REDACTED: The Gears of War 2 Preview

A spoiler-free examination of story, setting and character
10/15/2008 8:40 PM | 1 Comments | Page 2 of 4

"That's what we really liked," Fergusson says, "Do something really cool, then go back to the shooting for a while." And yet there was fear that they'd crammed too many wild action scenes into a game that is, ostensibly, about gunplay. "For a little while, during development we were like, 'do we have enough [hardcore] gameplay?'"

Any doubts were unfounded. There's plenty of gunplay in Gears of War 2. And every time you crouch behind a barrier to take cover, it feels like you're doing it in someplace altogether new. The scenery feels more varied and frequently brighter when compared to the shadowy urban ruins and subterranean caverns of the original. "We didn't want people to think the game was a cave crawl," Fergusson says. "You get tired, visually tired, if you're too long underground and all you're seeing is cave walls." I interject, mentioning the blue skies and verdant mountainsides of the game's first act. The sequence where Marcus and Delta Squad first encounter [REDACTED] feels like it takes place in the Pacific Northwest on a sunny spring day. Fergusson recalls some company research on the matter: "When you read Microsoft usability testing of Halo, their favorite level of all time is the fight on the beach with blue sky." That's why the team behind Gears of War 2 made sure to include more than a couple beautiful environments to counter the more dreary locales. "People like pretty environments -- especially the contrast, I think, of high violence and beautiful scenery. I think people get off on that."

So you've got great gunplay. And you've got great action. The last bit of the formula, and the stumbling point for so many other games, are things like drama and motivation. Fergusson and his team tried to up the emotionality this go-around without getting too heavy-handed. To that end they've injected one hell of a plot point into the game's opening moments -- Dom's wife Maria. Like any soldier during uncertain times, he longs to see her again. A good part of the game is about his efforts to reunite with his lost love; luckily the trail of breadcrumbs follows the same path Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad take in their fight against the Locust.

Despite this new personal angle on the action, Gears of War 2 doesn't dip into the emo depths of the Final Fantasy series. "That was a concern with Dom," Fergusson admits. "It's all walking a fine line. It's all discovery for us. How dark can we go before people say, 'I don't like him anymore because he's Mr. Somber.'"

Still, players will see at least a couple of the members of Delta Squad in new light. That's one of the benefits of working with characters that fans have already accepted into their lives -- you get to deepen them a little. "In [Gears of War] Marcus would have never [REDACTED]." Fergusson says of a subtle moment where Fenix drops his gruff attitude for a split second and shows a glimmer of sensitivity. In the first game, he points out, "that shit never happened."