Raptor, formerly of BU - now of the evil empire - has posted the official Planet Gears of War multiplayer review. Here's the money shot:
Planet Gears of War Multiplayer Review
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I disagree with your disagreement. It obviously needs some patches, but I don't know any game that doesn't. GoW2 is way better than GoW1. (IMO of course.)
Yeah sure, ****ty matchmaking system, stopping power, slower pace, wall tagging, insta wall tagging explosion, stronger chainsaw, mortar that doesn't belong to multiplayer, odd shotgun. Nope. Gears of War 2 looks better, but what's so odd about all this is how freaking casual the game is, I want to go back in the first one almost every time.
Have you played this game online? Have you read the infinite complains on Epic's official board? It's as worse as it got with UT3 to sum it up real quick. People are driven off with the shotgun nerf, Matchmaking lag and long search times, plus the chainsaw.
Yes patches may/can fix that, but will they achieve to fix the game right? Gears 2 multiplayer is abysmal the way it is set now. Gears 2 is a very outstanding game in a way, the single player was awesome. But I'm still looking for the first update...
Above explains in detail why I didn't agree with this.
Have you played this game online? Have you read the infinite complains on Epic's official board? It's as worse as it got with UT3 to sum it up real quick. People are driven off with the shotgun nerf, Matchmaking lag and long search times, plus the chainsaw.
Yes patches may/can fix that, but will they achieve to fix the game right? Gears 2 multiplayer is abysmal the way it is set now. Gears 2 is a very outstanding game in a way, the single player was awesome. But I'm still looking for the first update...
Above explains in detail why I didn't agree with this.
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Compare that to Gears 1, where when I play I'm shooting...shooting...oh, hey, someone shotgun-roll-killed me
Plus even making it 5v5 versus 4v4 makes a huge difference for me (if I think about it too much I run back to ET:QW though ). I 100% agree about the matchmaking system, although oddly I've found that if one has waited more than 30s it's waaaay faster to just quit and then re-search. The times it works it seems to work pretty much instantly, so although it's annoying and kindof absurd I nonetheless haven't found it impacting me much (not that it's any excuse for how broken it is). The other thing is that I've spent most of my time playing and enjoying the new gametypes, especially Horde. Those things are what sells me on the multiplayer, and Gears 1 lacks them; speaking further of the single player, the campaign and the subtle tweaks they've made to the Co-Op have meant that playing through the campaign with a friend is a lot better now too.
Also, most of the changes you've mentioned add more depth to the multiplayer in their ways; wall-tagging traps are a great example where the game allows people to sometimes out-think instead of just out-gunning, which I'm far more a fan of. Plus of course it adds to Horde. Did I mention I loved it? Although I'm a bit bitter Invasion is missing from UT3, and now I wonder...but no, UT3 just has a lot less than 2K4 in general, I doubt it was a conspiracy. I do miss some aspects of Invasion, but dear lord am I glad to be playing it again in a modern incarnation.
Then go back? I don't see anything getting in your way. (Left 4 Dead is also extremely fun IMO.. If you don't have it, then look into it
(The PC version that is. The 360 version is crap compared) The only time I've ever had any problems with matchmaking, is when you have a party of 4. For whatever reason, it's just about impossible to find that one extra person. I can instantly find a game with 1-3 (including myself) and 5 people. Wall tagging becomes a blessing when you're the only one alive on your team and everyone on the enemy team is alive. It's called a tactical Third Person Shooter. Running and gunning now gets you killed.The Mortar belongs in MP just like a redeemer does, or an air-strike. It really isn't that hard to avoid. Sometimes it's actually quite hard to avoid, I'll admit, but most of the time it's easily avoidable.
The shotgun was stupidly over powered in GoW1. You might as well have taken all the other weapons out of the game.. However, if you actually used anything other then the shotgun, you were cussed out for being a newb. I can kill fine with the shotgun in GoW2. It requires you to not be lazy and aim the damn thing now. God forbid.
Yes, I have. I've played tons of MP matches by now. Every once in a while I'll hit a host that seems to be on Mars, so I'll reconnect to live and find another.
Funniest part about that. If those that are bitching about the game, liked it, I bet you wouldn't even know they exist. Those that like the game generally don't even bother to register to post on the forums, or have an account for that matter.
Lots of the people complaining had maybe 20-50 posts. Which also proves that before GoW2, they didn't have an account. They only registered to complain. It's kind of stupid that you'll see someone bitch about it with 50 to 100 posts and right under that post, you'll see someone with 2 post counts agreeing. Almost like they registered another account to agree with themselves
The one that really pisses me off is the fact that every single @#$%ing bug that was in the first, is now back in the second. I seriously don't get how Epic lets that stuff slide.. Same thing happened in UT3. The scaling bug was always a problem in UT2004. When UT3 came out, guess what was back? Same with your shots sometime not registering.
As far as fixes even go. You should obviously be able to pick a local setting for matchmaking and when you you have 4 people in a party including yourself, it shouldn't take an hour to find a game.
