GEARS OF WAR 2 FOOTAGE!

[nosf]

I was really happy to see Berserkers and Kryll not reappear, both just slowed the game down.

The mortar certainly is a hell of a lot of fun in Horde mode; love seeing 5 or 6 kills pop up after laying down some fire.

[p0wl]

Got the RRoD today. Boo.

[Goltana_R-Zek]

Originally Posted by nosf

So hard to find good spots that have cover and only one or two ways in. Those dog riders are fucking annoying as all hell.

Great place me and a few friends found when we beat Horde mode was on the map Hail. There is a bridge - grenades spawn on it - that overlooks the highway. On one side has the whole pavillion area (they have to go up stairs to get to you) and the other is an open room which they also have stairs to travel up to get to you. It's great, height advantage on both sides and generally an open view to shoot down on the waves from. The trick is when there are only 3-4 enemies left you move down to gather more ammo/power weapons to restock. In addition I discovered a 'glitch' of sorts, where if you place a shield down near the top of the stairs, it will actually float mid air above them, effectively blocking all kind of units until they kick it down.

Storyline/Encounter stuff:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Boss fights were a huge upgrade over gears 1, for pretty much all the points already listed. Storyline was better overall too, although I dislike how every new character introduced excluding Chairman Prescott, was effectively killed off. To me it was kind of like they wanted to create some loss with 'main' people dying, yet couldn't bring themselves to kill the Delta squad and created people to serve the purpose. I dunno, just was a bit weak, not to mention you have no clue what happened to Dizzy but I guess its assumed he died since Tai was captured.

I was honestly a bit disappointed on the Kryll/Berserker, they didn't need to design an entire chapter around it as they did with the Kryll, but it certainly didn't go any slower than dealing with the 'razorhail'. Speaking of which, what the fuck is that anyway? Naturally occurring hail that comes down as shards? It pretty much has the same effect as Kryll anyway (avoid certain areas! instead of dark places now its open roofed spots!) but it was more retarded IMO. Sires pretty much behaved as Berserkers anyway but easier to kill, woulda been cool to fight one or two though.

Oh and for those working on insane, travelling up Mt. Kadar, if you're playing solo like I have been be ready for a really fucking annoying part, at the very end when you're about to enter the cave area. There's a tower/wall guarding the entrance, and at one point Marcus will say something like "Dom shoot the tower!" which you have mere seconds to kill a few different turrets before you blow apart. Took me probably over an hour of trying different methods till I got it to work, and each attempt probably only takes like 20 seconds or so. So it was a lot of attempts

[Tyreny]

Finished on Hardcore.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. I ran through Gears 1 on Insane the week leading up to this and with that fresh in mind I can say that Gears 2 is a quality successor. The visuals are much better, core gameplay virtually unchanged and all of the additions were positives (meatshields are awesome). I did feel that they overdid it a bit with the riding of the Locust weapons (Brumak, Reaver...especially brumak) but the reaver section was worth it just to hear Cole keep on calling it his horsey.

Definately a must buy game. I would suggest playing the first gears first if you haven't already.

[Blank]

not sure how it'd play out, but there's a trick to beating insane easily I read... have a co-op partner do all the "heavy lifting" on casual difficulty. If you got 2 controllers, you can do it by yourself. Not sure how they divide damage for that vehicle section though.

If you need a co-op buddy, hit me up Goltana

[nosf]

I'm sure most people have figured it out, but you can totally block of stairs and such by planting shields at the top of them, or in any choke point really. One shield placed right slow down quite a few locust, letting you focus fire them down as they try to get past. It seems at the end of round 10 (and 20, 30 et cetera I'd guess) that it removes the shields - unless you grab them, then replant them at the start of the round.

[Dyscord]

Maulers are a lot scarier than zerkers (in horde mode at least).

Basically the only time we lose in horde mode is when a mauler breaks our lines. One swing of his mace can kill all of us. And lord, the bloodmounts are even worse.

[Runnen]

Story / Plot discussion below :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Since the story is a little convoluted and since there are still quite a few blanks in the story line after Gears of War 2 (hoping 3 will bring more answers), let's start with what we know.

Gears of War

The Humans have been on Serra for centuries (300 years I believe), fighting massive wars over the Immulsion, which has effectively replaced oil and the atom as an energy source. Eventually, the Humans unified under the COG, and began drilling for more and more Immulsion. This led to Emergence Day, when the unknown Locust Horde emerged from the dephths and razed most of the Human cities, save for a very few that were harder to collapse thanks to specific geological properties.

