Gears of War 2: Snowblind Review
From the name of this map pack you can probably guess already what the environment will be like. That's right you guessed it, snowy. The first of the four maps, Courtyard is similar to the Gears of War map Old Bones. The open centre of the map is looked down on by the outer edges of the map. There is a sniper/mortar at the highest point of the map and the lower parts of the map have grenades and a Boomshot/Torque Bow.Grindyard is quite a different map for Gears of War as the centre is a small fort, where there is only one access point. At the top is a Boomshot/Multcher so is a key strategic point. Around the map is also a Flamethrower and of course grenades.
Underhill, my personal favourite, is quite an open map. There are three ways you could head. Down the centre to the Torque Bow/sniper rifle, up onto the motorway where there is a Mortar or into the building where there is a Shield and Flamethrower. There is also a garage door which you can open and close which is key during matches of Annex/King of the Hill as you can seal the enemy out of the hill for a small time which can have a big difference on the match.
The final map is a remake or should I just say a re-skinned version of Fuel Depot out of Gears of War. This is obviously re-skinned in snow and keeps mainly the same weapons except because of the alternating weapon cycle that Gears 2 has the Hammer of Dawn swaps with the Mortar, the sniper with the Torque Bow and the grenades with poison grenades.
The maps overall do a great way of bringing new additions to the Gears of
War 2 maps and of course these can all be played on Horde which adds to the value of them. They are a definitely more thought out than the Combustible maps and are a great way to reboot Gears of War 2's multiplayer with the new ranking system hand in hand with the new maps.