E for All 2008: Gears of War 2 Preview

Many of us are well versed in the awesome religion known as Gears of War. Those of us who are worshipers of the Gears have been keeping a close eye on its sequel’s launch date, November 7th.

At this weekend’s E for All Expo, I had the pleasure of demoing Gears of War 2 in the brand new Horde Mode. Horde mode is a 5-manned, almost non-stop, battle with the Locust. With each wave, the mobs gets scarier, beefier, and more accurate at liquidating your brains. There are a total of 50 waves. E for All groups were only able to reach about wave 16. Horde mode can also be played in insane mode, where the highest wave anyone has ever gotten is wave 7. Needless to say, the game gets hard…fast! Luckily, it never ceases to entertain.

Quite a few goodies have been introduced in Gears of War 2. The graphics remain as eye-melting as in the first game. To keep things fresh, they introduced a few gameplay changes, like the ability to use meat shields. You can come behind and lock onto a locust, using him as a shield against enemy gun fire. Also, when you are down on the ground slowly dying, you can crawl toward your teammates or out of enemy sight.

Like moths to a super-awesome flame.

The fact that a vast amount of weapons have been added is sure to be a crowd pleaser:

Shield/pistol: You pick up what appears to be a manhole cover and use it as a shield. You remain in cover, and have a tiny weapon to defend yourself (no-brainer note: when a butcher is coming your way…opt for the shotgun).

Flamethrower: (not yet announced) Good for burning those little golem creatures that gnaw at your ankles. It has a decent range, but does mediocre damage. Nothing says “$#@* you” like armor-piercing ammunition.

Mortar: Here is the play-by-play: place cannon on floor… cannon fires mortar into the sky…mortar comes back down….mortar explodes raining a fiery hell upon the locusts…they all die. I found it a little hard to use, but some people were using it like PROS! I also found out that there is an Xbox achievement that can be unlocked for mortar-power users.

Torque Bow: Just in case you forgot how awesome these were in the first Gears. Remember Reign of Fire with the exploding arrow tips? It’s kind of like that. You pop up, thwack your arrow behind an enemy, cover, and BOOM! It is an extremely handy weapon if you are attacking from an elevated position, which lets you get a clear shot of the enemy area. Happy to have a Torque Bow encore.

Gatling Gun: Mmmm…this was my favorite. You can use it from a standing position, but watch out, because it possesses the accuracy of Shaq at the free throw line. If placed on the ground, this provides intense cover fire, and clears a bottle neck point pretty easily. It’ll go through the toughest baddies.

Poison Gas Bombs: I didn’t have the opportunity to get far enough to use these, but the Gears of War booth patrons were unanimous in stressing its awesomeness…so it must be true. The name is pretty self explanatory.

Overall, I am utterly stoked for Gears of War 2. I was also informed that the Gears of War: Special Edition that was exhibited at Comic-Con will likely be raffled off from the Gears of War website, so keep your eye out!

Editor’s note: ‘Crossbow/exploding arrows’ has been changed to ‘Torque Bow.’