Gears of War 2: The Little Things

Played through Gears of War 2 this past Thanksgiving weekend. It was great. You all already know about epic scope, mind-blowing audio/video presentation, and "chainsodomy," but what really got to me were the little things-- small gameplay tweaks that manage to make the single most polished game on the Xbox 360 into a true masterpiece of combat design. Gears 2 iterates on the decisions made for Gears 1 in ingenious ways. In no particular order:

"Down But Not Out"
Design objectives of Gears of War 1:

• Establish emotional connection between player and squad mates
• Somehow explain that these characters stay alive throughout the story
• In cooperative play, alleviate frustration and guilt when one of the players dies

Gears of War 1 design decision: When teammates lose their vitality, they are put in a "down but not out" state where they can be revived by the player.

Problems with Gears 1 solution:

• The player became a babysitter for his idiot squadmates, constantly having to run through machine gun fire to pick up bullet sponge friends.
• The death of the player (the only Delta Squad member with magic healing powers) meant instant game over.
• Infinite revivals meant long battles became wars of attrition between the magic medic's squad and the non-healing Locust.

Gears of War 2 implementation:

• Incapacitated characters can now crawl, so hurt squadmates can now inch their way toward the player (and more importantly, out of the line of fire).
• AI characters can now revive other AI characters, further removing the responsibility for the player to babysit his squad.
• The player's death is no longer instant game over-- AI can revive him as well.
• Enemies can also revive one another, forcing the player to go for complete obliterations or else hound down wounded enemies.

The Sniper Rifle
Design objectives of Gears 1:

• Make weapons feel powerful.
• Reward the player for executing Active Reloads.

Gears 1 design decision: Locusts without helmets are killed with a single head shot. Active reloads double the damage of a sniper shot, making body shots lethal.

Problems with Gears 1 solution:

• Head shots are pretty hard to get, and it sucks to land one only to see that a helmet got broken.
• On the other hand, Active Reloads are pretty easy.
  
• Ergo effective sniping was not about aim (head shots) but rather about reloading properly. That's... kind of lame.
  

Gears 2 implementation:

• A head-shot will always kill normal sized Locust, rewarding aim above all else.
• Non head-shots can never kill an undamaged Locust. Active shots will cause stuns.

Tickers
Gears 1 design objective:

• Create a scary, swarm-type enemy for some frantic close quarters combat.

Gears 1 design decision: Lambent Wretches: small, fast enemies that deal explosive damage upon death.

Problems with Gears 1 solution:

• Easily the most dangerous enemies in the game. Once they were within range to attack, the player was in huge trouble, since even if he could kill them, they would kill the player in their death throes.
• Couldn't tell where they were until it was too late.
• Close quarters combat obviously was not ideal-- meaning that the player fought Locusts at range, and also Wretches at range. Boring.

Gears 2 implementation: Tickers.

• The distinctive ticking warns the player that they have to look for small explosive enemies.
• Suicide attacks mean that each Ticker can only attack once, unlike Lambent Wretches that can deal damage forever. Even if the player isn't doing well dealing with the Tickers, at least he doesn't get stuck in an impossible situation.
• Melee throws Tickers very far, meaning the player can use them as grenades against other enemies, which is fun!

Baby Bear Enemies
Gears 1 design objective:

• Create big, impressive enemies.

Gears 1 design decisions:

• The Beserker, a huge melee machine that hunts by smell and sound-- no shooting, no running! Impervious to bullets; only vulnerable to Hammer of Dawn.
• The Seeder, a big bug that looks cool but doesn't really do anything. Only vulnerable to Hammer of Dawn.
• The Corpser, a big spider defeated Zelda-style by repeating an easy pattern 3 times.

Problems with Gears 1 solution:

• This is a game about shooting. Having weapons that yield no effect makes the guns feel weak, the player feel weak, and the game feel more like a puzzle than a combat situation.
• The player needs to give up one of his weapons for the Hammer of Dawn which is only useful for this purpose. Lame.

Gears 2 implementation:
Medium-big enemies. Far larger than normal humanoids, but still shootable. Reavers, Bloodmounts, 4 new varieties of Boomers round out the Locust ranks. The player can take them down with any weapon he wants, as long as it's got enough ammunition in it. When they appear, the combat gameplay amps up in tension, instead of dumbing down into "puzzle mode." Think of the HL2:Ep2 Hunters. These enemies are just right.


Alternate Gameplay
Gears 1 design objective:

• Give the player something to do other than shoot Locust.

Gears 1 design decisions:

• Kryll come out at night and eat fools. The player needs to stay in the light, create light, and not die.
• The player drives an APC with a UV gun. He needs to switch between driving and shining the light to get from point A to point B.

Problems with Gears 1 solution:

• Sneaking around is boring as hell.
• It's not that people don't want to shoot stuff-- it's that they want to shoot stuff in a different way. This is a game about shooting; doing things that are not shooting is boring.

Gears 2 implementation:

• Drive a tank! Shoot the boss enemies of Gears 1 in the face!
• Drive a Reaver! Fly around and shoot fools!
• Drive a Brumak! Take control of a boss enemy from Gears 1!

So at the end of the day, Gears 2 refines every last bit of gameplay that Gears 1 had already polished so well. Good game.