Leveling Down

Xbox 360
Prince of Persia [$39.98 Amazon]
Tales of Vesperia Premium Edition [$49.98 Amazon]
Grand Theft Auto IV [$29.99 Newegg]

Playstation 3
Prince of Persia [$39.98 Amazon]
Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe [$39.98 Amazon]

Multiplayer in Gears of War 2 may be underwhelming, but the single player is an excellent ride from start to finish.

I’ll come right out and say it: I’m not the biggest fan of either the Halo or the Gears of War series. While I don’t like the “empty your entire clip into the guy before he dies” style combat of Halo, I can understand why the Halo series is popular: Bungie has put a lot of care and effort into Halo 3′s multiplayer so it’s no wonder the game is at the top of the Live charts even today. What I still don’t quite get is how Gears of War 1 and 2 are so popular from a multiplayer standpoint. The gameplay is relatively elementary, movement of the characters is too sluggish, and the games generally don’t play well in an adversarial way. Yet the kids love it. Is it the gore? I almost feel like Gears of War online is this generation’s Mortal Kombat – a versus game that is poorly designed yet elicits enough gruesome shock value to be entertaining. Why then, does a more refined and better designed multiplayer offering from Epic, Unreal Tournament III, have only a fraction of the fans?

I have a lot of problems with Gears of War 2′s multiplayer, but I did fully enjoy the single player and Horde modes. Apparently I’m not alone on this either, as several fans are fuming that Epic actually recently released a $10 map pack when they haven’t even fixed all of the problems in the multiplayer yet.

Good
- Excellent presentation
- Interesting and varied campaign
- Horde mode is a lot of fun for co-op

Bad
- Lack of epic boss fights like in the first game
- Multiplayer gameplay mechanics are broken
- Matchmaking is broken

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