I bought my Xbox 360 back in December of 2006. It was the pro bundle that came with G.R.A.W and XBL Arcade Hits. However when I got home I found out that G.R.A.W was faulty. So I went out and rented Gears having almost no idea what it was about only that I kept hearing its name over and over again. I played split screen co-op with a buddy of mine the next day and some online. Well i was less than impressed with the online which to me seem like a dice rolling shotgun game of luck. I loved the co-op and the next time I had money bought it. I played through the story co-op with so many different people on XBL and friends alike that I memorized lines and lost count how many times I had beat the story. Don't get me wrong I played some multi player with a bud of mine who was addicted to it like crack but I was almost forcing myself to like it for his sake.
Flash forward to November of 2008 and Gears of War 2 is coming out. I already convince myself to but just for the co-op and to continue what and this point some might loosely call a story. I had seen some of the improvements to the online and horde look pretty sweet so I wasn't completely writing of multi-player just yet. The Game came out and after going through co-op and beating the game on insane. my previously mentioned gears 1 addict of a friend and I ventured off into its online. What we found was broken match making and maps which seemed cool but at the same time we kept going back to the flashback maps. I quickly returned to COD 4 and while my friend lasted a little longer he eventually got fed up of be able to watch episodes of TV shows before finding a match and gave up as well.
In the coming months I noticed we were not alone. While Gears of Wars 1 had dominated the top of played games on XBOX live for close to two years. As the months passed Gears 2 fell further and further down the list. Gears 2 had left my awareness until they pushed out the third title Update in march of 2009. I liked the way the title updated improved the way ranking was counted with levels instead of symbols and the match making was working better it was still dumb to try to find a team of four and then another team of four to play against. I played for about a week and back on my shelf Gears 2 went.
Last week, after getting frustrated at MW 2 I decided to play something else. My friend the addicted one again had started playing gears 2 about two months before after picking up the Dark the Corners map pack. He convinced me to give it another go, saying it was really improved and how it was only 800 MPS now. I figured for that price 19 maps and more co-op I had to buy it. Wow what differences title updates can bring to a game. The match making had finally been changed to find all eight people at once. The Maps oh my god the maps are by far better than anything on the original disc. Seriously I can play the map pack playlist all day. The took out the know down affect of the smoke grenades which really annoyed me before. Now with the social matchmaking you can join horde and other games in progress.
In conclusion, I cant believe how far Gears 2 has come since it release. It has given me an alternative to MW2 for times where I feel like playing something different. I encourage anyone who may of not like Gears 2 so much the first time around to give it one more chance.
Log in to comment