Gears of War 2 Preview

Gears of War is by all means as over-hyped as they come. That really shouldn't stop you from playing it. The Xbox 360 version is one hell of a ride and we really enjoyed the subsequently released PC edition too. If you haven't played either of them we wholeheartedly recommend you do so.

Epic Games and Microsoft both enjoyed huge sales when Gears of War hit the market. The title later became the fastest-selling game of 2006 - just within the first ten weeks it sold over 3 million copies. (Just a quick note: this record was later trampled by Bungie's Halo 3, which managed to sell over 8.1 million copies in roughly the same amount of time.)

Anyhow, whispers of a sequel to Gears of War surfaced early this year, until Epic finally made an announcement during the Game Developers Conference on February 20, 2008.

The first thing that highlighted after the initial announcement of Gears of War 2 was that the game will run on a heavily upgraded version of the Unreal Engine 3. So, exactly how does that improve the game? Well, according to Epic, the upgraded edition of the UE 3 features enhancements such as better in-game lighting via a post-processing technique called "Ambient Occlusion." Quite simply, dynamic shadows are generated through the use of a pixel shading technique to ensure that objects and characters are lighted and shaded more convincingly. Another interesting technological innovation that's being added to the Unreal Engine 3 is the capacity to render a greater number of objects and characters on screen. This was effectively demonstrated with a scene of literarily hundreds of Locust warriors running around on screen at once. Gears of War 2 will also see the utilization of dynamic fluid surfaces, making for realistic water effects and such. Other features include destructible environments, soft body physics and more. Some of these improvements were showcased during the GDC '08. Better AI is also on the menu, though we still need to see more of it in action. For the time being, the developers promised to include more advanced scripting and more realistic enemy behavior altogether.

Get ready for this: they intend to incorporate a more involving story. If truth be told, the original didn't really deliver a particularly interesting plot. According to the developers, that's about to change in Gears of War 2. The game is set to kick off roughly 6 months following the events in GoW. The main character, Marcus Fenix and his squad-mates from Delta, continue to fight against the ruthless Locust Horde on (the fictional) planet of Sera. As revealed, the Locust found a way to open sinkholes beneath cities, thus enabling the destruction of entire populations. Jacinto, once a safe haven for humans, now finds itself facing the same danger. The decision was quickly made to attack the Locust directly. Soldiers must now go deep underground using grind lifts, described by CliffyB as "express elevators to hell" (another popular catchphrase from 'Aliens' - if I remember correctly, the first GoW was full of them. It's really amazing how much game developers continue to be inspired by Cameron's sci-fi flick).

While the plot is generally hush-hush, we were told that the sequel is set to feature more twists and new characters. At any rate, it can't be less tedious than the story in the first game, so I guess creating a more intriguing plot than the usual testosterone-flavored US marine style charge against infinite hordes of alien baddies shouldn't really be too difficult for Epic.

Gameplay wise, we should see a number of cool new moments. One of the main innovations is fine-tuned cover system, which now features the ability to use "meat shields." Basically, the main character, Marcus, grabs hold of enemies and uses them as mobile shields against oncoming bullets. Combat should, hence, be even more fun than before, especially now that players resort to several new moves. The chainsaw, for instance, is back, which means you are still able to slice your foes whenever you like. Bear in mind that this time around, enemies may attack using chainsaws as well. Two chainsaws can lock together, until you or the foe gains the advantage (this, naturally, involves bit of button mashing). More chainsaw-related fun was promised. Your character now cut an enemy upward, "between his legs, and up through his taint," as uncovered by CliffyB. With all of that, Epic Games is presumably working on incorporating a drop-in/drop-out co-op feature.