Gears of War was a big game with a devoted following, and everyone has eagerly anticipated the release of Gears of War 2. Most fans haven't been let down by this epic sequel. The creed of Gears of War 2? Bigger. Badder. Bloodier.

You'll find many of the weapons to be familiar, and you'll find some new toys to make the bad men bleed, as well. It's most satisfying to plant a grenade as a trap and watch someone walk past it to their doom. Equally as satisfying is swinging your shotgun like a golf club, teeing off at 3 PM in beautiful, sunny weather using Locust heads as golfballs. What does this mean?

Gears of War 2 implements a nice execution system, allowing players to finish off a downed enemy in a number of ways. Many weapons have unique executions, and one can take a downed enemy as a hostage while you wield a pistol.

Graphics
It's obvious that the graphics in Gears of War 2 are gorgeous. The lighting bloom, real-time lighting, the realistic darkness, there are too many things to list. It's just a beautiful, beautiful game. If you watch your gun after continued fire when you reload, the barrel is red-hot. The animations of characters talking are great, the best I've seen. You can really pick out their facial features and immerse yourself in the action, they make it quite believable. Even the cover can be slowly ripped apart by weapons, breaking off piece by piece.

Of course, all is not perfect in Jacinto. I've noticed many problems with clipping, but it seems to have more to do with connection issues. It also seems ridiculous that if I'm behind cover and want to lean out and shoot, I shouldn't be shooting the cover I'm behind. I'd like to try to hit the enemy. The blood on the characters also didn't look quite so great sometimes, looking too light and pink as opposed to a very dark red.

Still, the graphics in Gears of War 2 will be hard to beat, with very gritty textures, gallons upon gallons of blood, and excellent character modeling.

Sound
Again, sound was an important feature of the gaming experience that is Gears of War 2. Each gun has a unique sound, one can recognize which gun is being fired by the audibles it emits. Every gun makes a sound when they jam, your footsteps make sound, the sound of sloshing through blood, all kinds of immersing sounds. The problem for me was the music, which was lacking in Gears of War 2. True, they never really focused on it, and they had some parts that were very musical, but they missed out on a series-defining soundtrack that games like Halo possess.

Music is a big part of a game for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the title sequence with its dramatic speech and music, but in the end Gears is not defined by its music. Which is fine, they don't need to be, they make up for it in other ways. It just means a lower Sound score .

Controls
Like the original Gears, taking cover is imperative to survival. Especially on Insane difficulty. And just like the original, I found detaching myself from said cover to be sometimes not only hazardous, but lethal. It can be tough to get off the wall and move around, meanwhile there's a Wretch jumping up and ripping off the beautiful face that mommy gave you. And sometimes you would like to attach yourself to cover, but instead you jump forward or sideways like a shmuck, and that's the end of Dominic Santiago.

Having multiple ways to execute your enemy is a nice touch. With each weapon you may press either X, B, or Y, and end your enemy's sorry life. Or with A you can pick them up and have a quality meatshield. Of course, after taking that hostage, using only a pistol may be a burden. In that case just press X to snap his neck! You can also sacrifice yourself with a grenade if you happen to be holding one when you go down. Press the right trigger as you crawl and you can splatter yourself and anyone else on the walls. And followers of the Gears 2 hype are already aware of the chainsaw duels, which are both rare and somewhat overrated.

Story
The campaign of Gears of War 2 blew me away. It was much, much better than the story of the original game. This game, while short in terms of time to beat, is huge and epic. This game takes you everywhere, from the last city of Jacinto, to the underground caves of the Locust, to the Locust palace, to battling on Reavers and a Brumak. You fight on a big rig and inside a tank, you fight inside a giant worm, on a gunboat, and inside the mouth of one bigass bass. Through dark caves you can only see with a light, to tunnels speeding by as you race your Reaver away from the enemy stronghold, to an Endor-reminiscent forest chase scene. This game goes everywhere, and I found it very satisfying.

Not only that, but the story is pretty good. The transition when you find Maria, the flashbacks, the whole story has a nice flow to it and really is plausible. The addition at the end of the credits leaves you wondering if the story is really over. After this game I really hope it's not.

Fun
This game is, indeed, very fun. There's really not much to say here. If you like chainsawing people, planting grenades on them, or executing your best friend with a sniper rifle being used by a club, what more could you want? I ask you, is there anything more shocking than drowning to death in blood? I warn you, you really can drown in blood.

Replay
I'm having a bit of trouble with the replayability of this epic sequel. After beating it on Casual, and going through again on Insane, and beating down 50 waves of Horde, I'm not sure I'll feel inclined to really play this game much anymore. I never really got into the Gears of War multiplayer, but we'll see how this one turns out.

In the end, Gears of War 2 is truly one of the most epic, bloodiest games I have ever played. This game allows you to cut the heart out of a giant beast, throw a grenade down another's throat, and ride a few more. There's a nice gametype called Horde where one must survive wave after wave of Locust, 50 in all. Players can brave this mode with up to 5 friends, and proves to be lots of fun. There's Wingman mode, where 5 teams of 2 players each square off against each other, with no winners until all teams are executed. The old gametypes and some old maps are back, giving old fans some advantages.

I highly recommend this game to everyone and anyone who likes shooters and doesn't mind lots and lots of gore. If you liked Gears of War, the sequel is just as I said. Bigger. Badder. Bloodier.