have brought anything new to the genre of shooter video games, but what it did, it did exceedingly well that game developers after the release of GoW will be hard pressed to up the ante or be left down in the dirt. So it would be perfectly understandable to all fanboys and the casual gamer alike if that should Xbox 360 Gears of War 2 not measure up to its predecessor that a large boycott against Epic Games would be in order. Thankfully, the picket lines never came, because Gears of War 2 just about solidly rocks like a hurricane should.
Gears of War 2 for the Xbox takes place six months after the events of the original Gears of War storyline ended. With the Lightmass bomb detonated, the human populace thought themselves safe from the Locust—or so they thought. The last remaining human government, the Coalition of Ordered Government, or COG, have been receiving reports that entire cities have began sinking underneath the ground, and all signs seem to point towards a the resurgence of the then-thought of decimated Locust horde. The Delta Squad, led by Markus Fenix, are tasked to investigate reports of an imminent sinking of Jacinto city, one of humanity’s last strongholds, and if needed, call in the rest of the COG and take a decisive assault on the Locust once and for all. To further complicate things, the detonation of the Lightmass bomb in the first story seem to have created a mutative plague among the human populace called the Rustlung.
That isn’t all that’s happening though, and other plot twists keep popping up in the narrative as you progress in Xbox 360 Gears of War 2. But this no doubt indicates the level of storytelling that has been elevated in comparison to the original, which had been criticized as somewhat overly simplistic and nothing more than a shell over the gameplay. Now the story drives the game forward, and plot progression comes very naturally. Motivation for both the Locusts actions and the individual COG and Delta squad members are expanded very well, such as Santiago’s search for his wife and the tragedy that awaits him (oops, spoilers).
Nothing has been taken away from the original and more have been added in gameplay wise. The cover system in Xbox 360 gears of war 2 has been improved (something that most players thought couldn’t be possible) and you are now able to use the um, dead corpse of your enemies as a literal meat shield (although you can only use a one handed pistol while in this defensive stance).
On the side of the Multiplayer, several Multiplayer modes via the Xbox Live have been added, such as Guardian, a variant of the Assassination mode from the first game and horde mode, where waves of Locusts attempt to swarm you at set intervals with the level of difficulty increasing every 10 levels or so.
All in all, Xbox 360 gears of war 2 have better graphics, sounds and special effects, and over all gameplay have been enhanced over its predecessor. It became the seventh bestselling video game for 2009 when it first came out, and it wasn’t long before it dominated the video game arena. It is a mistake however to think that GoW2 is a mandatory “sequel”, but one go at the game and anybody can see that Xbox 360 gears of war 2 is a game worthy of its own legacy.
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