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Gears of War 2 is Still Pretty Good

by wickedcestus

When Gears of War 2 came out all the way back in two-thousand-and-hate I didn't really play it. I played through the campaign once, and then just stopped. Until yesterday. I was on Xbox Live, and a few of my friends were playing through Horde mode. I decided, sure, I could go for some Gears 2, it's definitely not terrible. But damn, that game is good. The Horde mode is still unmatched in any ga...

 When Gears of War 2 came out all the way back in two-thousand-and-hate I didn't really play it. I played through the campaign once, and then just stopped. Until yesterday. I was on Xbox Live, and a few of my friends were playing through Horde mode. I decided, sure, I could go for some Gears 2, it's definitely not terrible. But damn, that game is good.  

The Horde mode is still unmatched in any game. Tons of games have tried to copy this concept, but it still stands out even after all these years. It's like the best parts of Left 4 Dead but combined with enemies that actually pack a punch. It's not just that there are a lot of enemies, it's that most of the enemies take a lot of bullets to kill. By Wave 28, we were having a bit of trouble. We were playing on River, and were just hiding out in a house. We knew from experience that whenever we tried to leave the house we got our asses kicked, so we's try to hole ourselves up in there to survive. But the tension you feel when someone gets downed outside the house, and you have to run out there and save them and then run back as fast as you can is amazing. When the bloodmounts rushed into our house, and started eating us to pieces, it was fun. When a boomer would explode the hell out of you, taking you out of the game for a bit, it was still fun. Being able to watch your buddies try to survive without you is just as nerve-wracking as when you're playing. It took us from 11pm to 4am to make it to Wave 50. By the end, it was less about the game, and more about just being idiots and hanging out with each other. I had drank about 4 Starbucks bottled frappucinos so I was pretty messed up on caffeine, and the night dragged on as I tried to sleep without my eyes being able to close. This is one of those experiences with a game you remember for a while. 
 
 The next day, as soon as I woke up I turned on the Xbox and saw my friends were playing Gears 2 again. This time, instead of playing Horde, we just played straight up deathmatch. We just wanted to have fun and not get our asses kicked, so we played with bots. And it was pretty fun. We played for about 4 hours again and just laughed the whole way through.

I guess the point of this story is that people shouldn't be afraid to go back and play old games just because they're old. I'm getting way more enjoyment out of this game now then I am with Bad Company 2, which is a fairly recent game (I still love Bad Company 2 though). The summer is a great time to play all those games you just missed, since there's nothing else coming out. Hell, I'm going to start playing Persona 3 FES next week.