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So the midnight releases are tonight, the Locust are back and badder than ever and the humans have said 'fuck this defensive shit' and decided it's time to storm the underground.

Anyone else getting it tonight?

I'll probably pick it up on the way home. JSF and I will blast through it tomorrow I guess.

Will be stomping and sawing through it with my regular co-op buddy this weekend

It'll be a while. Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero IV, Far Cry 2, and Fallout 3 are all at the top, and Gears of War 2 just doesn't seem that different from the first (I played it all the way through, did a few of the better missions sporadically, played multiplayer for a few days, then let it gather dust since the summer). At least not enough to warrant me buying it right away.

I already bought my copy, but I won't be picking it up till after work tomorrow.

Stark wrote:I'll probably pick it up on the way home. JSF and I will blast through it tomorrow I guess.

This is also my plan, but obviously not with JSF, and actually today.

Stark wrote:I'll probably pick it up on the way home. JSF and I will blast through it tomorrow I guess.

"Hey Stark lets play Gears 2."

"Holy shit Hawkeye you just phased across the room."

'My shotgun pellets are moving at 1m/s'

'This may not be combat effective'

'Argh you're behind me I am dead'

Well it looks like I won't be able to play it anyway. My 360's power brick just literally bricked. Again.

You guys have bad luck!

I got the game last night at midnight and played co-op with my buddy until 2:30am. The single player campaign so far is sick. It feels a lot bigger than the first game; instead of being on your own the whole time, you feel like a tiny but important cog in a huge war. I'm really enjoying the new weapons so far too, and I'm enjoying the story thus far though nothing really new has been revealed yet.

In short, get this game, it kicks ass!

Does anyone else have a problem with freezing? My Xbox crapped out multiple times as soon as I got to landdown.

TheMuffinKing wrote:Does anyone else have a problem with freezing? My Xbox crapped out multiple times as soon as I got to landdown.

So far I haven't had any problems at all. Sorry to hear that you're having issues, that really sucks.

Playing it at a friend's house i've gotten a lot of time of it. Overall it just feels way more solid than the last game. They held true to the formula and added plenty of stuff without compromising it. I patiularly get a kick out of the mortar and machine gun, which finally give the Gear's a kind of "tacticool support weapons."

As for my recent hiccups, I figure I had a power surge or something earlier. Last night I started a new game and was able to play uninterrupted until I went to bed.

I have to say, this is the best game I've played so far. This should win game of the year, at least in 80's action movie categories! I second the awesomeness of the weapons like the mortar and the improved hammerburst.

The level designs are quite nice, with many open areas allowing some freedom of movement, and some corridors. Lots of gore too!

Does anyone know how to extend the range of the mortar? I can't seem to get it to hit where I want. I suppose I could read the manual, but i'd have to sacrifice five guy points.

Hold the fire button down more or possibly aim higher. It marks what power setting you used for you last shot so you can adjust.

From what I've played so far (where the gears have done their starship troopers style drop invasion of the locus underground) it is so far everything a sequel should be. That is it has all the good points of the original and adds to it.

Also, does anyone know if they're releasing an OST for this game? i loved the music from the original GOW, and this is even better.

Okay I just finished the campaign on Co-op... and damn but that was awesome.

Just finished, and damn that was awesome. Everything a sequel should be.

My prediction for Gears 3: The Imulsion has contaminated the ocean, resulting in horrible, unspeakable things.

Gotta me too on this as well. It's solid, longer, and didn't feel like it dragged on the first play through.

Still have three executions to figure out how to do... Most guns Y has you punch their face in, X curb stomps them, and B just melees them. (A picking them up and using them as a shield, though I've yet to get any progress toward the achievement for it...)

Horde looks like it'll be fun. I like stuff like that. Cooperative comp stomps...

The story... I gotta wonder if the fact that Carmine mentions he has three brothers isn't hinting at their current plan for series length...

So, I got this game on Friday, and played it all the way through.

I don't know about you guys, but this is quite possibly the single best shooter I've ever played. The straightforward gunbattles were brilliantly interspersed with absolutely jaw-dropping scripted sequences. Especially the part at the end where you
Spoiler Also, Epic wins forever with
Spoiler It has been a long, long time since I can honestly say a video game made me cry, but holy shit was that one of the most gut-wrenchingly sad things I've ever seen, and I'm not afraid to admit that I for a few minutes after it was over.

