Gears of War 2 (X360)

I know a lot of you are really excited for this game, so I will happily give you a review three weeks early.

If you've played the first Gears of War, you'll be able to jump right into this one. The controls are the same, the weapons are the same, the strategies are the same - wait, this is a sequel?

Gears of War 1.5 won't disappoint if you're a fan of the first, provided all you expected from it was another single player experience. That said, the new levels are pretty awesome. It's still fairly linear, with the same "you go left, I'll go right" sort of splits. The bosses aren't quite as good in my opinion - there seems to be a lot less figuring out what to do, and more shooting. The final boss isn't difficult at all, I probably could have done it with my eyes closed. The weapons are all the same, with a few additions. There's a mortar gun, which is pretty cool for the few times you use it, a flamethrower, and a minigun that's fun to mow people down with. The Hammer of Dawn seems to only appear once. As you have probably seen in trailers and videos, you also get to ride some Locust vehicles, which are definitely fun.

My main concern with Gears of War, the first one, was the lack of character exposition. They drop you into a prison and tell you to start shooting. After beating it, I looked up some back story online, and found out that a 30 second cutscene could have explained everything. Just a quick little exposition to tell me why I give a crap about these aliens, which would really help me enjoy curb stomping a whole lot more. It's all there too... the story is actually pretty cool. They just don't bother to tell it to you.

A few of the questions that the first one leaves you with are answered here, but its largely the same sort of thing. As I said before, I know a lot of people are looking forward to this, so I won't spoil anything. What I WILL say is that Cole doesn't get nearly enough lines in this one. As a huge fan of the Terry Tate series, I looked forward to every Cole line in the first. "Can't stop the Train baby! WOO WOO!!" and "The Train's at home on the RAILS." literally made me reload the last checkpoint to listen again. However, in 2, I don't think I heard a single mention of the train. His lines were much more serious, when he got them at all, to the point where I wasn't even sure if it was the same guy.

I haven't gotten around to playing multiplayer, since I value my ability to connect to Live. I wouldn't expect many sweeping changes there though.

As for achievements, you get your standard 10g for each level, one for killing enemies in 15 unique ways, killing X number with the flamethrower, mortar, and minigun, and a whole slew of multiplayer achievements. "Seriously 2.0" involves getting 100,000 kills, which will take you quite some time. The collector achievement, the closest to the COG Tag collection in the first one, only consists of 5 items, and they're all more or less handed to you. The hardest one to find is probably the first, which is located on your assault platform dealie. Instead of running straight up to the turret to shoot the Reavers, go backwards, and it's a sign on the wall.

One more bit about achievements - there is a new achievement tracker, which shows your progress toward an achievement. For example, every time you pick up something for the collection achievement, your progress toward it is shown in a little box with a progress bar. Pretty handy for the achievement junkies out there.

So in closing, if you want new single player levels for Gears, and you don't mind spending the $60, I say go for it. If you'd like to play something groundbreaking, I suggest passing on this one.