Gears of War 2

I played this using emulator because I never owned an xbox 360 and never went to somebody else's home with an xbox 360 to play it. Gears of War 2 retains the same gameplay and art of the first. Same soundtrack style. Same direction. The story has more details and more dramatic elements. They deepened the character development. This game pushed the limits of the xbox 360's hardware. In short, they went for grandiosity with dramatic moments. I really felt riding some boat with the characters and experiencing a cinematic adventure.

The level design has clearly evolved from the first game. The first was more about cover and even more cover. In the second they added sections aboard rafts, boats, vehicles and greatly expanded the gameplay. They weren't satisfied with fighting giant aliens and now we have levels inside aliens. Duke Nukem Forever had this type of level that takes the player to inside living organisms but Gears of War 2 is in another league or level. I really liked the idea of carrying a bomb with a partner while having to defend yourself from incoming attacks. And the worms that server as dynamic walking cover structures. Very creative.

I loved the night level in Gears 1 where you drive a vehicle and have a light cannon to fend off the kryll. In Gears 2 they expanded with levels where you can drive a vehicle and fire at the same time. There is a level that functions as an Arcade shooter on rails. You control a Reaver and fly it. At the end of the game you even get to control a Brumak yourself. Crazy! In Gears 1 they added the excuse of the satellite being offline to prevent the player from abusing the Hammer of Dawn. In Gears 2 the Hammer is only available at the end for the last boss fight.

The quality of the art in Gears of War 2 is really high. The Nexus fortress was awesome! I've found really interesting that the desaturated filter that they apply to the game helps to reduce the visual pollution that otherwise would be caused by the extremely detailed textures. It's incredible how much detail the textures have when intermediate video cards of the time had 256MB of VRAM. In hindsight, compare it to Rage 2, the Authority bases have such high frequency noise with too many lights making it hard to focus on a single spot on the screen.

Not sure if this comparison is appropriate, but environmental storytelling in Bioshock was better than in Gears of War. I guess, Gears of War is more about war (oh really?), brutality and the game isn't designed for the player to spend time admiring the vistas.

I missed the night levels and kryll from the previous Gear. The razorhail felt odd. The hazard serves the same purpose of the kryll, but without being restricted to night settings. I also missed the Berserker. This one seems to have had no room in the game when they pushed for dramatic scenes, grandiosity and the type of combat that they aimed at.

In terms of storyline I'd say that if I compare it to Max Payne 3, it's clearly easier to grasp and follow. I don't know why Max Payne has such complicated plots which are always told in a non linear fashion, including flashbacks and time skips. I also find the cinematics to be superior to those of Max Payne 3.

The best level for me? I loved the New Hope Research Facility. The section which you had to avoid being detected and avoid the defense system of the facility was clever and fun.

There is a lot of level design, environment art, game direction, animations, etc that can be learned from Gears of War 2.