Gears Of War 2: Half Horde

posted by Jaitu at 17:34

When TechMaster and I finished playing the Halo3 Campaign we agreed that Gears Of War 2 would be our next co-op endeavour. He has been taking his own sweet time finishing up his first lonesome play through though. So in the meantime we have been enjoying the Horde variant of the GOW2 multiplayer options. Horde supports up to five players working together to hold of wave after wave of Locusts. We've been battling it out with just the two of us and it has proven extremely good fun. Simply choose a map (any of the available multiplayer arenas) set your starting wave (anything up to your highest achievement to date) and off you go. Spawning into the map you have a few seconds to choose your battleground and get dug in before the opposition start to appear. There is no time limit per wave and so long as one of you can survive to the finish anyone who fell and wasn't revived will spawn back in before the next wave starts. We played the majority of the first 18 or so waves on the 'Day One' map which is essentially a single city crossroads with each of the four streets blocked with an enormous and un-navigable crater in the middle. This forces you to take the long way around whenever it is necessary to cross the map. Fortunately two opposing corner buildings have balconies accessible via street level staircases and make useful nests that are relatively easy to defend. As we tackled waves in the high-teens these corners became more difficult to defend so we began to explore some other map options. We ended up in 'Jacinto' hiding at the end of a short stone outcropping with a helipad at the end. The entrance to the pier makes for a serviceable killing floor and the mortar that respawns a short dash from cover provides welcome heavy support options. We called an end to the last session having just defeated wave twenty-five of fifty.
Since then TechMaster has finished his first run through the story so our next meeting will be centred around the commencement of an Insane level co-op campaign run.

Gears Of War 2

posted by Jaitu at 08:12

Looking for a new co-op title to follow Halo3 I bought Gears Of War 2 last week. It's very much more of the same only bigger. Aside from a couple of vehicle based distractions the game does an excellent job of taking you from one shooting gallery firefight to the next with copious cut scenes and 'plot progression'. Compared to Gears One there is certainly more story in evidence although it is still possible to completely ignore and not lose anything from the experience.
I completed the game on Casual last night having managed to garner 28 of the 50 achievements along the way. A second play through is guaranteed as, just like Dead Space, the hardest difficulty of 'Insane' does not become available until the game has been completed for the first time. Further achievements are available for completion at the remaining three difficulty levels but these 'stack' so beating Insane means picking up any below it. The easiest way to beat Insane will be to team up and co-op with someone else so this will become the next gaming mission for myself and TechMaster to tackle.