Who the hell coughed blood over my Game Informer mag?!!
…oh wait, it’s just the Gears of War 2 edition. Call off the paramedics. Or whatever, let them come, maybe they can fix that pinkish fungus thing I’ve got growing behind my left ear while they are here.
…aaanyway, Gears of War 2 then. Well, without regurgitating the article which I am sure all of you have already swallowed whole, pooped out and swallowed again, I am just glad to learn that the core gameplay is remaining pretty much as in the original. I thought GoW1 absolutely nailed the core mechanics and the last thing I’d want to see is them messing with that just because they feel the dreaded “pressure to innovate”. I mean, hell, it will inevitably happen eventually, but I hope they last at least through GoW 3 before caving.
Can’t say that I got particularly excited by the new cast of characters (or baddies, for that matter) - but only because I was perfectly happy with them the first time around. It’s not like the first game really gave us a chance to get tired of them or anything - which brings me to the other point - it was awesome to hear that the story is going to get a depth-first makeover. I know some people won’t agree with me, but I think EVERY good game, no matter what the genre, should have a story that’s good enough to stand as an independent piece of work. All right, so maybe puzzle games get to have crappy stories, but that’s it.
The expanded cast of new vehicles sounds moderately exciting - here is hoping the vehicle gameplay gets a makeover as well. I am all for burning up the vampiric Kryll, but overall GoW1 vehicle combat was kind of anti-climactic as compared to the rest of the game. While I’ll admit that it sort of worked as a nice contrast at times, overall I’d like to see some hardcore vehicle combat integrated into the game. Maybe give Marcus a nuclear-powered pink tricycle with a mounted Hammer of Dawn, I dunno.
Anyway, those are my impressions of the preview. I gotta go (the paramedics are here) - but feel free to share your own thoughts on seeing your red GI this month.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Hmph. You know what I saw in that issue? Blah Blah Blah Blah Mario Kart Blah Blah Blah Fable2. Oh, and there was a pretty good article on direct to wii ware games…oh and some reader dude in Letters called EA The NY Yankees of the Gaming Industry…and I loves me some Yankee diss! So I guess it was a pretty good issue. Curse you GI, you win this one.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Still haven’t gotten the issue (I just renewed, stupid lag time), but I did just finish playing the original GOW… give me a break, I’ve only had a 360 since September. I have to say, I was not overly impressed. The gameplay was fun and the music was fantastic, but it didn’t really blow me away and make me want to go out and track down the special edition or pre-order #2. Now, granted, I didn’t play any of the campaign in co-op mode, and I’m sure that would add a bit of fun (instead of yelling at the AI - “Dom, you dumbass, stop running INTO the gunshots!”), but still, there are plenty of other games that I had a lot more fun playing.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Really? Hmm. Maybe its because I really don’t play all that many hardcore shooters, but when I first played it I thought it was kind of fantastic - in fact it was the first shooter that I actually finished in many years. I thought they did a terrific job with transitions between narrative elements and action, and that the whole shooting from cover technique was flawlessly modernized and brought over from those old arcade games. I guess there is also a bit of a timing factor here - GOW was really one of the first games to really show off what the 360 could do graphically, and it pretty much stood alone in that department at the time of its release. Now there are obviously quite a few more games that look as good if not better.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Yeah, I can understand what you’re saying about the timing, although I do agree the game still looks phenomenal on the system. The cover mechanic was probably the one aspect that I appreciated the most, since it did work very well and allow for some fun gameplay and decision-making, but just overall, the narrative and the damn monocrhomatic style aggravated me more than anything - early on I couldn’t tell which side I was shooting against! In the grand scheme they’re probably minor gripes, but I wouldn’t put the game in any top lists.