The sequel to the Xbox exclusive series released in 2008 and I picked this up in Asda for a bargain of £5. We're again treated to a wonderful coop experience with the duo of Marcus and Dom (again I wanted to play as Dom).
Continuing the fight against the Locust and their Queen (who looks like a human for some reason). They are attempting to sink cities with a giant worm... yep, a giant worm, it's fucking huge! With this, we get to meet a bunch of new character. Dizzy, Tai and Ben Carmine are three specifically new and interesting characters. Ben may sound familiar as he's the brother of Anthony Carmine who featured in the previous game. Ben gets a lot more game time and he's a rookie and is learning the ropes with Delta squad.
With the stellar gameplay we already had, we get some great new features on top of it. Chainsaw battles are probably my favourite, your defence is tapping B as fast as you can to win it. It means you now get a chance instead of an instant death when a Locust sneaks up on you and chainsaws you. Being able to pick up Maulers shields gives you a lot of protection and you can move around with them. You are limited to your pistol though. You can also grab downed enemies and use them as a meat shield, if they get shot a lot they'll become as useless piece of cover. You get to use loads of new weapons too, like ink grenades, mortars and flamethrowers.
The multiplayer is great, I had a lot of fun on it when it was populated, sadly it's not as much anymore. There's a tonne of game modes to choose from and play with your friends. The ranking now makes sense to me, as you have an experience bar. Easily the best addition is horde mode. 50 waves of Locust coming at you with a total of five players, your choice of map and character, features all standard enemy types. It's pretty great.
Again, I played on insane in coop with a friend. The insane difficulty is much better than it was previously. The enemies don't just sponge and take a thousand bullets to kill anymore. It was so much more fun and wasn't a drag in parts. One part, where you had to kill a brumak and you were split up, we killed it and the cutscene started playing and during it, it said we failed despite killing it and the progression cutscene playing. Other than that, the rest was quite fun. Although the final boss was ridiculously easy, even on insane. The acting was fantastic, particularly a scene between Marcus and Dom, it showed how good these guys really are.
I faced a bunch of glitches while playing this again, but nothing major really. Walking on air as a grinder with a minigun appeared, was really fun on insane with no cover. I felt the game felt too similar to the first in the areas we where. There were way too many on the rail sections, they are something I'll never enjoy, but Gears seems to pump them in.
I loved the new enemies and the new weapons. The gameplay was again brilliant and felt looser. The characters and story were great. The campaign overall I didn't think was as good, Dom was pretty whiny, understandably of course and the boss fights were no comparison to the first. They did carry this game onwards brilliantly though and horde was a very fun addition to an already great multiplayer.
8.3/10
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