Hi guys, so my cousin works at Epic, and today they held like a special showing type thing to family and friends of the employees today and I got to play Gears 2 for like three hours!
I didn't get to meet Cliff (bummer =P), but got a ton of info from playing the game, some things I can tell you guys and some I cannot.
Campaign:
-Will be divided into 4 Acts, with 6 chapters in each Act. Each chapter should take like 30 minutes to complete, So your looking at around a 12 hour long game possibly?
-COG tags have been replaced with war journals.
-Raven helicopter playable! Well, from what I saw it was Marcus, Dom, and Carmine (with Dizzy piloting) the Raven, with everyone shooting these new bird like creatures.
-Four player co-op confirmed
-Cole and Baird won't be introduced until the second act. The story will then shift to 2 seperate ones, Marcus's and Dom's. Marcus will have himself, Dizzy, Carmine, and Colonol Hoffman in his squad infiltrating the locust. Dom will have himself, Cole, Baird, and Tai with him looking for Maria.
-The Raam locust will appear again with signature turrets. (not a boss though)
-The Locust Queen will make an appearence but won't be a boss
Multiplayer:
-I got to play 4 maps. River, Gridlock, Subway, and Security.
Gridlock is pretty much the same physically except there is a ton of vines and trees everywhere and there is shallow water at each of the spawns. (like canals).
River is alot like Canals but bigger. What I like is there are two sweet sniping spots and little cabins like in that really dark map in Gears 1 (forgot what's it called it was DLC).
Security is ok for games like Warzone but awesome for Meatflag. The switches like in Garden return except these are giant ass lasers. The overall feel is like War Machine / Clocktower love child. Yeah, there's also a turret.
Now Subway, holy ****. Complete turn around from Gears 1, this is now my favorite map. You know those non moving trains in the first one? Well now they move! They actually stop as well! They'll go around like 3 times, (and when they move it shakes the whole map) at which you can get pwned by them. They'll then stop for like 30 seconds, in which you can get on and fight with someone else. If your still on while the train goes again, your controller will rumble and you'll be in complete darkness (you can still fight the guy). You can then get off when it comes back. Pure Awesome.
Weapons:
-Lancer is improved, my new fav weapon.
-Hammerburst is like Halo's Battle Rifle. I like it alot just it doesn't have a chainsaw... bummer. I can totally see the experienced players using this one over the lancer though.
-Boomshot's active reload shoots out both rockets at once (if you have 2 ammo) but other than that it's the same one we love from Gears 1.
-Torque Bow's active reload gives you a shorter charge time, which is sweet.
-Snub Pistol is weaker
-The Revolver is actually useful now, if you don't have an active it sucks, but with one it shoots double the speed and can down a guy fast.
-The poisen grenade is the same fog of death used in Garden.
-Shotgun is unchanged
-Smoke's make a noise and set a guy back (like if a guy is near a nade in Gears 1) and it's really funny when you tag someone!
-Sniper is unchanged.
-Flamethrower is pretty awesome. The fire in it is amazing! it's a pretty short ranged weapon and you are slightly slower if it's equipped but it's good for clearing out a tight area. You can down a guy with one melee also.
-The Hammer of Dawn is bigger but other than that it's not changed at all.
-Gorgon Pistol. You guys have seen it =P
-The guys at Epic were teasing that another weapon was in the works that I didn't play.