Gears of War 2 DLC

I had traded in my GoW2 game earlier this summer cause the last time I'd played it was December 2008, but E was saying something about how there is a new DLC pack available for it.

I picked up the game again today, but checking the DLC info, it's difficult to say if the DLC is multiplayer maps + 1 level of one-player only, or multiplayer maps + 1 level of co-op content. After all, in the game, there are sections that have to be done solo. Paying 1600 Gates to get a bunch of maps for Horde isn't really that appealing to me, especially if no one else ends up getting it.

(edit, I bought it.)

Upsen.

Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection (1600 Gates)

"This content pack features all 19 downloadable Gears 2 multiplayer maps and a bonus deleted single-player chapter, "Road to Ruin," from the Gears of War 2 campaign. For multiplayer fans, this pack brings together the complete set of Gears 2 multiplayer maps: Allfathers Garden, Canals, Courtyard, Flood, Fuel Depot, Fuel Station, Gold Rush, Gridlock, Grind Yard, Highway, Mansion, Memorial, Nowhere, Sanctuary, Subway, Tyro Station, Under Hill, War Machine, and Way Station—everything in the Flashback, Combustible, Snowblind, and Dark Corners downloadable packs combined. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts."

Dark Corners Multiplayer Map Pack (1200 Gates)

"This downloadable content pack features 7 new Gears 2 multiplayer maps and a bonus deleted single-player chapter, "Road to Ruin," from the Gears of War 2 campaign. In "Road to Ruin," Marcus and Dom navigate the treacherous Locust highway, choosing stealth or blazing action to survive. For multiplayer fans, the 7 maps include a new War Machine, the much-requested Gears 1 map; Allfathers Garden, a heavy-weapons battle at a COG landmark; Highway, a fight deep in the Locust Hollow; Memorial, a battle at the Tomb of the Unknowns; Nowhere, a firefight in an old motel; Way Station, an unpredictable battlefield with parallel paths; and Sanctuary, a reimagined favorite from Gears for Windows. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts."

Gow2 - finished single player game

Well, I finished the 1-player part of the game.

I played at the hardcore setting until a point where you are looking for a path into the underground locust city and are fighting along the river bank - the action got just too hot to do on hardcore alone - I kept getting murdered by this flamethrower guy in a walled up part of the ruin. I turned the difficulty down to normal, got past that section and left it that way, I'll try the hardcore difficulty in multiplayer when I have someone more reliable than the computer AI to play with. IE, the multiplayer that I still haven't finished with E.

The game wasn't too hard on normal. I guess I should have turned the difficulty back up, but I didn't. I think I only died in a few do-or-die scenarios - I got chainsawed to death by the main bad guy once, and I slipped off the ice a few times to my doom. Other than that, it was pretty straightforward and sort of like watching a cheesy but fun interactive movie.

Upsen.

GoW2 Solo on Hardcore

Well since it's been a while since I played and I haven't managed to catch up with E, so I decided to try a bit more last night. I found T online but he was giving W a hand with finishing off GoW1, I guess so W can unlock the characters for the multiplayer modes.

So I started up a single player game on Hardcore. (Though it seemed to say that a friend could drop into the game at any time) It was quite a bit tougher than the normal game mode. I don't think I died (do-or-die situations aside) as much in the Normal mode when I was playing with E, since the NPCs tended to rush the foes - I could go slowly and hang back a bit, picking things off from a distance without worrying too much about enemy retaliation. If they did start shooting at me, NPC Dom and Carmine generally got the aggro back and I could shoot some more.

The only real problem was the stage where I was on the transport and trying to do a do-or-die scenario - shoot down spore pods and shoot down reavers before they knock you off the road and down the side of the cliff. I think I heard "shoot that **** before it hits us!" a dozen times. I always got killed by the reaver that sideswipes the transport. The turret gun just couldn't lay down enough fire due to overheating. Ditto for trying to use the shotgun and the chainsaw rifle, not enough to kill it before it rammed me twice and off the road.

Eventually I figured out that the turret chaingun has a cooling system activated by the reload button. I didn't think that the gun would have a reload system cause it didn't have an ammo count, so I'd never tried it during the co-op game with E. That made the gun MUCH more usable and I dropped the reaver on the very same run.

Oh the exploding Tickers can hurt you pretty badly in Hardcore. one of them will take you to the brink of going down, 2 will turn you into chunks.

It was pretty smooth sailing until the stage in sinking Ilima where you come across those creature riders at close range - you can't chainsaw them and they do oneshot kills - I decided to call it a night there after getting shredded about 6 times.

Upsen.

GoW-op 2 player game.

E and I gave this game a shot on Friday night in co-op mode. E played Marcus and I played Dom, and we spent about 4 hours in the game. It was pretty good, the mechanics of the game were pretty much the same as the first one, with it's take-cover mentality, tough-to-kill foes, and do-or-die(-and-replay-it) scenarios.

I was pretty bad at it. I was knocked out of action a lot but the NPC rookie kept reviving me. (Its ironic that I'm supposed to be the hardened veteran here).

The chainsaw gun never felt like it had enough ammo and I was always out. I probably just have to practice and keep my bursts shorter. The gun is great when you do have ammo though - it hits without delay like the Locust rifle and has a decent range. The chainsaw function is a godsend too. Even if it locks you in the animation sequence for a painful 2 or 3 seconds, you can be sure that enemy locust is hit and downed.

Unfortunately, during a really rushed section on top of the Betty armoured vehicle, I ended up dropping my chainsaw while in dire need of a weapon with ammo in it. The game saved before I could get it back, the weapons were bouncing around on the deck. Dammit! I had to go for many scenes without it, relying on dropped locust ammo and close range shotgun shots.

In the four hours of play we went through a LOT of scenes. But I think they tried to cram too much story into too short a time. I felt like we were always being rushed along, characters introduced, characters leaving.

There were some neat weapons and concepts along the way though - there was a new mortar launcher weapon that we could choose the range it hit at. There were also some nice portable chaingun turrets as well, even if they did slow us down a bit - sort of like the ones in Halo 2, except it had a heat meter in addition to an ammo count.

In the underground sections, you could use the indigenous rockworms as cover, except the worms really didn't like me and ate me on 2 occasions. I thought they were supposed to be vegetarian? The first one even snapped it's neck in half in order to turn around and get me, killing itself in the process.

Another thing about the game is that it felt like every short scene was giving a 10 point achievement. That's way too often and too automatic. They didn't feel like they meant anything since we were just playing through the game normally. :P

We wrapped up the game somewhere down the bowels of the planet (or was it in the bowels of some giant animal?) and we'll pick up again another day.

Upsen.

Gears of War 2

I picked up GoW2 today at lunch - can't wait to log in tonight. I wonder how the co op will be? We'll see soon enough I suppose. Game starts at 9pm.