Gears of War 2 Multiplayer

The original Gears of War was the reason I swallowed my pride and all my hatred for the Xbox 360. As soon as I saw it at my friend’s house I was hooked, and after my first time playing the multiplayer online against other friends I knew that my life actually had a meaning. Then along comes Gears of War 2 to show me that the original game in fact sucked by comparison.

GoW2 takes everything the first game did right and takes it to the next level, and multiplayer is no different. Doubling the number of multiplayer modes the original shipped with, adding party play, increasing the amount of players per game amongst other gameplay and aesthetic additions are pretty much sprinkling heroin on the already addictive formula of the first GoW.

The new multiplayer modes are Submission, Guardian, Wingman and Horde:

Submission is a twisted version of capture the flag in which you have to shoot down a civilian, who is by the way armed with a shotgun, and then carry him to a designated area, while your teammates try to protect you from the ever respawning onslaught of enemy forces trying to stop you.

Guardian is a regular warzone match with one difference: as long as the leader is alive the other player will keep respawning, but the leader’s death does not end the match either.

Wingman places you and a friend in a battle against up to four other teams of two in a no holds barred battle. Your friend will control a twin of your character, so shoot whoever doesn’t look like you. And then there’s…

Horde is the most unique of all the multiplayer modes, and in my opinion the best. A team of up to 5 players faces off against wave after wave of increasingly numerous, and resilient enemies. Players will have to work together to survive even at the lowest levels of this mode, and towards the end it gets so frantic that it reminds me of a zombie movie, where one person tries to board up the entrances while the others shoot the oncoming onslaught of enemies.

Party mode is for friends who want to stick together for more than one match without having to restart the game to change modes; and even making it possible to play with friends on ranked matches (which are now known as “public matches”), which I pretty much avoided in the first game because it was a pain finding a good group to play with.

Achievements are, unlike they were in the first game, unlocked throughout all modes, multiplayer or campaign, making it actually fun to get them. Most of the achievements in the original games were setup to only unlock on ranked matches, which were so frustrating to start, or play for any length of time that only the most diehard players (or those achievement boosting) unlocked them, which is kind of sad in such a great game. In this game achievements not only unlock while you’re playing with friends, but there is also a counter telling you how close you are to a certain achievement, which will keep your interest in the game going a bit longer, pushing you to get those 3 more shield melee attacks, or to win just one more chainsaw battle.

The campaign mode will only take you a couple of hours to complete, so multiplayer is what will keep this game in your 360′s disc drive. It’s just nice to know that multiplayer only improves on the good points of the old game, ensuring you will have fun with this one for many months to come.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

A few nights ago I completed the Rainbow Six Vegas 2 campaign mode with a friend. I was happy to see that they incorporated co-op into the actual campaign instead of just letting you play some levels together as it was in the first R6 Vegas. I knew that I wanted to play through this one with Kurt. Usually I choose to play games alone first and then play them cooperatively but I felt that it would be a great game to just go straight into co-op with. When we first started out I had no idea where the story was going. It was hard to follow and frankly I guess I just wasn’t that interested. The bits and pieces I did follow seemed lame, people were always getting killed or shot and it seemed like we didn’t really do anything constructive throughout the whole game. I’m not saying it wasn’t fun, I had a blast. Story lines aren’t really ever important for me anyways.

The game does have the word “Vegas” in the title but you will only see a casino maybe once or twice. The setting is more of a behind the scenes of Vegas. That was fine with me because I played through enough casinos in the first one. I really enjoyed the settings in Vegas 2. They took us through backyards, convention centers, and even a Vegas junkyard. These new places gave it a fresh feel. The controls felt great as they did in the first one. At first they may feel complicated but you will get the hang of them within the first few minutes and after a while you will really be happy with the way they are laid out. Kurt and I did encounter some random problems such as disk read errors and some freezing up but not enough to make us quit playing. I was excited to hear they were adding experience points to the single player campaign as well as the multiplayer modes. This gave me a reason to go back and play some more of the campaign even after I finished it. I have a habit of looking at the bottom of the screen to see how many more points I need to rank up. I’m always looking forward to unlocking new armor and guns.

After Kurt and I finished the campaign we jumped right into “Terrorist Hunt” mode. We’ve been working at the “complete every map on realistic difficulty” achievement for a few nights now and so far we’ve been having a great time with it. This is definitely a great way to hone your skills before going into some death matches over Xbox Live. It forces you to work as a team and try different techniques to get the job done. The only thing I didn’t like was that it felt like the terrorists were set to spawn only when you reached a certain point. Once you walked past that certain point or threw a grenade into it they would then react to you. A few times I swore nobody was around and then I would look a second later and 3 or more people would just be standing there. This made the terrorist hunt mode a lot more difficult, it forced you to come out into the open and search instead of waiting for them to come to you.

Vegas has a very high replay value and I don’t think I will be setting it down anytime soon. I highly suggest playing through the campaign with a friend. If you want to join Kurt and I for some terrorist hunting just send me a message over Live.