After 24 hours of gameplay with Gears of War 2, MajorGamer (xXWhoDeyXx85), xHolySchnikiesx, & myself have collaborated to bring you our thoughts on the latest update from Epic. First off, this update has made playing Gears of War 2 much less stressful. While there are still those “WTF!?!” times, they are fewer and farther between. We have decided to break this post into many subsections to cover all aspects of what was included and done well in TU3 as well as what’s still missing.

Lag

One of the main complaints since the release of Gears of War 2 has been lag. Whether it is man made through the use of lag switches and standbying or unintentional due to poor host choices, lag has plagued Gears of War 2 from day one. During a laggy game you almost feel as if you are being held captive. Is it better to stay and play in a game where you’re constantly teleporting to random locations and can’t land a shot to save your life or is it better just to quit and take the penalty? With the introduction of the regional filters and standby / lag switch detection in TU3 it seems like the lag has subsided. The lagginess is not gone by any means.  The only difference is that now the laggy games are exponentially less frequent. I suspect that as time goes on and poor hosts are weeded out and lag switchers / standbyers are banned the number of lag filled games will be reduce even more than they already have been.

Cheating

Cheating has been a hot topic among the Gears of War 2 community. It seems like since the day it came out people have been finding and exploiting every possible way to cheat in this game. I’m very happy to say that Epic has stepped up to the plate on this one. They have been diligent about finding and fixing exploits such as the shield glitch since TU2. Lag switching / standbying though has seen no changes…until now. After TU3, anyone who forces host, uses a lag switch or standbys will be punished. As far as we have heard / read the punishment will be that the lag switcher will lose their ability to gain exp. as well as their ability to be host.

Penalties

As discussed above, Epic has created new penalties in TU3. Lag switchers will lose their ability to gain exp. and host games while those who quit will get a 1500 exp. deduction for each game they quit.

Weapon Changes

The chainsaw has been a major complaint in Gears of War 2. Not only is it annoying when the entire opposing team uses the chainsaw as their primary weapon, it’s also extremely annoying when you are vacuumed into a chainsaw. Thankfully, Epic listened and unlike the Dyson vacuum, the chainsaw vacuum has lost it’s suction. It has also become a lot harder to simply run around with your chainsaw revved. In previous installments of Gears of War 2, a person could be running straight at another while they’re unloading on them with a shotgun or any other weapon and the person attempting to chainsaw would never lower their weapon. After TU3, it seems that has changed. In both online and offline tests the characters seem to lower the chainsaw much easier than before. Some have reported changes in the shotgun such as it seeming to be less powerful but according to Joe Graf the shotgun was not changed in TU3.

Ranking System

The new ranking system resembles that of Call of Duty or Halo 3 using experience points to determine rank rather than true skill. However, true skill still exists on Gears of War 2 but for the sole purpose of matchmaking, you can’t actually see your true skill rank within the game. The new ranking system is denoted by a number that shows up in front of your gamertag on the leaderboard. The rankings go from rank 1 – 100 compared to the previous 1 – 5. I for one was extremely happy to see this new ranking system. I hated true skill, mainly because you never knew how close you were to ranking up or anything. With the introduction of exp. at the end of each match you see how close you are to the next rank just like you would any other achievement.
Note: The experience earned in each match is not a 1:1 ratio with the number of point you score in the game. Each gametype has its own ratio. For the breakdown of each gametype’s ratio, check out our Gears of War 2 Points to Experience Points Ratio Breakdown.

Other Thoughts

In TU3 Epic made the choice to have bots replace quitting teammates. These bots exist only to balance the team so for example, a 3v3 team would contain 0 bots but a 3v5 team would see 2 bots to balance out the two teams. I think this is a great addition to Gears of War 2 along with the penalties for quitting. It’s frustrating when you’re trying to play and the game becomes 1v5 or 2v5. While the Gears of War 2 bots could never be a replacement for a human player, they definitely beat a blank. The playlists have also been completely restructured. Where before you had playlists like Territories and Players Choice, those have been replaced with Annex – King of the Hill, Submission – Guardian, & Execution – Warzone. Players Choice has been while Wingman has remained an option.