The shotgun does in fact have stopping power, but you need to shoot the guy with the chainsaw somewhere other then the chainsaw. I think it shouldn't matter where you shoot them, they should be stopped. Until something actually gets done about that, there are easy way avoid someone hell bent on holding the B button.. Use some strategy ffs.
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Other than the matchmaking issues, I think GoW2 is superior to the first in every way.
I really prefer the new pacing, horde, wall tagging, shotgun, etc to the the first one. The emphasis is on slower, more tactical attacks, rather than run and gun tatics some people liked to use in the first. I'm so glad they brought the shotgun power down.
I really prefer the new pacing, horde, wall tagging, shotgun, etc to the the first one. The emphasis is on slower, more tactical attacks, rather than run and gun tatics some people liked to use in the first. I'm so glad they brought the shotgun power down.
As I said in the review, when matchmaking works it's great. The only problem is when it take 15 minutes to get you into a game, and then you're stuck with a laggy host for the rest of the match (and unable to quit without going all the way back to the dashboard). Epic is already working on this, so hopefully there'll be a fix soon.
Anyone who says that Gears 2 on the whole is less balanced than the first game needs to go back and play Gears 1 MP again. The massive host advantage, particularly in chainsaw duels, getting cheesed by people rolling through your gunfire and shotgunning you in the face - all the annoying stuff about Gears 1 MP is gone.
And super weapons like the Mortar are balanced. You're slowed and massively more vulnerable when using them, and it's fairly easy to avoid getting hit by mortar if you're on your toes.
Anyone who says that Gears 2 on the whole is less balanced than the first game needs to go back and play Gears 1 MP again. The massive host advantage, particularly in chainsaw duels, getting cheesed by people rolling through your gunfire and shotgunning you in the face - all the annoying stuff about Gears 1 MP is gone.
And super weapons like the Mortar are balanced. You're slowed and massively more vulnerable when using them, and it's fairly easy to avoid getting hit by mortar if you're on your toes.
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Crab Walk was still in. There's a bunch of glitch in this game to get out of maps as well. Not to mention that skorge's ragdoll is so ****ed up that I bounce up to the ceiling then die on landing every time I get knocked using that char.
Obviously they could use bran new game testers.
Or, release game beta.
It's not about being balanced or not, it just does not belong to multiplayer. To be honest, all the new weapons except the Scorcher are terrible for MP. And the shield is giving too much protection, unless you have a smoke grenade up.
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As I said in the review, you can't quit back to the main menu in the middle of an MP match. That option is greyed out. If you want to leave, you have to go all the way back to the dashboard.
Yep that's how they do it. Why they didn't add the option to leave?
1- Seems like it would encourage players to stay until the match is ended.
2- A host is randomly picked up.
So anyone can leave to the dashboard and start the game again without any penalties, and if the host ever leave, the game ends, it's even worser in Horde, where you have have the host leaving. Anyway, who wants to sit still 3-4 hours long at the same ****ing map all over again, sniping locusts from a far from the same spot.
I'd like to talk about the ranking as well. It's so poorly thought out, that if a player lose a connection to the host, it's rank will go down. Ranking is based on your global % ratting. Max is rank 4 IIRC, which is almost impossible to maintain all because of the disconnects and host leaving.
You don't release a game in such state. We paid for a beta.
1- Seems like it would encourage players to stay until the match is ended.
2- A host is randomly picked up.
So anyone can leave to the dashboard and start the game again without any penalties, and if the host ever leave, the game ends, it's even worser in Horde, where you have have the host leaving. Anyway, who wants to sit still 3-4 hours long at the same ****ing map all over again, sniping locusts from a far from the same spot.
I'd like to talk about the ranking as well. It's so poorly thought out, that if a player lose a connection to the host, it's rank will go down. Ranking is based on your global % ratting. Max is rank 4 IIRC, which is almost impossible to maintain all because of the disconnects and host leaving.
You don't release a game in such state. We paid for a beta.
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Gears of War is a casual shooter game for sure. Just the simple fact that it is Third Person tells it all. The Game is based on Teamwork instead of Individual Skill and that's why you said some Weapons were badly balanced or pretty much useless. They are just designed for a different perspective; to give roles instead of uber-perfect weapons. You said the Shield is way over-protective, yeah but your team isn't supposed to cover the same angle so it isn't supposed to be that much "overpower".
I do not enjoy myself the games taking out a great amount of individual Skills like GoW or Team Fortress to use it as an excuse to give a stronger focus on the Teamwork, however... Gears of War 2 is the one making it in an efficient way without hurting too much the Individual Players.
The game is far more Coop than "VERSUS competitive", but it is also what makes it shine over the other games of the same genre and yeah... I would appreciate more emphasis on Individual Skill... but GoW is GoW... unfortunately, but the game is very very fun [awesome] whatever the bad points are.
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I meant; the whole GoW Franchise, at the moment, is casual as well as Halo 2-3. Sorry if it wasn't clear from the start.
