Fresh off of playing Gears of War Ultimate Edition’s campaign with a very good pal of mine, I decided to keep the Gears train rolling by playing through the sequel to one of the most pivotal games in the Third Person Shooter genre. No pretty remaster for this title unfortunately, but thanks to Backwards Compatibility on Xbox, the game gets a nice FPS boost on the Series consoles. So, does the Bigger, Better, and more Badass follow-up still hold up after nearly 16 years? Is it truly the best title in the series, as people imply?
Will my answers to these questions be solely my opinion and not meant to be taken as gospel? Yes, someone who touts themself as being ‘objective’ about entertainment is a cornball and probably whines too much about ‘social issues ruining my hobbies.’
STORY
Gears of War 2 picks up shortly after the finale of the first installment, six months post the Lightmass bombing. The Locust have been put on the back foot, their brutal 14-year assault on humanity has crashed against the rocks of the coast and settled; the COG has finally earned a moment to regroup and strategize while the Locust seem to get increasingly bolder out of desperation. Despite the perceived turning tide, there are cities sinking at an alarming rate. Entire strongholds of civilization are collapsing into the Earth, once again skyrocketing humanity’s death toll.
Our protagonist is once again Marcus Fenix, a celebrated war hero, turned disgraced traitor, turned war hero once again. On the COG’s mission to launch their offensive against the Locust, Marcus fights alongside new and returning faces. His oldest comrade, Dominic Santiago, is in lockstep with him for the entire campaign; his search for his wife continues and is given more time in the narrative to unfold and reach a conclusion, rather than just exist as fleeting remarks like in the first title. Their journey is once again drenched in chainsaw bayonets, angry subterranean albinos, glowing ground juice, and plenty of juicy headshots.
Cliff Bleszinski remarked on the writing process of Gears of War in an interview, the philosophy behind it was, “We’ll figure it out later.” It makes sense when you play through the original game, you’re thrusted from a maximum-security cell to the front lines with absolutely no briefing; all you really know is, “The pasty monster guys are bad, shoot them.” The first game didn’t truly have a plan for the overall narrative it seems, it was more interested in being a commentary on the Bay of Pigs Invasion, as well as a far less clever representation on military fascism when compared to Starship Troopers. Not to imply the 1997 film was actually an inspiration for the story, but when two pieces of media share a similar motif, you can’t help but equate them to each other. This time around Epic decided to bring Joshua Ortega on board to assist in writing the script, a great choice, as he worked on the Gears of War comics that helped expand the lore.
Gears of War 2 certainly goes all in on the military propaganda early on, but shortly after Chairman Prescott’s rousing speech the inspirational and gung-ho atmosphere crashes and burns like a mortared King Raven. You quickly remember that everyone in and escorting the Derricks to Landown are all expendable to the COG, and this ‘heroic counteroffensive’ is a suicide march into the jaws of an enemy that isn’t as weakened as you were led to believe. As you fight through the acts you realize that those with boots on the ground only have each other to depend on, and that only through their dedication to each other does anything consequential happen in this war.
All this to say, Gears of War 2’s main theme is brotherhood, and it does a great job at depicting the numerous ways it takes shape amongst the cast. Crass banter between combat scenarios, teasing each other after heart-stopping and perilous rash decisions, rallying bickering comrades so they don’t lose focus and turn on each other, trusting them with your life knowing they won’t abandon you, charging into combat at a breakneck speed to save the last man standing, mourning the horrific and sudden death of a friend with the little time war allows, and being there for your brother during the most heartbreaking moment they will ever experience. The game may not always make you, the player, feel a direct sadness for seeing the tragic events, but I believe it's successful in always making you feel a great sympathy for the characters they affect.
GAMEPLAY
That’s quite a bit of reading about the story of a game about chainsawing Hollow Earth albinos, so let’s get into the gameplay. After pioneering the use of meaningful cover systems in the Third Person Shooter genre, Epic solidified the importance their new IP had in gaming. The core gameplay remains much the same in the sequel, iteration rather than innovation, but there is enough to keep the experience fresh. Getting in and out of cover has been tuned and tweaked a bit, you can now slide into cover from a greater distance and rolling out of cover feels far more reliable. The entire system feels less committal and sticky, any added flexibility in a gunfight can only be a plus. The protection cover provides is no longer infallible, if you can see the enemy’s back hunched over the top of their cover you can pull off a headshot with precise aiming.
The previous arsenal returns, most of the weapons are mostly unchanged besides a few minor tweaks. The Hammerburst receives the most significant rework; the first thing you notice is its appearance, the oval profile has been altered to look less like a Halo Covenant weapon and more of a conventional firearm. The burst fire the original Hammerburst had has been replaced with a slow and chugging automatic fire rate; to offset the sluggish RPM you can feather the trigger and send more bullets down range, at the cost of recoil that climbs faster than a Wretch jumping onto a ceiling.
There are several new toys to play with: the Gorgon Pistol that shoots huge bursts of ammunition at once; the Scorcher flamethrower which provides a decent way to crowd control; ink grenades that do damage over time if you stand in their area of effect; Boom Shields that protect the user from oncoming damage and allows for immediate returning fire with pistols, which can also be planted for solid conventional cover; and of course, the new heavy weapon class.
