Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)

Epic shooter leaves things wide open for a sequel -- like that's a bad thing?
11/7/2008 7:15 PM | 6 Comments | Page 1 of 3

Marcus Fenix's unruffled expression and gruff voice don't change much, whether he's offering curt condolences to a friend who's just lost a loved one or resolutely sawing away at the aorta of a giant worm from within its own chest cavity, waist-deep in the creature's blood.

In most narrative contexts, this would make him an unappealingly one-dimensional hero, but in Gears of War he works. Maybe it's because the game depicts a world in which humanity's prospects are so bleak and desperate that without the kind of firm bedrock that Fenix provides, you might be tempted to just pack it all in and give up.

Gears of War 2 is, of course, the follow-up to Epic Games' stunning third-person shooter Gears of War, in which humans fought against a relentless alien foe known as the Locust. The sequel picks up six months after the events of the first game. Fenix and the rest of Delta Squad, a band of super-soldiers similar to Marines (but with much, much thicker necks), are heroes for planting the Lightmass Bomb in the Locust-infested caverns deep below the ground. However, the mass explosion didn't quite eradicate the Horde as they had hoped. Instead, the enemy survived and regrouped, and as the new story begins, they've pushed the humans to the point of being able to muster only one final, desperate gesture.

The plan is to take the battle directly to the Horde itself with a daring attack targeting its Queen, while protecting the city of Jacinto -- one of the last bastions of humanity that hasn't been gutted, flattened, sunk or overrun with Locust. It's hard to guess how many humans are still alive at this point, but it can't be all that many.

As usual, the odds aren't looking good for Fenix and his three equally tree-like allies: long-time friend Dominic Santiago, the smart-ass Damon Baird, and the human juggernaut Augustus "Cole Train" Cole. Although supporting characters come and go, these four remain the nucleus like they did the first time around.

I spent a great deal of time with the original Gears of War in both its single-player and cooperative modes, so stepping into the second game felt quite comfortable.

Epic more or less perfected the "cover system" style of gameplay in Gears of War, which required a far more cautious and calculated strategy than the typical shooter mentality of running out with guns blazing and hoping that a few well-timed dodges would save you from enemy fire. As lead designer Cliff Bleszinski described in an excellent New Yorker piece, Gears of War is more like playing a game of paintball by seeking cover using whatever is available in the environment (in Gears' case, concrete barriers, doorways, burnt-out vehicles), and strategically moving forward while picking off enemies one by one.