Most Humans seek refuge in Jacinto, the last safe stronghold of mankind, located on a high rocky plateau that prevents all Locust attacks. Adam Fenix, a very important military scientist responsible for top secret research, goes missing and barely has time to ask his son for help. Marcus Fenix abandons his duty to seek his father, but is ultimately captured by the COG Gears for desertion, and is sent to prison.

Since mankind is losing the war against the Locust Horde, they have to grab more "volunteers" from prisons, and so Dominic Santiago of Delta Squad frees Marcus Fenix, who becomes leader of the squad after the death of Lieutenant Kim at the hands of General Raam. Marcus and his men have a mission to infiltrate the Hollow, the underground tunnels of the Locust Horde, and plant a beacon to map out the tunnels to allow the Humans to strike back at the Locust.

This plan fails, and Marcus and his men eventually find the data they needed for the attack plan by searching in the classified files of Adam Fenix, who had a map of most of the Hollow, thanks to a device he designed and used himself at some point. Finally, after a battle ending with General Raam's death, Delta Squad launches the Lightmass Bomb into the Hollow, vaporizing a large portion of the Locust Horde and forever altering the ecosystem of Serra.

Gears of War 2

The Lightmass Bomb had unfortunate side effects, notably the vaporization of a massive quantity of Immulsion into the atmosphere, creating a new disease amidst the Human population: the Rustlung, which makes subjects more agressive, paranoid and slowly degenerates them until death.

Meanwhile, the Locust Horde managed to survive the assault, and are more desperate than ever. They use a gigantic Riftworm to dig beneath the cities surrounding the Jacinto plateau to fragilize the massive rocky fortress, hoping to make it collapse by digging all around it. Thanks to Delta Squad, the Riftworm is destroyed, and the squad is sent to a highly classified top secret installation, which has only become known now because President Prescott unclassified it, faced with the incredible destructive power of the Locust.

In the top secret laboratory, Marcus and his men find out that a mysterious Dr. Niles has experimented on Humans exposed to Immulsion, and has created "children" that were to remain in stasis until maturity. Niles has long deserted the area and only the AI he created remains in the complex, and it tries to stop Marcus from awakening the "Sires", the subjects of the experiment. The Sires turn out to be strange hybrids of Human and Locust, and some documents found on site seem to indicate they may in fact be ex-Humans who became Locusts (one of the documents says that a woman exposed to Immulsion saw her skin get harder, nails growing at an incredible rate while hair stopped growing entirely).

Information found in the complex leads Marcus and the squad to Mount Kadar, where Niles took some of his subjects. There, they only find lost Stranded hiding in the dark caves that appear to be a backdoor to the Hollow. Entering the Hollow, they fight to the Nexus, the Locust capital and throne of Myrrah the Locust Queen, who looks strangely human-like. Myrrah reveals to Marcus that she knew his father well, and that she wishes he had followed in his father's footsteps. It is also revealed that the Locust have been at war with another faction of Locusts for an unknown length of time, the Lambent. Those Lambent are in fact Locusts that have been tainted by exposure to Immulsion, and they are invading the Hollow. Myrrah's plan is to sink Jacinto into the Hollow to breach the oceanic crust and flood the Hollow to drown the Lambent, while the Locust can evacuate the Hollow to live on the surface, once both the Humans and the Lambent are dead.

This plan is foiled when the Humans manage to sink Jacinto before the Locust Horde, thanks to to Delta Squad who manages to detonate a colossal Lambent Brumak right beneath the plateau, thus flooding the Hollow and seemingly drowning a huge part of the remaining Locust Horde. Nothing is said about the fate of the Locust Queen, and the Lambent. After the end credits, Fenix's father can be heard attempting to communicate on radio "Can you hear me? Does anyone hear me?", then more desparate "What have you done?!".



So.. this brings out quite a few questions :

- Niles' experiments in the top secret complex seem to indicate that the Locusts are in fact Humans exposed to a specific dose of Immulsion, or at least that Humans can become Locust-like once exposed to Immulsion.

This could mean one of two things:

1) The Locusts were created (accidently or not) by Human scientists who tested exposure to Immulsion and eventually lost control over their subjects

2) The Locusts have always lived in the dephths of Serra, but their living near Immulsion changed them long before the arrival of Humans on Serra, because Immulsion always has the same effect on all life forms, mutating them to resemble something Locust-like.

