For Xbox 360 owners, it’s hard to find a title that gamers have looked more forward to in the last year.  When the initial teaser trailer went live of the chainsaw duel between Marcus Fenix and a Locust, the nostalgia from the original title rose to a premium.  The title received an increase in online players, and the chatter within the games surprisingly shifted from mostly trash talk, to extreme excitement.

Gears of War 2 does not disappoint, and surely delivers the “bigger, better, and more badass” slogan that we heard Cliff Bleszinski for what seemed like ages.  The addition of Joshua Ortega on to the Gears of War team helped improved the rather bland storyline in the original.  With the much improved storyline in campaign, and quite the abundance of multiplayer features, does Gears of War 2 have what it takes to upstage the original?

To put it simply, yes.  Gears of War 2 is a title that delivers, and while it has its downfalls that the community is well aware of, the team at Epic always seems to be hard at work to patch what the community complains about.

The story takes place after the detonation of the Light Mass Bomb, which was supposed to rid the planet Sera of those dreaded Locust, and obviously didn’t.   As the Gears 2 story unveils its first hour or so, you quickly begin to question if you’re truly playing a sequel, or if we’re playing Gears of War 1.5.   As the game does start out slow, you’ll quickly change your opinion as the further you play the title, the harder you find it to turn off your Xbox 360 and take a break.

The story gives you just enough to feed your hunger, but nowhere close to have you satisfied enough to take a lengthy break.  Aside from the massive amounts of Locusts you’ll encounter, the sheer beauty of the game absolutely stunning at times.  If you were a fan of the first title, you’ll quickly notice two things: the amount of enemies on screen at once, and the gorgeous lighting.

The Unreal Engine tech demo that many of us saw months ago had jaws dropping when they saw the plethora of Locusts you could potentially encounter at one point in the game, and Epic does a solid job of bringing that to the gamer multiple times.  Sadly, you don’t get the opportunity to have lay a Mulcher over a barrier and light up a ton of Locusts from ground level, but the massive vehicles allow for opportunities of hundreds of Locust deaths.

The lighting appears to be a slight upgrade until you reach the campaign level that inspired the multiplayer map, Avalanche.  You’ll eventually find yourself in an extremely dark tunnel with only a COG vehicle behind you to show off minimal lighting.  If you’re not impressed with the lighting features that are displayed here, then you’re simply not human.

While the game is technically beautiful, the campaign is constructed extremely well, especially with the addition of drop-in, drop-out cooperative play.  Gamers can have a second player join and play as Dominic Santiago at any point in the campaign, and on a separate difficulty.  The separate difficulty is a great feature, as players can now play the game so that it provides a challenge, and allow a lesser skilled friend the ability to play on their own comfort level.

The campaign is a great upgrade from the original, and I have to applaud Joshua Ortega and the Epic team on making it worthwhile to play.  It seems to, somehow, combine the “shoot-em-up” style of the Gears campaign with enough of a story to have gamers feeling for the characters as the story progresses.

While the campaign does provide quite a bit of replay value, the majority of gamers are looking forward to the multiplayer.  Whether you’re a fan of the COG or Locust, you’re introduced to a slew of new weapons, a shield, meatshields, weather effects, chainsaw battles, the ability to tag walls with grenades, and more.

Epic created quite an impressive list of maps to go along with the features, and the addition of weather effects such as an avalanche of snow and razor hail are two of the more memorable you’ll find in gaming.  While I felt the maps in the original Gears of War were well above average, you’ll quickly find that the maps constructed in the sequel will leave them in the dust.

Inside of each brand new copy of Gears 2, you’ll find a code for the “Flashback Map Pack” which will give you access to four maps from the original title, each with their own new twist.  You’ll find a revamped Subway, Mansion, Tyro Station, and Canals with each being upgrades from their original.  It is odd that you don’t see maps like Process, Fuel Depot, and War Machine, as they seemed to be some of the most played maps on the original title, but we’ll leave that for future downloadable content.

The multiplayer, as it currently stands is rather unbalanced.  Shotgun melees and overly powerful chainsaws seem to run rampant in the game, but it’s truly the glitches that hurt the games performance.  If you’re an avid player of the title, you’ll quickly run into the shield glitch, no gun glitch, and others that you’ll quickly find frustrating.  The multiplayer, when no glitches are involved, is some of the best action you can find on any console.  Epic should truly spend more time with QA testers and have them test multiplayer maps more in depth, as most of the glitches are game breaking for users.

The best feature that you’re going to find in this title, or better yet, any game this year has to be Horde.  Horde gives the ability for up to five gamers to compete against fifty waves of Locust on any map of their choice, on a variety of difficulty levels.  The mode is a great way to just kick back with a few friends and kill time, and the leaderboards and photo mode, that’s also found in multiplayer, keep this mode at a high replay value.

The ability to tag walls, chainsaw duel your opponents, and the addition of new weapons is truly something that helps keep the multiplayer entertaining.  If you add in the extensive new multiplayer maps, the game is going to keep players absorbed in combat until the third game in the series launches in the future.

Simply put, if you don’t have Gears of War 2 already, then it needs to be on your holiday wishlist.  Gears of War 2 is one of the best buys for Xbox 360 owners, and the replay value is the best you’ll find on the market.  Do yourself a favor, if you don’t own Gears of War 2 already, ask that guy in the red suit with the beard to stop playing his copy and get to work on yours this holiday season.

For more reviews and verdicts on Gears of War 2, be sure to check out TestFreaks.com!