Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2, the sequel to Gears of War, is a tactical third-person shooter released exclusively for the Xbox 360 as part of the console’s push into the end-of-year holiday season 2008.

The game picks up six months after the last round when the detonation of the Lightmass Bomb destroyed most of the invading Locust army. However, the explosion impacted the ecosystem, and an illness known as rustling now threatens humanity. After a while, massive holes arise that swallow entire towns at once. When it appears that Jacinto, humanity’s impenetrable haven, would suffer the same fate, the COG Delta Squad, led by protagonist Marcus Fenix, must travel underground to begin a counter-offensive against the Locust responsible for the disappearances.

Many familiar faces return, as do a slew of new support characters. There is a greater emphasis on the tale, picking up on new threads and extending old ones, emphasizing the Locust’s background and emotional experiences. Again, certain levels have branching pathways. Dominic Santiago’s hunt for his lost wife, Maria, is one of the stories examined further. The campaign version of the game leads the player through five acts of large-scale combat in various environments, such as wrecked towns and locations where ice or water is prevalent. There is also vehicular fighting in a couple of sequences. The Reaver riding level, for example, has on-rail gun gameplay.

With new finisher moves, active reload benefits, new weapons (e.g., grenades that can be turned into proximity mines), and the ability to employ enemies as meat shields, the gameplay remains focused on the cover system. The mobile cover is an entirely new addition to the game. Three sorts of coverings can be grown in challenging areas to provide additional spots besides the typical scenery. Covers can now be distorted but not removed.

In addition to single-player, there is a cooperative campaign option (split-screen or online) where players can define their difficulty level (depending on health and damage). The simple controls for guiding AI squad mates have been obliterated from the normal campaign mode. The multiplayer mode includes fifteen maps (some of them are remakes of older ones). Online games have a matchmaking mechanism that matches players based on their rank. Submission (return an unfriendly AI character to the capture point), Guardian (team deathmatch with one player as the VIP – similar to Assassination in the previous game -; when the player is alive, the other can respawn infinitely, but – new in this mode – when he dies, the other players are on their last life), Wingman (ten players are split into two teams of two, both as the same character), and King of the Hill (previously only featured in

There is a cooperative Horde mode in which up to five players battle the Locust horde in 50 waves. In multiplayer games, there are more camera options, and players can capture images of the action to send to the official website.