Saturday, March 23, 2024

10 Things To Look Forward In Gears Of War 2

Whisper “Marcus Fenix” into the ears of an ardent gamer playing intensively. He would halt playing and start listening, wanting for more of such “sweet” words. He would feel an electrifying pulse running through his fingers. He would be reminded of his past journey through gloomy environments to take out the notorious Locust horde. Eventually, he would crave to fill the shoes of Marcus Fenix, the Locust destroyer, for one more time.

Gears Of War 2

Locusts! Could anything else excite a gamer more than the news of return of more Locusts? Abso-flipping-lutely not!

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It is like the arrival of feast, after a long and hungry wait at the table. With the chainsaw as a knife, Gnasher shotgun as a spoon and the torque bow as a fork, we would devour a huge Brumak (roasted to perfection by Hammer of Dawn) as the main course. And a bowl full of thick crimson juice squeezed from a Locust head would quench our thirst. Quite a gory, exciting feast that would feed any jealous gamer!

‘Gears of War’ revolutionized third person shooters genre with many new features. Taking cover was the primary innovation, which was given as much importance as shooting. Vibrant visuals and physics, super cool weapons, bad ass enemies, lots of blood and of course, an unparalleled engine to render all the aforementioned stuff made this game a super hit.

Apart from a gritty single player campaign, the multiplayer elements were so robust that this game lunged its way to become one of the best Xbox 360 games ever made. While the charm of the first game itself has not been worn off yet, the second game of the franchise is waiting to unleash itself upon the arena.

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The arrival of ‘Gears of War 2’ is so near that you can almost smell the filthy Locusts and Brumaks. It’s time to take cover and sneak a look through the corners before we prepare a blood-soup of whatever is coming…

1. Chainsaw Duel:

The Gears of War always has this one to boast of, The Lancer Assault Rifle with an integrated, carbide-tipped, variable-torque Chainsaw bayonet. This weapon would squeeze itself comfortably into the list of top ten meanest weapons in video game history.

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Very handy in melee combat, the Chainsaw meant nothing else but smoke, splashing blood and satisfying kill in Gears of War. In GoW 2, this will be taken one step further to introduce the Chainsaw duel. This will happen when almost all of the following are met:

1. You are in the close proximity of your enemy.

2. You are with your Lancer weapon sticking out.

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3. You have a stinking thought forming up inside you to put your chainsaw to good use on your enemy’s rather inviting meaty body.

4. Your enemy too has a Lancer with Chainsaw.

The party starts as the Chainsaws roar against each other, setting off sparks and thick clouds of smoke. If you are quicker than your opponent, you are eligible to witness and survive the worse battles coming. Else, bail out and go play a low resolution ‘Super Mario’ game.

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Gears Of War 2 Screenshots

2. New Online Modes:

This time around, it seems that the online players will be blessed with populated maps (ten characters), ensuring that one need not search and pick a fight. The fight will always find one in GoW 2 multiplayer modes, as two teams of five members each fight for survival in immersive maps. The designers have tweaked the existing online modes a little bit, to make GoW 2 multiplayer feel different.

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“Meatflag” is one mode, which is a modified version of “Capture the flag” mode. The only difference is that the flag is not going to be a flag hoisted on a stick, but a person with a shotgun. Cool! Drag the person to your base to ensure victory and on your way, the flag may just as well serve to be a meat shield. Guys, you are really getting naughty with these kinds of concepts!

“Wingman” is another 5 versus 5 online mode, in which two players in a team will be identical. Dunno why, but it should be fun.

“Guardian” is the last one, which is similar to “Assassination” mode. Each team has a guardian, who is to be protected at all costs. Until a team’s guardian is alive, the team members can respawn as many times as they die. But once the guardian is killed, the game continues with the guardian-less team members as endangered species.

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3. Environment:

Audio, as we all know, is one of the areas in which GoW rocks. Now that Gears of War 2 has got its bells from the Hollywood (composer Transformers-fame Steve Jablonsky), our little homes are not going to remain silent for long.

When it comes to graphics, the ambient occlusion technology is the buzz word. Technically speaking, this technology improves the lighting effects on the objects in the game world. The result is a vibrant game world full of livelier objects. The visual treat offered by Gears of War 2 is likely to gate other games’ graphics from penetrating our visual senses for quite sometime.

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Probably, one of the very few bad aspects of the game would be this: The game play is going to be too paced to stand and behold the gorgeous environment.

