Double Dipped Gears of War 2 Complement Sandwich
Submitted by Oculus on Mon, 11/17/2008 - 9:15am.
No Spoilers, this includes comments please! If you feel you must, use spoiler tags!
I've had enough time to try out Gears of War 2 and I thought I'd give a breakdown of how I feel the game has progressed (or regressed) since the first rendition.
First of all, the campaign: I believe this campaign was definitely better than the first. This is where I'm betting Epic spent most of their time on the game and it shows. In a campaign I usually look for a solid shooter, well designed levels, and a cinematic experience to tie everything together and GOW2 delivers on all three. I won't say much more, but there are really some cool moments that leave you with your jaw hanging open. Needless to say, I can't wait to run through it again on a more difficult setting. Gears 2 campaign is one of the best single player experiences I've been through.
Multiplayer Matches: What in the heck were they thinking?
As most of you know I spent a lot of time playing Gears 1, and I loved *almost* every part of that game's multiplayer experience. Sure, there were BS THX Slayer Magic Shotgun (TM) moments, but all in all the game was actually quite fun to play. Turn the clock two years later and we're at version 2.0 (or 1.9 candidate release if you've tried the matchmaking system).
I'm left with just straight confusion as to what they were trying to achieve this time around. To be honest it's like they never really thought through the changes, just went around and said.. "Hey man this would be totally awesome if we threw in this cool new thing.. people will love it!!!".
Exhibit A: the concussion effect - this is when you happen to be near a smoke grenade when it goes off. You'll receive a nonlethal and quite annoying jolt that knocks you to the ground, making you a target for 4 seconds until you get up. Combine this with a totally neat-o awesome stick effect to stick smoke grenades to walls and you get a funtastic standoff where routing out that last player is virtually impossible if he has an ounce of skill in his thumbs.
At least you're not able to pwn people with superior lancer/hammerburst skill any more. The people who are getting the kills are doing so through one of two things, hoarding a power weapon, or you guessed it, the chainsaw. Lowered shot rate on the shotgun and continuously running chainsaws whether they're shot or not provide a zone of opportunity for any three year old child with a B button. The lancer fire is effectively useless, taking almost more than a full clip (which has been extended) to down someone. The hammerburst is ok, except for the fact that it's melee is useless against unstoppable and never ending chainsaws.
The power weapons: Get the torque bow and win. Get the boomer and win. Get the mortar and have a distinct advantage. Get the frag grenades and win. Get the sniper and have your whole team cuss you out while you lose. And that sums up exactly how you're game will go if you do those exact steps.
The torque bow is now so overpowered that you just have to shoot the ground next to an opponent and he's mashed potatoes. We discovered this while, after his whole team had died, an opponent destroyed all 5 of us (1 vs 5), all with what we thought was an innocent looking torque bow from GoW 1. Meet the new Halo 2 sword folks! Do not use standard weapons in this game. You will be doomed to disappointment over and over again. I confirmed this by grabbing the torque and subsequently destroying the opposition every time. And here's where I say it:
I PREFER PLAYING HALO 3 MULTIPLAYER FAR MORE THAN GEARS OF WAR 2 MULTIPLAYER.
God help me. After getting sawed *cough* sworded *cough* in GoW2 35 times maybe others will feel the same way
And I will end in typical complement sandwich form by saying something good about the GoW2 experience.
Horde mode is amazing. Horde mode rocks your face off. Horde mode gives your Mama a back massage and strokes your Aunt Bethyl's bunions. I can't say enough about how much fun I have playing this mode. At this point I'm feeling like GoW 2, much like this post of mine, is akin to owning a Lamborghini with a turd for a stick shift. The awesomeness is there, but you have to constantly grab on to that turd in order to get the full experience.
Sweeney, your still my hero.
Thnx.
Nice analysis, Oc. I haven't had enough time with it to fully 100% agree with this...but I agree with most of it. The matchmaking wait times are ridiculous....this isn't a launch title for a console! Even then it would be inexcusable.
I think the campaign had more work done in it; the hours I spent on it were certainly memorably entertaining, but there were plenty of sci-fi clichés I've already seen before (but I think CliffyB said it himself that clichés aren't that bad as long as they're executed well). I don't like that the chain saw is more noob friendlier than ever too.
I do see being able to arm any grenade as a mine as a balance issue. I do agree that it appears the design team just went "Hey man this would be totally awesome if we threw in this cool new thing.. people will love it!!!" That's what I thought too.