Taking a page out of General Raam’s book, the COG now lug around heavy instruments of bloody and hilarious death. The first is the aptly named Mulcher, a mini gun that requires a short spool up before unleashing a hail of bullets that shreds any poor soul standing in front of it. The second is the Mortar, though lacking a cool name like the first heavy weapon, it is equally as destructive. After aiming the weapon, you hold the shooting trigger down to send the warhead farther down range; as it approaches the impact zone the shell unleashes a hail of smaller explosives that pepper the area below, throwing blood and limbs everywhere. The two weapons are balanced by having a limited amount of ammo that cannot be replenished by ammo boxes, more so they slow the player down to only a walking speed and leave them completely stationary while aiming the heavy guns. Swapping weapons immediately makes the player character throw the heavy weapons to the ground, ditching them in a stressful situation is the only thing fast about them.
Executions were in the first game but hardly implemented, there was a singular curb stomp and the chances to use it in the campaign were incredibly rare. This time around the Locust are a lot more likely to fall and crawl on the ground from leg and body shots, which provides plenty of chances to see all the new executions. Most of the weapons have executions, the new guns do not have unique animations; the HOD, Boomshot and Hammerburst are the odd ones out from the original arsenal. The Lancer doesn’t exactly have a unique one either, but chainsawing people apart while they’re on their knees is pretty gnarly already, so I suppose it gets a pass. Rather than killing a downed enemy, you can alternatively pick them up and use them as a ‘meat shield’, forcing your enemies to shoot through a dead partner’s body in order to damage you. You can potentially break the neck of your shield before throwing them to the ground as a sort of execution, given they’re not shot into a bloody stew before then.
MUSIC
Gears of War 2’s soundtrack was done by Steve Jablonsky, a change from the original composer, Kevin Riepl. Though Mr. Riepl set an amazing groundwork for the series’ distinctive music, Mr. Jablonsky elevates the previous work done and truly makes it Bigger, Better, and more Badass. The music this time doesn’t sound like only utilizes conventional instrumentation, there are echoey drones, fading stingers and pensive loudening notes, elements that underline the boastful drums and strings which give every situation an aura of unease. A choir is implemented throughout a large portion of the soundtrack as well, giving choice tracks an overwhelming sense of grandiose. It’s hard for me to describe why the choir, personally, makes or a breaks a Gears soundtrack, but since this title, an OST in this series that doesn’t opt to use one just feels incomplete.
VISUALS
The visuals still hold up pretty well, close-ups on the models show the age of a lot of the textures; they can look blurry and almost pixelated at times, it’s not an issue with texture loading either, a common issue with the Unreal Engine back in the day. Characters’ skin textures are improved and look a bit more realistic; it accents the stylized features of the Gears well and steers well away from the uncanny valley.
Though the environments are well crafted and detailed, the sequel exacerbates a criticism the debut title received: the drab, brown and grey color palette. To be fair, plenty of games aiming for realism during the early years of the 7th generation were blasted with this critique. Gears of War 2’s decision to spend most of the campaign underground isn’t a ridiculous progression for the story, it’s just funny in retrospect to see the decision as a someone saying, “They’re saying our game is brown and gray? Well, we’re going to put Marcus underground now, guess it’s going to stay that way lmao.” There are a few examples of color entering the art direction, like the blues and greens at the beginning of the Derrick ride and the bioluminescent vegetation underground, but the for the most part the only vibrancy most areas get are from the LEDs on Marcus and Dom’s equipment.
WHOLE PACKAGE GLAZING
Gears of War 2 really set the stage for what a feature-complete title should have: An engaging and compelling story mode that has the option for co-op, a competitive multiplayer with various game modes that are both familiar to PvP games and yet unique to the series, and a PvE mode that can be played solo but is best when played with friends. I will not be talking about the Versus or Horde in this review/retrospection/whatever because I only really care to play the campaigns, but I will say that I never got into Versus until 3’s Beta, and that I sunk dozens of hours into Horde with my pals.
CLIFFY B AND STOLEN DEVELOPER VALOR
In a recent interview pertaining to Gears of War: E-Day's reveal, Cliff Bleszinski had two words for those who sing the praises of the Zombies game mode in Call of Duty: “You’re welcome.” As a diehard fan of Gears of War, I sing the praises of this series as if every entry is an industry-disrupting juggernaut that flips our preconceived notions about game design on its head. Though I love Horde-style PvE game modes, I absolutely despise arrogant people taking credit for things they don’t have a claim to. CoD World at War, which came out only 4 days after Gears of War 2, had Zombies in it already; doesn’t exactly seem like a lot of time to bite an entire game mode to me.
It may be fair to give GoW 2’s Horde Mode the credit for spawning the popularity of the game mode in the industry, but it certainly wasn’t a deciding factor in the popularity of the little passion project game mode that could. Treyarch earned their success by building on their solid foundation, adding new mechanics, easter eggs, a narrative, and probably a lot more that I don’t know of because I’m not a massive fan of the game mode. Zombies didn’t become a runaway smash hit because Gears 2 introduced Horde Mode and made that style of PvE successful, it’s not even fair to compare Gears 2 Horde mode to WaW Zombies once you account for their offerings by the end of their respective title’s DLC cycles. The only thing that changes in Horde is the map, that’s it. It’s not even in the same ballpark as Zombies, let’s please be for real here.
I still prefer Horde mode; I just want to shoot stuff and chill.
CONCLUSION
Anyways that’s Gears of War 2, an incredible sequel that vastly improves every aspect of the original game and solidifies the identity of the series. Does it hold up? I’d say ‘yes’, so long as you’re not comparing it to the later games that improve its mechanics. To this day, I don’t think any other title has surpassed or even matched the aesthetics of this title.
Is it the best in the series? Arguably, it’s certainly better than 1, I get the feeling that people are more lukewarm on 3, and that those same folk see everything after 3 only as “How Gears of War Died” type of games. I’ll have to replay them and see for myself I suppose.
Gears of War 2 gets an Alaskan Bull Worm/10
