10 Things I Hate About Gears of War 2

Now although I love Gears of War 2 and have been massively impressed with it I want to take a few minutes away from singing its praises and concentrate on all of those niggly bits that have annoyed me.  Only read on if you have completed the campaign mode as this contains spoilers.

1. No Berserkers
The best enemy from Gears of War and she doesn’t even get so much of a mention in the sequel! These were the monsters that everyone loved battling so why did they not appear?  It doesn’t make sense Epic please get them to return in the 3rd game!

2. Chainsaw Duels
Is this really who smashes the B button to pieces or is it random? I can officially say that my B button has taken a massive beating in the last few days and it seems quite random so we put it to the test – me and another Gears 2 fan had a few chainsaw duels by pressing the B button a few times and it worked out that we won roughly 50% each so is it random?  We will leave you to decide.

3. Collectables
The new collectables quite frankly suck – I don’t care that some 28 year old soldier has Rust Lung or that a stranded has been shipped off in Operation Lifeboat… I just want to collect 30 Cog Tags near painted Cog Logos and collect an achievement. Simple.

4. Chainsaw
Anyone else encountered the fact that sometimes you have to press B at least twice to get your chainsaw to start?  Is it lagging? No because it happens in single-player.  Is it a bug? More than likely so please get it fixed Epic.

5. Matchmaking
Yes indeed the game singles out casual gamers – If you don’t have friends then forget about getting into games.  I ran several tests and if you have 2, 3 or 5 players in your lobby you will be fine (Although if you have 2 or 3 players then it may take a little more time) and you will get into a game but if your playing alone or with 4 people in a lobby it will take ages to find a game – which sucks seeing as Gears of War 2 is currently number one on Live and in charts around the world.  There should be a drop in and drop out system similar to the original Gears.

6. Lag
There was no way in hell that I could write this without talking about the lag online.  The lag can be very severe in games and it can be very frustrating when the host has 17 kills and everyone else has 1 or 2 – We need a fix for this urgently – this is something that should of been detected in testing and if it didn’t then Epic needs to open up testing a little more to be able to find these problems and get them sorted before a launch.

7. Tai & Dizzy
When I heard about the new Gears in the campaign mode I got all excited… Why? Because I’m sick of Baird and the Cole Train so can you imagine my disappointment when one commits suicide and the other just ‘disappears’?  Dizzy will probably come back in the 3rd title but that isn’t the point… I had to play more than 50% of the game without new people – that sucks.

8. The ‘Boss’ Battle
Well basically there isn’t a boss battle unless you count the dodging of pillars and the occasional chainsaw battle with the Skorge or the use of the Hammer of Dawn on the Brumak why can’t we have a proper boss battle Epic?  Why couldn’t I just decapitate someone with my Longshot like Raam?  I just hope some DLC brings some more single player action.

9. Adam Fenix
I mean WTF – why wasn’t anyone surprised to hear his voice in the Locust Underground on a computer (By the way did I mention that it’s stupid that Locusts have computers when their dialect is shown up by a Speak and Spell and a 3 year old?) Also what the hell is the end after the credits all about? “Hello this is Adam Fenix is anyone out there?” yes we are and we don’t care about you.. Why did I wait 15 minutes of credits just to hear that? Stupid and lame.

10. The Thing I Hate Most
The thing I hate most about Gears of War 2 is the fact that underneath all of the stuff I mentioned it is a beautifully crafted game that is going to keep me busy well into next year and even though it is full of bugs and stupid things in single player most of the problems can be fixed with a patch.  Yes Epic the thing I hate most about your game is the fact that I love it and I can now kiss goodbye to any social life I did have pre-Gears of War 2.