By the way, it's concussion, not "percussion." What really bothers me is that it's essentially a stun grenade which is meant to incapacitate a target, but it's tricky to use it offensively because of the fact it can be difficult to see through the smoke. The smoke lasts just long enough so you can end up being just as disoriented as your opponent and he'll have enough time to get back up, but it doesn't stay long enough for its original purpose in the first game, which was the concealment of an area. Perhaps if you think of it as a ninja who throws smoke bombs that disorient his enemies as a mean of escape, it'll suit you, but it's neither a fully effective stun grenade nor a smoke canister. Maybe it would be better if you spawned with the original smoke grenade and had to pick up the stun grenade elsewhere (but then you'd have the problem of four grenades I suppose).
I also really doubt that the Torque Bow is anywhere near as noob friendly as the infamous Energy Sword was.
Oc, I'm beginning to feel your pain. Just finished campaign on insane (coop with Cyneater) and loved it. However, I may be moving back to COD4 for multiplayer. My pet peeve is a little strange, but roll with me: When I host a multiplayer match I pwn everyone (sometimes with the exception of cyneater). I consistently have the most points on the team. When I play in matchmaking I am often near the bottom of the team. Why? I can only conclude there is a huge host advantage. I don't like winning because I'm host and I don't like losing all the time either.
The power weapons are definitely a legit complaint. Why do I have to race to the mortar on Pavilion every single round just to have a chance at winning?
I'm even willing to accept that I'm just bad at GoW2, but even if that's the case, I still am not having much fun trying to get better.
I think the campaign is generally boring, except for the 15 seconds of awesomeness that is in every chapter. Then again, I'm guessing that is exactly what the game designers wanted. I remember talking to a map designer at Gearbox Software one time. He said his teams built maps based on 15 seconds of awesomeness. I believe I've heard other game designers say the same thing.
There were definitely some jaw dropping events that happen in the first 3 acts (I'm on the 3rd act). Other than that, the campaign does seem cliche.
I mean, I disliked the GoW2 campaign the first time when it was called "Brothers in Arms". By that I'm suggesting that I feel like I'm being funneled on my way through the maps for no other good reason other than that's where the game designer wanted me to go.
If the campaign levels were a little more open, I would be in love with the campaign. Instead, I kind of feel like a rat making its way through a maze.
SPOILERS ahoy:
Cliches? I saw references to other campaigns in other games:
* How about the COGS that drop below the surface. Kind of like Halo 3's ODST's if you ask me.
* Speaking of Halo 3, remember the Cortana Level where you had to go inside the organism and pass through the orifices? Act 2 seems like that to me...when you go inside the giant worm to go cut the heart.
* Remember the sentry turrets in Portal? GoW2 has them with those light turrets that wail on you if you cross in front of them at the wrong time.
* Brothers in Arms. Ever played a campaign and run into walls that are just there. Why are they there? Because they are. In GoW2 is seems that there's a barrier that's positioned in a place you want to go for not reason other than to make you go somewhere else. Wooden doors? Your Lancer can't saw through them. Your legs can bust through them. This all reminds me of how I felt playing BiA for the first time. The same tactics apply in BiA as in GoW2: FIND, FIX, FLANK, FIRE. But the map design got on my nerves to the point that when I've won one battle, I've essentially won them all.
Sorry for the rant, but this is GoW2. GoW1 was amazing. Epic has had time to add the leet sauce to GoW1 and make GoW2. And I'm not seeing it. To me, the campaign is good enough. But my expectations aren't yet met for the reasons I stated above.
Matchmaking? I haven't played enough of it yet. To me, it seems like GoW1 with some tweaked weapons. But no matter the gameplay changes that were made between GoW1 and GoW2, the matchmaking blows chunks. The Xbox 360 has been out for how long? GoW1 came out how long ago? Halo 2 set the matchmaking standard how long ago?
Color me unimpressed at the moment. However, it appears the rolling shotgun is gone. And I haven't been dominated by the never ending active reloading sniper yet.
I'm still looking forward to playing the game and even the MP with THXers.
That said, nobody is talking about CoD5. It is getting ratings of 86/100 compared to 94/100 for CoD4 - which I think is pretty close. I think it will have solid replay value for WW2 shooter fans. I think it will be the best WW2 shooter to date and expect the campaign to be less spectacular than CoD4's.
I'm gonna rent COD:WAW for the campaign, but based on the demo I'd rather play COD4 multiplayer.
I constantly fail to grasp what most people tend to like in a campaign. Had I conceived the levels, I'm not even sure I could have done as good a job. I spent a whole Saturday finishing the campaign and can't wait to do it again. As far as cliches go, I think they're unavoidable for any sci-fi genre for the most part... that being said it can be taken to far.
