GEARS FOR FEARS

I finally did it. I've thrown Gears of War 2 in front of their own hype train for good. No more 'EPIC hype' will get me to purchase another Gears of War. The only good thing about GOW is the graphics. They are amazing no doubt, they are the industry standard and what every studio strives to achieve for the current "next gen" games, but I don't want it anymore. Hi-res textures and normal maps do not equal a fun game to me. New features and added technology to the Unreal Engine is not enough to keep me a loyal fan. What killed it for me finally was mostly the multiplayer. Just like in the first Gears of War, the multiplayer mode in Gears 2 was uninspired and overly repetitive. The single player campaign was OK. I enjoyed it while it lasted but couldn't help but feel like this wasn't Gears of War 2. It felt just like the first Gears of War but prettier. Like other sites have said, Gears of War 1.5.

I wanted to like Gears, I really did. I played through the campaign with my girlfriend who really liked the first Gears. I played it in split screen with her so even after beating the game, I was still looking forward to playing it again in co-op with a friend, on Legendary. You gotta beat it on Legendary right!? Well, I couldn't find a friend that actually wanted to play it a second time around. Seems like my friends didn't enjoy the game either. What's wrong here? It's EPIC's first sequel to GOW and it already feels like a dying franchise. I think maybe a 'revamp' may be needed in the future. Or an all new IP because Gears of War just isn't cutting it anymore. Gamers expect more. Maybe a bit too much sometimes but I know we deserve more for the hype that comes along with it.

Here I am a few months later, trading in a "must have" game in for F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. I didn't want to trade in any games for FEAR 2 but my copy of Gears of War 2 hasn't been opened in months. GameStop offered $25 trade in value plus an extra 25% towards a new game purchase. During these tough economic times, it made all the sense in the world. Even though I despise GameStop, I sided with the evil doers of the used game industry in order to get a better experience from what may be an overall better developer. You can argue with me all you want on that but at least Monolith knows how to tell a story. GOW2 storyline was all over the place and barely understandable. Did they really think we would have an emotional attachment to Dom and his wife? Please.. where in the hell was the character development? I couldn't have cared less.

I started playing Project Origin last night and I already know I made the right choice. So far so good. Some people may think I made a bad decision on this trade in but I know I didn't enjoy Gears so why in the hell would I keep it around? I'm not going to magically have the urge to put a over-hyped game in my 360 just because 'douche magouche' Cliff Bleszinski goes spouting his mouth off to any media outlet that has the patience for him. It seems like the games that don't get hyped, or don't get millions of dollars of marketing money and don't have a unique game trailer shown on cable television are the ones that are actually the best games to own. Gears of War 2 is a rental at best and I should have stuck with my instincts when buying it on the first day. I admit I fell for it; I hopped on the hype train. I thought it might be a disappointment but I still wanted to give EPIC Games the benefit of the doubt. EPIC was sure to fix everything that was wrong with their first go at Gears. But in the end, there was just too many things wrong with the first one which made it impossible to improve the second one. Even for the almighty EPIC Games and their monopolized Unreal Engine 3.