Gears of War 2 - Wonky

Gears of War 2 - Wonky

I used to be, and somewhat still am a huge fan of the Gears of War games.  The story line is one of my all time favorites and the characters are truly heart breaking at times.  I won't touch on the multiplayer aspect of Gears... Ever.. I hate it (except for coop missions) so it wouldn't be a very unbiased review.  So here are the goods and bads.  Overall rating I'd give an 8 out of 10.

The Bad:

1) Wonky controls.  Anyone who has played gears in the past will probably say the same thing.  Aiming becomes difficult and slow and movement is either slow or hard to maneuver.

2) Excessive walking and cranking of knobs or pushing of buttons.  Literally full levels of just having to push buttons or crank open doors.  I just want to kill stuff!

3) It's a bit slow.  Action wise, pace wise, it just takes a long time to get going and even to off your opponents.  Half a clip of lancer ammo and you may have killed your standard grub.

4) Carmine.. Seriously another Carmine?  This one is a whining little pain in the ass!  Seriously you've grown up in war you shouldn't be stumbling around.  No wonder you die and I don't feel bad for you!

5) AI.  The games AI and your teammate tend to get in the way an awful lot.  They run in front of you when you have the chain gun or when you're sniping and it just gets frustrating.  Especially when they run so far ahead of you that when you go to get caught up, you end up fighting a whole group of baddies by yourself.  The game was also plague with glitches that if you chose the wrong path you might play the path 2-3 times before you final start over and chose a different path and finish the scene.

The Good:

1) The story line.  In video games it seems difficult to really build characters and to have you feel anything for those characters.  This game does it very well.  You are annoyed with Carmine the same as your character, you feel sad when one of your fellow soldiers kills himself after having been tortured, and you feel pissed off and sad when Dom finally gets to see Maria again.  These strong emotions fuel much of the game and continue into Gears 3.

2) The scenery. Simply beautiful.  Whether its on top of a giant tank, running through an abandoned town, in the grub holes, or in the belly of the worm.  Everything is masterfully done, so much so my cat even enjoys watching the game.

3)  The characters.  They tie into the story line so well, but seriously who doesn't love smart ass Baird, or loud mouth Cole, and crabby Marcus?  Even Dom, the loyal but emotionally tortured friend is hard to not love.  Again and I can't say it enough characters and storyline are so strong that I play the game almost entirely for them.

4) The bad guys!  The bad guys are awesome!  Various creatures, various ways to kill them, in different settings.  Grinders, Boomers, tickers, drones, Sentinels, Therons, Corpser, etc.  So many good bad guys!

5) Executions, head shots, chain sawing, using a grub as a shield,  so many awesome ways to end your baddies that you have to play through more than once just to play with all the ways to kill everything.