The much anticipated Gears of War 2 update landed last week and I finally got around to downloading it on the weekend and giving it a run.
Personally the most important thing I was looking for was whether or not the matchmaking had been fixed yet and if the lag issues had been resolved.
I couldn’t care less about the ranking system and whether I have 1 stripe or the number 1 next to my name doesn’t really make a difference, however I have to admit that I do like being able to see who is going to wipe the floor with me with the new system so that’s a plus.
Nick mentioned over the weekend that the lobbies have also significantly been improved and that you can now chat properly while watching the rest of your team get mauled as well as chatting between rounds finally, how could this take so long to fix.
From my side I found that finding ranked matches is now markedly improved and didn’t feel like a trip to the dentist anymore. The matches seemed well balanced and the shotgun/melee near glitches seem to be mostly resolved.
However I didn’t get to play to long as I really wasn’t finding it much fun, I don’t know what it is but Gears 2 just doesn’t have that wow factor that the original Gears had.
After the original Gears gave me so much entertainment I feel duty bound to give Gears 2 another shot but I have to say that right now I think the single player section of Gears 2 was the best part of the package and I didn’t rate that too highly when I first played it.
Last Updated: March 30, 2009
ewie
March 30, 2009 at 12:06
Changes made to the chainsaw / shotgun have improved
gameplay a lot, and it feels a lot like gears 1 in this regard , no more running with the chainsaw and getting cheap kills, as you now have to work for those, it take skill now to get a proper chainsaw kill, The shotgun is a lot more potent now, what i do miss from gears one is that you can’t run and shoot any more and this make it also more tactical as if you have (a) pressed in you can’t shoot so it take that little bit extra to get a proper kill.
koldFU5iON
March 30, 2009 at 12:22
that’s cause you don’t play with us anymore :pirate:
RogueOne
March 30, 2009 at 12:53
What I have found:
Shotgun is slightly slower, which makes for awesome shotgun fights.
Lancer seems a little more powerful so its actually a choice for me now.
Chainsaw …meh
Boomshot not quite as potent, which is a good thing.
Public matching way better/faster.
Ranking is cool but could have put in a little more effort.
All in all my favourite chocolate just got added nuts 🙂
Aequitas
March 30, 2009 at 12:56
QFT
Ranked matches suck … they always have. Playing with the right crowd is *essential*
WitWolfyZa
March 30, 2009 at 14:32
tried it.. and i have to say im impressed. Found a match iin 20 seconds… new record…
Nick
March 30, 2009 at 14:47
I wasn’t impressed at first because I have still been waiting for the “gears 1” patch for Gears 2. But after a few times I am really starting to enjoy it, I find that I am seeing some good ol Shotgun duels again which were missing in the past. Most importantly, the fact that the voice chat has been changed between rounds means that the game is a lot more social now, which is a huge improvement.
Q121
March 30, 2009 at 16:21
I cant stand gears public games, way too much effort just getting into and playing games…
WHY CANT THEY JUST MAKE IT LIKE BAD COMPANY!!! The ranked matches run so smoothly, no hassles, it just works. :pirate:
Nick
March 30, 2009 at 16:39
Well Bad Company, just like COD uses a different type of netcode (cant remember which name is which now so I wont try) which works so much better for international play. The problem is , that Epic was hassled to try and change it over to that way of doing things but they said that the code was too deep in the UT3 engine to change, so the way it is is the way it stays 🙁