The Official Gears of War 2 Catch-all

Gears of War Developer Diary 5
"Never Fight Alone"

This one is all multiplayer. The best one yet.

Gumbie wrote:

Gears of War Developer Diary 5
"Never Fight Alone"

This one is all multiplayer. The best one yet.

I am gonna abuse this game like a $5 whore.

Viral advertising campaign begins?

Wired's game blog has some intro information about some promo MS is doing... I'm not that into ARGs but if someone puzzles out what all of this is supposed to mean, I'll follow it.

souldaddy wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

Gears of War Developer Diary 5
"Never Fight Alone"

This one is all multiplayer. The best one yet.

I am gonna abuse this game like a $5 whore.

I was talking with Stats about GoW2 last night. I couldn't remember if stopping power only worked if a player was travelling towards you; i.e. can the enemy roll sideways at full speed while being shot? Any ideas?

Does the replica lancer seem low-rent to you? Bling your look with a gold replica lancer. Pimp outfit not included.

Kotaku writes up about horde mode.

The idea is to survive wave after wave of Locust hordes that the game throws at you. You lose if every member on your team is killed. You win when you kill every Locust in a wave of the horde – after that, the game pauses to show you which players had the most kills and then chucks you back into the map with another wave.

There’s a vague incentive to kill steal. It’s rewarding to see yourself at the top of the list at the end of a wave with seven score marks by your name. But ultimately, Horde mode takes teamwork, so try not to be too much of a bastard or your mates will leave you to die behind the barn while they set up a perimeter on the bridge. (I don’t think friendly fire is an option – or at least I wasn’t Female Doggoy enough to warrant my teammates shooting at me.)

sh*t hits the fan at about wave 10. More and more of the Horde come from all directions on the map, overwhelming whatever system you’ve managed to set up. We made it all the way to wave 15 by sticking together, but after that, someone decided going every man (or woman) for themselves was a good idea and we all died like dogs.

The game let us repeat the wave where we’d left off, but our spawn position on the map was reset so we started from new random positions instead of the place where we left off at the end of the last wave – and I think our score was reset to zero (I clicked through the menu too fast in my zeal to get back to the fight). I have no idea how anyone is going survive all 50 waves of Horde mode – even after I switched out with a more hardcore shooter journo, the group never made it to wave 20 in the hour we had to play.

BTW, the returning maps in the map pack are below, with links to screenshots. Apparently ALL of them have update graphics, although from what I saw Subway and Mansion had the same green-algae growth thing going on that Gridlock has. That could get old. The new Tyro Station and especially Canals look awesome.

Canals
Gridlock
Mansion
Subway
Tyro Station

EDIT: updated with better pics. Haha, the river is frozen over in Canals.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do with the DLC I had for GOW. It's taking up a few hundred MB of space, so I'd like to delete it. However I don't know if it'll be needed / useful for the future game.

Anyone have an insider info?

1Dgaf wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what I can do with the DLC I had for GOW. It's taking up a few hundred MB of space, so I'd like to delete it. However I don't know if it'll be needed / useful for the future game.

Anyone have an insider info?

You could just re-download it if you needed it.

souldaddy wrote:

Canals
EDIT: updated with better pics. Haha, the river is frozen over in Canals.

Yes! I finally get to chainsaw the enemy while figure skating! It's a dream come true!

Mystic Violet wrote:
souldaddy wrote:

Canals
EDIT: updated with better pics. Haha, the river is frozen over in Canals.

Yes! I finally get to chainsaw the enemy while figure skating! It's a dream come true!

HA! It will make your pirouette of death all the more fun to watch!

Nice!

There are now bots. You can hop into Training Grounds mode and fight off up to nine bots as a primer for the real deal. Next, there's a feature called "What's Up?" that's located on the main menu. It's sort of a simplified Xbox Guide. Clicking it opens up a list that displays all of your friends playing Gears 2 and lets you assemble a party at the touch of a button. Oh, and yes there is now a fully-functioning party system that lets you jump from mode to mode and match to match, all the while staying with your pals.
souldaddy wrote:

Nice!

There are now bots. You can hop into Training Grounds mode and fight off up to nine bots as a primer for the real deal. Next, there's a feature called "What's Up?" that's located on the main menu. It's sort of a simplified Xbox Guide. Clicking it opens up a list that displays all of your friends playing Gears 2 and lets you assemble a party at the touch of a button. Oh, and yes there is now a fully-functioning party system that lets you jump from mode to mode and match to match, all the while staying with your pals.

Super, super, super awesome. I can see Gears 'n' Beers being a lot more fun with that stuff in place.

Yep. Man, if I had a dollar for every time I couldn't operate the Xbox Guide late into a serious G&B session... I'd have like two, maybe three dollars. Which would be enough for another round.

Staats wrote:

Yep. Man, if I had a dollar for every time I couldn't operate the Xbox Guide late into a serious G&B session... I'd have like two, maybe three dollars. Which would be enough for another jar of pizza sauce.

Fixed.

Ok so i am seeing bits and pieces about midnight launch offical events.
Anyone able to come up with a list yet?

I just caught the news Gears 2 ad on joystiq. "The Last Day." Awesome.

Irongut wrote:

I just caught the news Gears 2 ad on joystiq. "The Last Day." Awesome.

Not as good as their "Mad World" ad from original Gears but still pretty nice.

Wired

I think all Gamestops are having midnight launches. That's where I'll be.

But I heard something about tokens for ingame sh*t at offical events.

WiredAsylum wrote:

But I heard something about tokens for ingame sh*t at offical events.

Yeah for a Gold Hammerbust

I really hope my local EB has a midnight opening even if I have to work at 7 am the next morning.

I have 5 days off after that than I will be playing Gears like Crazy

"We cut all the blood. We just don't want to scare people off... It's a Christmas game, really."

Tkyl wrote:

"We cut all the blood. We just don't want to scare people off... It's a Christmas game, really."

I love how they show the chainsawing video while he's saying this

It looks like Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for this game - we've even got a midnight launch here! If everything goes well I'll be able to squeeze in an hour of Gears 2 before going to bed.

Lord_Xan wrote:

It looks like Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for this game - we've even got a midnight launch here! If everything goes well I'll be able to squeeze in an hour of Gears 2 before going to bed.

If I have learned anything in life, I've learned there is no hour or two of gaming

Lord_Xan wrote:

It looks like Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for this game - we've even got a midnight launch here! If everything goes well I'll be able to squeeze in an hour of Gears 2 before going to bed.

Microsoft Must Be Crazy

IMAGE(http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a254/Liquidmantis/GoW2.jpg)

My gamestop still will not confirm if they are doing a midnight release.

Quite a large queue for this at the Eurogamer Expo today. I wasn't allowed to take photos of it, either.

I didn't wait around to play it; not that desperate.

InigoMantoya wrote:
Lord_Xan wrote:

It looks like Microsoft is pulling out all the stops for this game - we've even got a midnight launch here! If everything goes well I'll be able to squeeze in an hour of Gears 2 before going to bed.

If I have learned anything in life, I've learned there is no hour or two of gaming :)

There have been a number of times, I wade into a G&B session saying to myself "It's late - I'm only going to play for an hour." Then, about 3 hours later, I say - "Ok, only an hour more, then I really need to get to bed."