Young Tim has acquired yet another pet! And this comic also has highly appealing product placement in it . . . or so it might seem.

If you are at least moderately observant, you might have noticed that next to the title of the comic, the text “Part 1 of 2” is present. Thinking that I might be heading in for surgery on the tenth of November, Noah and I cooked up a storyline so I could get the comics done in advance during my absence. As it would be, the surgery has been pushed back to the 17th and thus, we are now stuck with a two-part comic. Oh fate! Ye can be so unexpected!

The humor of these comics is going to be pretty juvenile. You thought this week’s was immature? Just wait until you see what we have in store for you in Part 2.

GAMER STUFF

As you probably know, if you are one of the cool kids who own Xbox 360s (simmer down fanboys), Gears of War 2 dropped on Friday. Noah managed to catch a train up to Seattle to partake in some cooperative warfare against the foul Locust horde. (Truly the only way to play campaign.) A decent amount of time later, with the story mode of the game completed I can finally share my thoughts and opinions on the game here. Compared to the first, I can safely say that the second is a far richer experience. It’s essentially exactly the same game, just with everything that was wrong fixed. Instead of coin-flip chainsaw battles, you now lock blades with your foe, furiously mashing the “B” button, hoping to be the one standing intact at the end. The visuals seem slightly glossed up and downed enemies can now be executed in a variety of highly-visceral means.

In a sense, no drastic departures from the game that we all know and love (or hate: OMG 360 sux!) The attitude of the game is far different, as Noah quite perfectly put it, “the first game had more the feel like the Germans would have had in the last days of World War II, when they were desperately fighting a losing battle.” I would have to say that, while maintaining that metaphor, Gears of War 2 feels more like D-Day for the Allies. The story is more of you attacking the Locusts, trying to crush them and end the war. While this takes away from the gloomy, raw feel of the first (which I do look back upon with affection) this one mounts with a epic and heroic thrill ride, a rush that starts at the beginning and flows until the end. It’s incredibly great, and I would heartily recommend the game to any action fans.

There is also this meaty new mode that has been garnering a lot of attention called “Horde.” It’s a co-operative mode where you and potentially four other friends tackle wave after wave of vicious Locust horde in steadily increasing difficulty. What’s so fantastic about it is how it constantly changing. While defeat at the hands of a group of rocket launching “Boomers,” may be the cause of your defeat one time, the retry might see a total absence of Boomers, and you might instead face a scalding defeat from the receiving end of a different Boomer wielding a flamethrower. It really reminds me of how Left 4 Dead works, with a constantly changing game mode, different to a certain degree every time you play it to keep you continuously on your toes and surprised. It’s highly reminiscent of multiplayer gaming, where you are essentially playing the exact same game over and over, but no two matches are ever the same.

I have yet to seriously delve into the multiplayer, I have played a small handful of matches, but I still do not feel that I have gotten an entirely accurate grasp of the experience. The game is still in the brief yet glorious period where there are many fresh players who have never played Gears of War prior, which results in me actually doing okay in an online match. I played a moderate amount of the first Gears online, and never felt like I succeeded. I never felt comfortable playing the Gears online, perhaps it is because of its radically different feel as opposed to the normal first-person-shooters that I typically play. The actual rules of the first game, (take cover or die) did not actually apply in the multiplayer context. This sequel seems to actually encourage a moderate increase in the use of cover, making it feel at least slightly more familiar to what I have experienced playing in the single player.

It’s entirely a very firm, luscious experience as a whole, and I could easily foresee it stealing my online multiplayer attention for sometime. Unfortunately for Gears, Left 4 Dead comes out in less than a week. (November 18th), and that will be robbing all of my attention. Sorry Gears of War! Better luck next time!

END OF GEARS TALK

As I mentioned before: I have surgery next Monday (the 17th) and will be out of commission for hopefully no more than 2 weeks. Should not have any gaps in the comics, so those will be completely available for your viewing.

-Nathan