Gears of War 2 Preview

You get some new weapons to help you battle the new breeds of locust too. Anyone who’s a fan of Jesse Ventura’s Ol’ Painless in Predator will welcome the addition of the minigun and the damage it can do - your mobility is compromised when using this weapon though, so you’re going to have to make sure you kill everything you hit.

Another addition is the mortar, which may be difficult to use at first, but if you persevere it’s very useful for taking out groups of enemies in one blast. If you like to get up close and personal, you’ll like the flame thrower, which will turn your enemies into charred lumps of coal pretty sharpish.

Talking of getting up close and personal, there are now multiple ways to deal with downed enemies, depending on which button you press. Obviously you can apply a good old curb stomp, but variety, as they say, is the spice of life. For some real fun though, you can grab a downed enemy and use them as a portable shield, while shooting over their shoulder with a pistol. Downed players or enemies also have the ability to crawl now, so you could drag your damaged body towards your comrades so they can heal you. That said, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as letting someone crawl for a while before stomping them!

As I’ve already mentioned, two player co-op play is available, but for me, the highlight of the new features is Horde mode. Horde sees five human players working as a team to hold off wave after wave of locust attacks. I don’t know whether it’s because of my old school video game roots, but I simply love Horde, and the more I played it, the more addictive and compelling it became. With the locusts getting tougher, smarter and more skilled as each tenth wave passes, the players have to adapt their tactics to stay alive. There are 50 waves to get through, and once you get into the mid-teens, all five players need to be working as a team to have any chance of progressing.

And that’s what makes Horde so good, it makes even the most selfish player work with his comrades, in a combined effort to make it past just one more wave of impending death. Making good use of the map, and all the weapons is paramount, while making sure that downed comrades are revived as quickly as possible is also key to success. Beszinski said that he could only make it as far as wave 27 - no doubt that will sound like a challenge to many hardcore Gears fans out there.

So, am I excited about the upcoming release of Gears of War 2 on 7th November? Absolutely! When it comes down to it, there wasn’t much wrong with Gears of War, but Epic has enhanced an already winning formula, rather than making changes for the sake of change. Could this be the best Xbox 360 of 2008? Check back in just over a month to find out.