Well, Halo CE didn't work out for me so I decided to try another critically acclaimed Xbox franchise. This time Gears of War. I'm skipping the first one TO REVIEW because it was "eh" and mostly forgettable so I'll do the second one instead. So here goes. Holy shit this one was SO much better than the first one. They improved on almost everything! From the very beginning I knew this was gonna be better than the first and boy was I right. The story was so much better and the small tweaks to gameplay were greatly appreciated. Dom actually had a personality (despite his semi- ok voice actor) and I liked Baird more and Cole was just as crazy and awesome as he was in the first. I loved Tai. He was a great character and he was a -blam!-ing badass! I was sad when you went into the torture ship and found him all disfigured ready to shoot himself than do anything else. That was shocking. The Locust doing torture and shit added a whole new level of intimidation and eeriness to the Locust. Makes them seem even more dark. Especially that scene where you find Dom's wife or what's left of her in this case. That actually hurt to watch that. It reminded me of that iconic emotional scene from the Last of Us (no where near as good but it made me think of it). If Dom had a better voice actor, that scene would've been much better but it was still very sad. This game made me like Dom a lot more. I almost wanted him to die in the first one because he kept getting in my way and being dumb because the companion AI was dumb as shit in the first one. The first half of this game was the best. Shooting from those walker tanks with that redneck guy (I can't remember names of things) and shooting those hordes of Locust and Reavers was awesome. This game amped up the scale of the action and it was AWESOME. Going underground in the cylindrical things (used to know the name for it. Can't come to mind) and watching others join you and having you greet them as they came down and the dialogue just made me feel like I was really in the shoes of a soldier. I don't know why, it sounds pretty dumb but whatever. That giant worm sinking the cities scared the shit out of me. I didn't want to get anywhere near that shit but the game sayss "-blam!- that!" and puts you INSIDE that thing. That's too close for comfort in my opinion (sarcasm there. It was epic as -blam!-). Watching that worm sink that city and fighting in the ruins of that city and still able to make out what the city was before it fell while civilians are running and screaming and you're trying to gun down Locust and REavers and IT'S CHAOS. I loved it! This honestly made me feel like I was playing Killzone actually. Being thrown right into the middle of the chaos and trying to survive. That level was super epic and I loved it. It was so cool looking through the enormous hole in the surface from all the way down there and running through burning buildings and shit was intense. I loved that part. Although when you're sent to that abandoned outpost the game kinda loses it's touch that it had in the beginning. It was honestly boring me a bit. It slowly got back up to it's best the more you went along, mostly after you found Dom's wife and escaped on the REavers. That Reaver escape was SO cool. Awesome sequence. I loved that a lot. Finally going to the last city of hope on Sera was cool to watch. Just great. It made the endgame feel so dark when you were forced to destroy it to stop the war. It really adds a shock factor almost. Now for the bad. The companion AI is dumb as shit so many times! I'll -blam!- around and get down and crawl to Dom and he'll just pretend like I don't exist! This wouldn't be that much of a problem if I didn't have to restart checkpoints a ways away multiple times! Really pissed me off The whole thing with the Lambent was kinda sudden to me. I honestly felt that that was kinda....tacked on at the last minute. Like Epic Games was about to finish the story and they're like "we're missing something unexpected" so they came up with that and just thrown it in there. I didn't really like that driving level when you go up the snowy mountain. I didn't like the driving controls and it was just nowhere near the fun level from earlier All in all. I think I'd give this game an 8.5/10. This game is FANTASTIC. One of the best 3rd person shooters I've played and probably one of the best shooters in general that I've played. A real tale of brotherhood in war. A blast to play. You satisfied haters? I CAN like an Xbox game. when I said I don't lie about LEGIT game opinions, I'm not lying. Can't wait to start Gears 3 and hell, I might get Gears: Judgment, I'm liking the series that much I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors I typed this shit real fast and autocorrect is an ass