As a general rule, map design and graphics, and sound play a big part of the experience for me. Gameplay should be challenging and not overly recycled. Cut scenes tie it all together, and well placed boss battles.. etc. If I feel like playing it again they've done their job well.
My big gripe is with the strange ideas in multiplayer... ultra chainsaw, weenie lancer, unbeatable torque bow. Maybe they'll fix some of these things. I've been hanging out in the epic forums lately and people are rabidly enthusiastic about letting them know how they feel about the chainsaw. They really have made a lot of improvements to multiplayer from the first GoW, but just like in Halo 2, the improvements came with some annoying additions.
2 things will drastically help: give us back the old lancer and make the chainsaw pause when you get shot. As Midnight said, I can also accept sucking at Gears of War, as long as it's consistent and I don't suck because I refuse to chainsaw constantly (or run to the power weapon every round).
Horde mode still rocks your face.
Oc, I agree. GoW 2 is up there with my favorite campaigns of all time:
Halo 1
Halo 3
Oblivion
COD4
Multiplayer just isn't what I had hoped. Oh well.
Voicing opinion and giving criticism is good; how else do people become better? It's not like we hate the game, we just dislike certain things about the game that shouldn't be. I suppose developers don't get credited enough for their effort and achievement sometimes, but Epic Games could have done better, and that's all I want to say. I have to agree with rapture here.
Cyneater, what are your thoughts about GOW2, specifically? I'd like to hear them.
I'm not going to blast you for your earlier post. EA and Mike already did that, and I think we know what you meant since you clarified yourself. But I'd really like to know your thoughts about the game itself.
I've been playing through the GOW2 campaign. EA was generous enough to lend me his copy while his Xbox is getting repaired.
My thoughts are, it's good, but not great. Although I thoroughly enjoy playing it, I was expecting a bit more in the area of originality.
*Spoilers below!*
For reference, I am on the Reever run right now.
The similarities to Halo are numerous, as others in this thread have already alluded. Instead of Cortana, we've got Jack. Instead of the Covenant, we've got the Locust. Instead of the Flood, we've got Lambent Locust. I guess Halo is a guaranteed, tried-and-true recipe for a successful and immersive game story, but I wish GOW2 were a little less obvious about it.
Now, I know Halo isn't exactly original. It has borrowed certain themes and aspects of the sci-fi genre, as well as other proven gaming elements. However, it was the first game that I've played that has combined so many of those awesome facets into one finished, well-balanced product. It sort of emulated many things at once, and it did it very well. The culmination of those elements just worked. I'm not saying GOW2 doesn't work, but it just doesn't seem to work quite as well.
For me, there are very few, if any, stellar moments in the campaign. There are some memorable ones, but they just don't quite equal some of the feelings I had playing through the Halo1 campaign. The ones that have stuck out for me so far: The giant worm was one. I was not expecting that. Dominic's wife was another. Again, never thought he'd run into her deep inside the Locust caves. Also, Tai's suicide was pretty unexpected. I really liked that character, and thought they could have done more with it, but it certainly helped to hit home the realization that the Locust had changed their tactics. I'm somewhat engulfed in what sort of relationship that Fenix's father had with the Locust Queen. All I know is that, although their respective problems are quite different, he and the Queen share the belief that sinking Jacinto is the solution. Marcus seems to be on-board with that theory, at this point in the story.
As for multiplayer, I've only played it at Midnight's LAN. I had a great time, but mainly that was due to the company, not the actual gameplay. I will play it some more when I'm done with the campaign. After all, that LAN was the first time I've ever played GOW (1 or 2) MP, save for 2 or 3 times over XBL a few weeks ago on GOW1 w/ some THXers. Maybe as I get a little better at it, I'll enjoy it more.
I just want to say that I understand where Cyn is coming from... and I partially agree with him, although I would not have expressed it the way he did.
I happened to really love the GOW2 campaign, I did notice the borrowing though. I think the multiplayer is just as fun as GOW1 or Halo3... but COD4 is still the king of multiplayer in my book. In fact, I played some COD4 yesterday with Midnight, and it still owns me.
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"Don't blow this, Gene!"
My thoughts are, it's good, but not great. Although I thoroughly enjoy playing it, I was expecting a bit more in the area of originality.
*Spoilers below!*
For reference, I am on the Reever run right now.
The similarities to Halo are numerous, as others in this thread have already alluded. Instead of Cortana, we've got Jack. Instead of the Covenant, we've got the Locust. Instead of the Flood, we've got Lambent Locust. I guess Halo is a guaranteed, tried-and-true recipe for a successful and immersive game story, but I wish GOW2 were a little less obvious about it.
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