15 Hour Review: Gears of War 2

I think Gears of War 2 is everything we hoped it would be. At least for me, the online component was so broken that I didn't even bother with it after the third auto-update from developer Epic.

Actually, that's the only thing I haven't tried out in the game so far. I'm halfway through the story mode and we've beaten the Horde mode on normal, completing level 50 on Sunday, just two days after the games release. Friday night alone encompassed about 10 hours of this review through both story and Horde modes. I stopped to eat dinner out with my wife and that was about it.

I won't go through what I think area all the technical enhancements that make the game better than the last. There's to many and we talking about getting creative with icing your favorite cake: it's already good, just give me more. Horde mode is like adding ice cream on the side. Luckily I have a sweet tooth.

Gears 1 set the bar for graphics and style on the 360. It was better than Halo visually and audibly. Gears 2 is still able to kick it up a notch. Level design is off the chart, with no part of any map untouched or unloved.

I'm really looking forward to finishing the game's story and going back and doing it on the harder difficulty. And to me, that speaks a lot about a game. If I buy a game these days, it's the online modes that keep me interested, not the single player. Gears of War, Halo games and Crackdown are a few of the games that, once I beat, I don't mind going back and playing over again.

I'm not the type of person to reread books, so when a game is able to offer you a deep enough story to warrant multiple play throughs (and that aren't epic 40 hour long games), I kind of cherish those games. I want to experience as many parts of the story and gameplay as I can. If a book could hide pages your first time through and then you could somehow discover them after you finished it, that might give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Meanwhile, Fallout 3 is sitting on the sidelines, pouting it it's mother about not getting any play time. Suck it up, boy. Your turn will come. If Gears 2 is anything like it's older brother, it will get injured and never recover...then you'll have your turn to shine.