Answer 2 seems more likely, since it could also explain why so many life forms that live near Immulsion look similar (Reavers, Corpsers, Brumaks all have very similar features, and all have the same "rocky" skin texture, along with all sorts of Locusts).

Another question : Why does the Locust Queen look so human?

If the above Answer 1 is correct, she could look human because she was one of the original subjects of the experiments and has retained more human features than others, but this seems unlikely because the Locust culture and civilization seems far, far older than anything the Humans have built on Serra (The Nexus is a huge, highly ornate palace, there are many temples, and the Locust even have their own religion, Kantus).

Yet another question : What is really Adam Fenix's role in all this?

One thing is certain, Adam Fenix knew a LOT more than everyone thought. It is safe to assume that he knew about the Lambent, because he was suggesting to sink Jacinto to flood the Hollow to end the war, and it is doubtful he would have considered sacrificing mankind's last hope just to end the war with the Locust Horde, unless he knew of a far greater threat lurking even deeper.

I personnally believe that Adam Fenix found out about the effects of Immulsion exposure and the dangers of the Lambent when he participated in Niles' experiments in the top secret complex. This led him to suggest to sink Jacinto to end the war immediately, but it is likely no one believed him. So he contacted the Locust Queen and accepted to work with the Locust to help them against the Lambent, since Lambent victory would spell certain doom for mankind, while it would maybe be possible to strike a peace between Humans and Locust in the future (the Lambent seem to act out of instinct and lust for blood, I doubt they'd really care about peace).

Anyways, I'd be curious to hear the various theories and hypothesis people here have about the plot and perhaps the future of the series!

[Flesseck]

Thank you for that explanation. So Lambent pretty much = Flood? They are ruthless and relentless. Don't they look exactly like the Locust? The only way to tell them apart was that the Lambent have that yellow glow?

[Blank]

Originally Posted by Flesseck

Thank you for that explanation. So Lambent pretty much = Flood? They are ruthless and relentless. Don't they look exactly like the Locust? The only way to tell them apart was that the Lambent have that yellow glow?

well

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

they start mutating and shit too and they all explode :P

[Runnen]

Originally Posted by Flesseck

Thank you for that explanation. So Lambent pretty much = Flood? They are ruthless and relentless. Don't they look exactly like the Locust? The only way to tell them apart was that the Lambent have that yellow glow?

Another strange thing is that at some point, during a cutscene, you see Cole blow up a Lambent Drone, and the splashed Immulsion-blood starts moving on its own and leaps into other Lambent Drones to be absorbed. However, earlier during the game, you encounter a few dead Lambents with blood splashed about and it didn't go anywhere. My guess is that the Immulsion blood of the Lambent is attracted to other Lambents (to make them stronger/bigger/more explosive by adding to their own Immulsion-saturated bloodstream?), but in the case of the earlier Lambents encountered, they may have all died relatively simultaneously in a firefight, and so the blood didn't feel attracted to any nearby bloodstream..

Gears of War 3 better have a shitload of answers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In fact, I was thinking again about the Lambent Brumak at the end. I can understand that direct exposure to Immulsion would have incredible mutagenic effects, but still, the Brumak doesn't simply grow bigger and more ferocious, it becomes an entirely different creature within moments, complete with gaping maw tentacles and a massive xenomorph face.. it seems a bit far fetched that the simple exposure would have such drastic effects.. adding to this the strange behavior of the Immulsion-blood that seems to have a mind of its own, I'm beginning to think the Immulsion itself may not be what people expected. I think the Immulsion may contain an infinity of micro organisms that alter DNA and turn any life form they infect into something that resembles them (it is even possible that the Immulsion was created as a bioweapon, who knows?).

I'd be curious to hear thoughts about this, and what everyone thought happened to that Brumak at the end, or about the strange behavior of Lambent blood.

[Jubee]

Originally Posted by Blank

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

put the Mako (from Mass Effect) in this game and then place it on an ICE LEVEL and finish it off with a pitch black CAVE LEVEL. A corpser corpse got stuck to my tank so I had to spend like a minute trying to get free of the corpse, and by the time I managed that, I couldn't tell what fucking way was up.... so annoying

I lol'd so hard at this. That was exactly what I was thinking.

[Goltana_R-Zek]

Thoughts (nice summary btw Runnen):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I'm a bit confused on the time before E-day, in the first GoW i know the opening trailer/whatever plays during the start menu screen when you don't press anything.. has a line that says "The humans of Sera knew the illusion of peace, until emergence day" and then the second gears of war says: "Humanity fought with endless battle amongst itself until it was forced to unite against a force greater than it has ever known". So which is it, was there actually a peaceful period or did they just band mid-conflict together to fight the locust?

