There are so many good points to the game it’s hard to sum it all up. Even the online play and horde mode is brilliant and seemless. Not to mention how motivating the reward of an execution or even just a simple kill can be for the player. It leaves you with the right amount of incentive to keep playing.

It’s also a rarity that a game would ever drive me to get xblv acheivments but this one succeeded I found myself attempting to use every weapon, execute enemies in every way possible and just kill, kill, kill. This is the first game in a long time where I’ve played through the story more than once and have attempted the hardest difficutly. In fact I plan to finish GoW2 on insane. Gears 2 ranks in my top 5 games of all time.

Little things like these just reinforce how much Epic thought about the design of this game. It’s annoying to see it dismissed as a big dumb action game for the uninitiated, and probably why there’s such a defensive undercurrent to this review.

“… it allows itself to be picked up by almost anyone and have its essence immediately tapped by the Player. That this experience can be enjoyed by the hardcore and casual alike is a feat worth recognizing.”

Agreed. Consider how much can be done with the A-button: you can slip out of, hop over, and roadie run from cover to cover. These commands then become context sensitive and there’s no guesswork when it comes to protecting your hide.

Also, re: wretches. I hate them. Lambent. Glowing. Dark. All of them. I hate them. They always travel in packs and act like wolves and when they encounter prey the alpha of the pack will usually emit a loud scream. There’s a sequence in the game where I kept dying because I foolishly (instinctively?) ran for cover and, from a stationary position, tried to blast my way through to the next checkpoint. They were coming at me from 3 or 4 different points in an enclosed area and I couldn’t keep up. See, the little bastards have a tendency to explode on death. Then it dawned on me. Run. Keep moving and keep firing your Lancer. Run, idiot, run. The development team did a great job of keeping things simple and VERSATILE and VISCERAL.

We need to play Gears 1 online. Tonight.

Beto.

(Amélie finds last photo “too scary”.)