The Vortex Empire wrote: My prediction for Gears 3: The Imulsion has contaminated the ocean, resulting in horrible, unspeakable things.

Yeah, the part at the end of the credits where Adam Fenix says "What have you done...." gave me a few chills. Especially now that we know Imulsion can mutate things very quickly.

Now, random theorizing! I suspect that....
Spoiler

It's a great game, but I think it suffers a bit from being a mid-game, existing only to set up the sequel. The setpieces are better, more complex, more interesting. The weapons are better and more balanced (although many don't turn up very often in the game which is a shame). The boss battles are way, way less annoying but far more awesome at the same time, and thankfully the story is still a minimalist grunting sweaty man sort of thing. The pacing is better than in Gears1 as well, and the variety levels (flying, driving, sailing, etc) are all better handled than the horrible spotlight level. Thankfully it's significantly harder too, with hardcore being a pain for me single player and I can laugh through Gears1 on insane. The game leaves you with exactly the same feeling of wanting more that the first one did.

And the water looks fucking AWESOME.

Where is my GoW mod for UT3? WHERE?

I finished it over the weekend. Awesome fucking game. It's everything that made the first GoW great, but with +5 fun and sexyness. And echoing Stark on the water, it looks really well done.

Although I still need to replay it all the way through again. I was playing on my own and then hopped into a co-op game so the scenes are a bit out of order for me.

Oh yeah, and I love Epic long time for the Horde feature. I pretty much don't want to play any multiplayer but that now.

Considering my back is out, I've got nothing better to do than play video games. Well, at least the timing is right.

Got GoW2 back to the house around 6pm Friday. Hooked up with my buddy at around 6:30 for some co-op action. Beat the game on Normal by 4am. The campaign is a great mix of intense action, story-elements, and WTF moments (the worm? Seriously?). Insane is difficult, but nothing near the original. I'm working through Act II right now on insane. I think it helps that the combat hasn't changed much at all unlike the Halo series progression.

With a 4 man team, we finally locked up 50 waves of Horde at around midnight Sunday. Now that is fun.

I'm by no means an achievement whore, but I am glad they aren't absolutely retarded like they were in the original. Get 10,000 kills in ranked matches? Fuck no. Getting 100,000 is a lot, but it's in any game mode for Seriously 2.0.

I got through my first co-op game with my brother, and at the risk of sounding like "me-tooing" I have to agree, Epic really did an excellent job with this game, fixing most of the flaws from the first Gears while keeping the basic formula intact; I think they'll have a very hard time topping this with the next sequel.

A few observations:

*The new weapons were all good and each served a unique function; I especially liked the flamethrower (too much, according to my brother), and the re-worked Hammerburst, which in it's new role as an accurate, semi-auto rifle is actually different enough from the Lancer to make it a viable alternative. The Mortar and Mulcher support weapons were also useful additions.

*A few features I have yet to try are the meat shield and the chainsaw duel, the latter of which I only used during the boss fight with Skorge during the campaign. Perhaps multiplayer will see more use of the chainsaw duel. I have, however managed to get all but one of the unique executions (the one with the Torque Bow was especially brutal).

*The environments were another improvement I liked; they certainly felt much bigger than in the first game, the inclusion of unique vehicular sequences, environmental factors, and truly unique bosses helped keep the gameplay from becoming repetitive, despite the longer campaign. I also liked the "dynamic" cover in some of the underground levels (the rockworms and retractable barriers). Like the first Gears, the artwork in this game is again, top notch: those massive caves in the later levels were truly a sight to behold.

*The story struck a very nice balance, in my opinion: It was deep enough to be interesting with a few well-handled "emotional" moments scattered here and there, but at the same time it wasn't so pretentiously deep and complex as to detract form the "'80s Action Movie" feel that defines the series. A paper-thin storyline was a common complaint of the first game and I was afraid Epic would go to the opposite extreme this time, but I'm relieved to see this was not the case.

*The TacCom was a small, but very useful feature. Given how hard similar Locust Drones can look to Gears in low light, this feature greatly reduced friendly fire and hesitation, one of my little peeves from the first game.

*Hoard was an awesome addition: I had a great time getting through a few dozen rounds with my brother, and it's also fun to play alone.