Only reason I feel its at all relevant is because there have been a few occasions where its implied that the humans brought this upon themselves, and I'm unsure to what that's alluding to - is it that we came here to this planet which they consider theirs? Or that during peace/war we inadvertently harmed them in some kind of way? I also think that perhaps all this talk of immulsion is a possible trigger, like once the humans made the switch and started mining it/fighting for control of it, it fucked with the underground habitat of the locust. Maybe then lambent creatures started being created with all the immulsion being drawn to the surface, passing in close proximity to the locust? Or there could have already been lambent creatures that need immulsion to survive, and once the humans started using it.. caused them to get all aggressive and start retaliating (coming into contact with the locust first).

Anyway, it certainly seemed like they were implying that humans experimented and created something similar to the locust with the sires, and I feel its a strong possibility that this locust queen has human origins. Quite possibly could've been smarter than the 'average' locust and took over control. The queen is the only one that can speak pretty fluent english, the rest kind of gargle words and say their own mumbo jumbo shit, so she seems the most intelligent. I hope its not like the humans created all the locust.. it just seems overdone enough that humans mess with DNA, create a superclone of some kind and it revolts. Wouldn't mind if we had just started with the Sire/Queen and she was more in charge of the rest.

Marcus' father probably was aware of the lambent and the locust before others, I think that's absolutely true. Hard to tell if the Queen lied about what he said though or not. Anyway, those are some of my thoughts for now, I'll prolly add another post later when I dwell on it some more

[Runnen]

Hehe thanks, glad some people enjoyed my write-up, I was thinking it was a tad long-winded. Anyways, in response to your thoughts..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

About your first question regarding the situation before Emergence Day.. The Humans fought the Pendulum Wars against each other over the control of Immulsion, but it ended with the unification of all Humans on Serra under the COG, led by President Monroe. Emergence Day happened about a century after the Pendulum Wars, so mankind did live a long period of peace before the Locust Horde showed up.

Secondly, I don't think the Humans created the Locust in a typical cliché DNA-jumbling way. I think the Locust always lived underneath the surface of Serra, but they were affected by the Pendulum Wars and the Humans interacting with the Immulsion. The Queen looks very human-like, so this could mean that she was not affected by the exposure to Immulsion (since she mostly stays in the Nexus), but the rest of her species became what the Locust now look like (rocky hide, long claws, reptilian features..). Perhaps the Locust did look vaguely human like the Queen before the Immulsion changed them, because of the Humans fighting their wars.

Another thing that seems to point in that direction is that the Locust apparently never had to worry about the Lambent creatures, until recently. That would mean that Human interaction with Immulsion (particularly the use of the Lightmass Bomb) has altered the nature of the Immulsion and is responsible for the Lambent plague (it is even possible that the Humans somehow made the Immulsion sentient, as seen when Lambent blood seems to have a mind of its own).

Yet another possibility about the Queen is that she used to be one of the first colons on Serra, and the early military experiments with Immulsion exposure made her one of the first "Sires", but a succesful one (since Niles implies that the Sires you release are not ready yet, the finished ones could look much more human and less primitive). This could have made her superior to the other Locust, and she "pulled a Kerrigan" by leaving the Humans behind and joining the Locust to become their Queen..

But to conclude, I really don't think Epic will chose to go with the "Humans created the Locusts OMG!" way, since there are pretty obvious signs in the Hollow that the Locust civilization is really quite old (they have a load of ornate temples, an entire capital city, a gigantic palace, their own religion and sacred texts, their own written language, and they've had time to tame a lot of the indigenous fauna to do their bidding (Brumaks, Reavers, Bloodmounts, Corpses, etc..). I really think the line from the Queen about how "The Humans brought this war unto themselves" is refering to the Pendulum Wars somehow causing a shift in Serra's ecosystem that began a cataclysmic chain reaction, the effects of which are just now beginning to be clear..

[meStevo]

Gears has hit 2 million units in a week worldwide - Just call it Gears of War 2 million sold - Xbox 360 Fanboy

Microsoft also revealed that 1.5 million gamers logged onto Xbox Live during Gears 2 launch weekend, 19 million achievements were unlocked, 15 million gameplay hours were put in and a new concurrent Live player record was reached.