4. Weapons:

Before discussing weapons in Gears of War 2, let us freeze the chapter of Lancer (only to keep myself from straying into it once again!). Yes, it is one of the greatest inventions ever made in shooting games. Agreed, a chainsaw cannot fit any better into an assault rifle. Of course, we love the ‘click’ we hear after a successful active reload. Oh yes, Lancer is a legend!

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But we got to talk about the welcome new addition. It’s the brand-new Scorcher. The term is self-explanatory and if any of those brainless locusts don’t understand the term or the gun, they will be scorched to death. Cool! Err…. Hot!

In Gears 2, the grenade has been upgraded to a multi-purpose destructive gadget. You can frag it around as usual to seal a locust hole, use it as a mine to blow the belly of a careless locust and even stick it to a locust’s body to witness a blood fountain. In addition to the bolo grenade, the flash bang has been added to the list of Gears 2 weapons.

Also, we have got some good news for pistol-loving-guys with the same old complaint about the big guns being too unfair. We will have battered handy shields lying around to protect your skins. Hmm… first it was the chainsaw. Now it is the shields. Never get surprised if Gears of War 3 is set in medieval times with the most destructive weapon available being an English longbow.

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Gears Of War 2 Screenshots 2

5. Blood

MA;
15+;
Strong Violence;
Restricted;

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Given the crimson level in Gears of War, I think we may see more of these decorating the box containing Gears of War 2 game. But, honestly speaking, who gives a damn? Isn’t smoking injurious to health?

However, guys who have an aversion towards blood can play Gears 2 as well, with terminator-style sparks flying off everywhere. It may not be news of great interest except for the mothers of under-fifteen hardcore gamers. Even little Bobby who celebrated his 13th birthday last week would hate to shoot locusts that bleed like post-apocalyptic bots.

6. Physics:

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The game’s designer Cliff B may not be an Isaac Newton or Stephen Hawking. But the guy sure does know how to blow up bodies and stuff. Gears 2 will have impressive rag doll physics. Have no doubts about that. Gears 1 had you blowing those locusts to edible-looking, watermelon-resembling pieces. Now the physics in the game has been tweaked a little bit and hopefully, Gears 2 would not allow you to kick those huge body parts of locusts so easily as kicking a real rag doll.

Gears 2 will feature the blinding flash bang grenades as mentioned earlier, and the impact may knock you out too unlike in the other games.

And last but not the least, like in every other next-generation game being developed, Gears 2 will have destructible environment. You shoot the walls and you see them shed their concrete skin. You shoot them again and you see them show their skeletons. You shoot the metal girders and you are reminded only then that Gears 2 is a video game.

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7. Story:

Gears of War was no Max Payne. But Gears 2 may have a more interesting story thanks to the newly-hired comic book writer Joshua Ortega, who says “The stakes are raised. This is humanity’s last stand. Everything is at risk. Nothing is safe.”

8. Riding Brumak:

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Now, this is really promising. No one could have ever imagined anything out of a Brumak other than a mighty, huge and ugly foe. In Gears of War 2, we may ride one of those hulks. There has not yet been any videos released so far with Marcus riding a Brumak, but we may soon have one. I never really thought that the COG would run out of its Centaur tanks that Marcus is so desperate to tame a Brumak! It should be a bumpy ride, but we will manage it.

Gears Of War 2 Screenshots 2 3

9. New finishing moves:

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Gears of War is well known for its violent content and Gears 2 will just get more violent and more well known with these new finishing moves. Any badly wounded mortal in Gears 2 who is counting his last minutes is blessed with one final desperate option to crawl to safety or cover. Hang on. Don’t get to a conclusion that Gears of War 2 designers are light hearted Gods, for they have also introduced new finishing moves to balance (!?) the equation.

You can break a crawling worm’s neck, or trample a downed locust’s head just like that. You can even use your sniper rifle as a sledgehammer. These moves look absolutely brilliant and gorgeous. I loved the part when Marcus used his torque bow to make a trash out of a locust head.

10……….:

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Well, what else would you expect? Haven’t you got enough reasons to play Gears of War 2? I know you would rush to play Gears of War for one more time. It is the only possible way to keep yourself sane until the release of Gears of War 2. Let us keep our fingers crossed for the game, which has been slated to be released this winter.

There is not a percentage of probability that Gears of War 2 is going to disappoint. The question is how much more it will entertain and keep us warm all through the winter.

    By Arun B

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