In other terms, it could become pointless to debate on his multiplayer and also MLG loves to implement Popular games instead of truly Competitive Games [skills].
Money > all...
The amount of players playing the game doesn't make it "Casual" just as the game being TPS and just as making the game FPS doesn't make the game hardcore. Casual games have difficulty increasing pretty much linearly and at least at first they don't require much from the player. Yet GoW2 while a bit easier in campaign then original GoW, is still quite hardcore. And it sill requires quite a lot of skill.
I just said that it pisses me off that the bugs in the first are actually back in full in the game.
Skorge is the character I use when I get stuck on the Locust team. I've never been bounced out of the map, or thrown up, just to fall to my death. Sounds kind of funny though.
actually, the Scorcher was the one weapon I thought should be removed because it's just about an instant kill weapon.
WE PAID FOR A BETA WE PAID FOR A BETA WE PAID FOR A BETA WE PLAYED FOR A CHEETAH WE P
Indeed. I'm amazed at the ability of a lot of people on here to complain about absolutely anything
Welcome to the Internet, I guess...
Indeed. I'm amazed at the ability of a lot of people on here to complain about absolutely anything
Welcome to the Internet, I guess...
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They made a "bad" quadruple AAAA game ... right? and we all complain...
They made GoW2 with a 2 year of production and you complain? I would be please to see you releasing a game better than that right now.
Hell, Good luck.
Well the funniest thing about GoW2 is that the game uses a LOT of Unreal Tournament 3 3D Assets when Epic prohibited the use GoW(pc) assets in UT3 (pc) for the modders.
FAIL
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For _Lynx,
Classifying a game as Hardcore and Casual strongly depends of what you consider, but a great game isn't classified as one side or another if a Great Game Design can include both sides perfectly without any problem. Guitar Hero 2 could be one of the perfect example and Mario Bros [NES] too.
So we should consider the Public Target:
- Age [mostly 18 to 45]
- Theme [Sci-Fi & War = very casual and friendly]
- Visual Style [Sci-Fi, dark and badass characters]
- Language [mature]
- Etc
We consider how easy to jump in & out to get our right public target (5 minutes gamers or 5 hours).
6 to 10 minutes a multiplayer game and the same for a Campaign [or more]
We should consider the Challenge [skill requirement].
But here, the 3rd person perspective affects a lot the possibilities
We should also consider the Gamestyle of the Game and what is the actual focus.
Teamwork based and focus taking out a part of the individual skills
Actually there is no reason to consider GoW or GoW2 as being hardcore. The aiming is slow, the game is based on Teamwork and Cooperative gameplays, a Cover system slowing down the game, general damage weapon or strike, big fat power weapon not very accurate, a casual chainsaw, 3rd person perspective letting you see everything while being in Cover Mode [what gives an advantage to the guy running by his right side while 2 guys are running around a Fountain by example, it is abusive], we should not forget the various In-Game Animations when you finish off a guy, etc.
Gears of War 2 is incredibly fun, but very far from being Hardcore, but if you have another perspective to share, go on ^^. I'm very curious to hear about it and maybe i'll see why you find GoW2 as being Hardcore.
They made GoW2 with a 2 year of production and you complain? I would be please to see you releasing a game better than that right now.
Hell, Good luck.
Well the funniest thing about GoW2 is that the game uses a LOT of Unreal Tournament 3 3D Assets when Epic prohibited the use GoW(pc) assets in UT3 (pc) for the modders.
FAIL
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For _Lynx,
Classifying a game as Hardcore and Casual strongly depends of what you consider, but a great game isn't classified as one side or another if a Great Game Design can include both sides perfectly without any problem. Guitar Hero 2 could be one of the perfect example and Mario Bros [NES] too.
So we should consider the Public Target:
- Age [mostly 18 to 45]
- Theme [Sci-Fi & War = very casual and friendly]
- Visual Style [Sci-Fi, dark and badass characters]
- Language [mature]
- Etc
We consider how easy to jump in & out to get our right public target (5 minutes gamers or 5 hours).
6 to 10 minutes a multiplayer game and the same for a Campaign [or more]
We should consider the Challenge [skill requirement].
But here, the 3rd person perspective affects a lot the possibilities
We should also consider the Gamestyle of the Game and what is the actual focus.
Teamwork based and focus taking out a part of the individual skills
Actually there is no reason to consider GoW or GoW2 as being hardcore. The aiming is slow, the game is based on Teamwork and Cooperative gameplays, a Cover system slowing down the game, general damage weapon or strike, big fat power weapon not very accurate, a casual chainsaw, 3rd person perspective letting you see everything while being in Cover Mode [what gives an advantage to the guy running by his right side while 2 guys are running around a Fountain by example, it is abusive], we should not forget the various In-Game Animations when you finish off a guy, etc.
Gears of War 2 is incredibly fun, but very far from being Hardcore, but if you have another perspective to share, go on ^^. I'm very curious to hear about it and maybe i'll see why you find GoW2 as being Hardcore.
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