Gears of War 2 Preview

With the hospital cleared Dom takes the opportunity to ask Anya if she's had any luck chasing up a lead on the whereabouts of his missing wife Maria. Anya tells him that a woman matching her description was released from custody a few days ago, which doesn't go down well with the troubled COG. His desperate pursuit of his missing wife is sure to play a central role in the story this time around (a ruffled photograph of Dom and Maria will be included in the Collector's Edition - Cliff Bleszinski, rather disturbingly, keeps one in his wallet).

After clearing the Locust from the surrounding streets, another cut scene kicks in, this time a rousing speech from the Chairman Richard Prescott, who's mobilising the COGs for the last ditch assault on the Locust underneath the planet's crust. "Humanity faces extinction unless we end this war," he says. Hundreds of soldiers cheer.

The nearby town of Landown is where humanity will focus its attack, the crust underneath Jacinto considered too hard to drill through. Marcus, Dom and Carmine meet up with Dizzy, a cowboy hat-wearing ex-Stranded who has joined the army via Operation Lifeboat - ensuring his family will be supported with rations and shelter. Our mission is to escort a convoy of assault derricks - huge vehicles with imposing drills - to Landown, via spiralling mountainous roads flanked by tall forest trees, and protect them from the inevitable Locust attack.

First off Reavers saddle up alongside our rig. We jump on a turret and pepper them with bullets. The Locust swarm and capture a rig - we tear them up as they desperately scramble onboard. With Landown in sight, the Locust unleash a squad of Brumaks - we pump bullet after bullet into the faces of the giant beasts - bits of flesh spewing out, blood everywhere. Waves of Locust troops descend on the convoy, and, right at the last, a Corpser appears from nowhere. It's adrenaline pumping stuff, and action on a scale the first game didn't even begin to approach.

The convoy is brought to a standstill by a new enemy - Tickers. Similar to the Wretches from the first game, Tickers carry bombs on their backs and head straight for you on suicide runs. The bombs will go off if you kill them too close, so the idea is that you take them out from a distance - no chainsaw kills here. Tai meets up with Delta squad at this point, having survived the wrecking of the rig he was riding further back. Now on foot, Delta has a new objective - to head to a monument at the centre of town and dig down into the heart of the Locust.

In the first game players had COG Tags to hunt down in each level, but in Gears 2 there's plenty more bits and bobs to discover, including newspaper clippings, military monuments and personal journals. One we find, from the Jacinto Sentinel Newspaper, details the Locust Horde attack on Landown and the subsequent Winter of Sorrow in a story titled: "Devastation." Another, a COG Letterhead found inside the hospital, is from a Dr. Nicolette Shannon to COG HQ for Military Ops, who is pleading for medical supplies - a request that is "respectfully denied". A monument we discover is in honour of those who served in the Pendulum Wars. These story snippets, which save to your War Journal for future viewing, help to add flavour to the universe - essential given how sparse in plot the first game was.

It's not long before we're bogged down by attacks. Like in the first game, you'll need to find cover and identify useful flanking positions to take out the Locust. But there are subtle differences. You'll now pop out of cover in different, more intelligent ways. Cover itself isn't the safe haven it once was - wood will splinter and concrete walls will crumble from enemy fire. The gore level has been ramped up, however improbable that thought is. Bits of Locust will fly about the place as you Lancer them into oblivion. The new weapon specific melee kills are particularly brutal (the fist pound is already a favourite of ours). And the pacing and variety feels better, too. We've already mentioned the derrick convoy section. Later on in Landown Delta Squad needs to work its way through a pitch black tunnel (some light is provided by Dizzy on board the derrick), all the while fighting off waves of rushing Tickers. As you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and what looks like respite, a Reaver attacks. Good stuff.

While the graphics are markedly improved - there's much more character detail, the environments are less grey and the backgrounds are incredibly impressive - we weren't as blown away as we were when we first played Gears of War 1. This isn't through any fault of Epic - in many ways the studio is a victim of its own success. Nearly two years later Gears is still one of the best-looking titles on the system. Because of this fact, don't expect to be wowed in the same way as you were last time around. While Gears of War 2's graphics are undoubtedly brilliant, it feels a bit like watching The Matrix for the second time - the impact is somewhat dulled.