COGs Versus Locust (Multiplayer Preview)

Published November 6, 2008

There's a reason why week after week, month after month since the original launch of Gears of War®, it remains one of the top five most played games on Xbox LIVE®. Its brand of gritty, hyper-detailed presentation, fast-paced play, and stop and pop tactics are peculiar to itself.

Mash B!

There's simply nothing else quite like Gears online, and with Gears of War 2, developer Epic has spent two years perfecting the model it founded, honing its game modes, balance, maps, new features, and matchmaking services to create a multiplayer title that will thrive for years, not just months.

Strap on your armor and get your Lancer
prepped, Gears of War 2 ships November 7.

In addition to the traditional two-player cooperative Campaign, which a friend can now drop in and out of dynamically without sending you back to the main menu, there's a ton of great multiplayer features.

Horde Waves
Apart from the new competitive modes, Gears of War 2 introduces a brand new cooperative game type called Horde. This mode makes use of the game's multiplayer maps, but rather than pit two teams of players against one another, Horde sends wave after wave of A.I. controlled enemies at one team of up to five players.

The objective here is to see just how long you and your buddies can hold out against progressively more difficult enemies, with the ultimate goal of defeating all fifty waves. With map-specific leaderboards, stat-tracking for every round, and a difficulty bump after every ten waves, the Horde game type is set to unleash a whole new Gears experience.

Here's a tip. Always travel in packs.

New Modes
Gears veterans can rest easy knowing that all their old favorite game modes are back. The team deathmatch inspired Warzone and Execution modes are alive and well, as is Guardian (a revamped version of Assassination) and Annex. More exciting though are the three new modes of play added for Gears of War 2. They are:

• Wingman: For anyone who enjoys small teams or can typically only depend on one friend playing online, this mode is for you. Wingman pits five teams of two players against one another, where only executions earn you a kill. This means when you down an opponent, you need to either finish them off with a melee execution, or tag them with a one-shot kill. Your point total for each round carries over to the next so the best overall team is awarded victory.
• Submission: This living, breathing, swearing, violent version of Capture The Flag posts a renegade, A.I. controlled Stranded character in the middle of the map. Your team needs to first subdue them (read: shoot them, a lot) and then drag them back to the drop point where you must defend them for a few short seconds in order to secure victory.
• King of the Hill: Unlike Annex, King of the Hill boasts just a single, unchanging control point throughout the round. Your team must take control of the "hill" and hold it to earn victory points. You lose control of the hill immediately if there's not at least one member of your team inside. When holding the hill, you and your teammates will be unable to respawn if you or they die.

A Gears Party
Much like Halo 3, Gears of War 2 has adopted a party-based system for Ranked (Public) matchmaking. Join up with up to four friends, pick which game types you'd like to play, then the system takes care of pairing you up against another similarly ranked team. No more waiting around in a lobby hoping other players will join. The game takes care of that.

Want to unlock new multiplayer characters? Play Campaign mode.

Unlike Halo 3 though, Gears of War 2 matches consist of several rounds of play, allowing some give and take throughout the match as each team sizes up the other. For example, a match of Warzone (classic team deathmatch) requires the victorious team to win five rounds, so just a single match can take upwards of nine rounds to complete.

Once you're paired up against another team, every player gets to vote on two choices for game type (such as Execution and Submission) and map (such as River and Jacinto). In the case of a tie, the game picks a random game type or map. Of course, you can choose to play just one game type, but the default playlist includes every mode of play.

Characters and Weapons
Whether you want to shred enemies with the Mulcher turret, light them up with the flamethrower, or rain death from above with the mortar, every new weapon featured in the single-player campaign can be found and used in multiplayer matches.

If you're eager to unlock new online characters like Dizzy, Tai, Skorge, or the Locust Flame Grenadier, do so by playing through the single-player Campaign. Each Act you complete unlocks new multiplayer characters. As a gift for those that played and completed the original Gears of War, the new game automatically checks your achievements for the first game, and depending on how much of the game you completed, you'll unlock Anthony Carmine, Mingh Young Kim, and General RAAM to play as on Xbox LIVE.

An angle only Ghost Cam can achieve.

Say Cheese
In an effort to spice things up, Gears of War 2 allows you to snap photos whenever you're biding time between deaths. Not only that, but you can then upload those photos to the official site to peruse at your leisure. This is especially fun and useful during Warzone and Execution matches where, with no respawns, you're out of commission after the first time you die.

While you can use the traditional battle camera or view and capture the action from the perspective of one of your teammates, you can now also trigger the Ghost Cam. This allows you to control a free roaming camera so you can snap photos and watch the action from any angle you desire.

On its own the Ghost Cam is fun, but it's also a great tactical tool. Follow your opponents around with the Ghost Cam and you'll get a close up view of their strategy.

Multiplayer in Gears of War 2 is set to blow the COG tags off its predecessor with a smoother, more feature rich, and more easily accessible competitive multiplayer offering, to say nothing of the hours of tense, Locust killing fun to be had with its brand-new cooperative Horde game type. Strap on your armor and get your Lancer prepped, Gears of War 2 ships November 7.

Article by Ryan Treit