All is not well within the Gears of War community. Since the celebrated release of the Gears of War 2 late last year, fans have been arguing against each other and Epic Games over the state of the game and the direction it should go. No less than four patches later, little has been resolved and the argument is only getting more heated. Latency issues still plague the online experience, the weapon balance swings wildly on a seemingly week-to-week basis, and the new Halo-style matchmaking system is either a godsend or a disaster depending on who you ask. Even the act of supporting their game with DLC has provoked criticism, as an increasingly vocal contingent of fans demands that Epic focus on fixing the game before attempting to make money on map packs. The unexpected leak of the latest content, All Fronts, at a reduced price and an official response that basically read ‘tough luck’ did little to smooth over the building tensions between fan and developer.
Read all that? Good. You know I’m aware of the situation. Now forget it. Absolutely none of that juicy context has any bearing on this review. I’ll leave answers to questions like ‘Should Epic focus on fixing the game first’ and ‘Should the pack be released at the reduced price’ for an editorialist. The All Fronts DLC package isn’t going to change the way the game plays right now and the price isn’t changing. The fact is, throughout all the criticism and controversy, Gears of War 2 remains a fixture of the monthly Xbox Live Top Ten games played list, so clearly somewhere amid the throngs of malcontents there is a significant, loyal fanbase. They may take issue with some elements of the game’s performance and balance, but they continue to play the game anyway, hopefully because they continue to have fun with it. Thus, the only questions that matter are whether or not the new content is fun and whether or not those fans of the game should shell out 1200 Microsoft points for it.
Road to Ruin
The Road to Ruin is a ‘deleted scene’ from the campaign that was left on the cutting room floor during the game’s development. If you’ve ever bothered to watch any of the ‘deleted scenes’ that come with DVDs these days then you probably know that, as a general rule, the content that gets cut from a project is usually cut for good reason. Road to Ruin is no exception, as the reclaimed chapter offers nothing of narrative importance and probably would have hurt the pacing of complete package had it been included. The new chapter presents players with the choice to sneak into the Locust stronghold or go in balls-out, guns blazing.
The stealth component of Road to Ruin is boring. The problem is that the Gears of War gameplay model obviously wasn’t designed with stealth in mind, so there’s very little that the designers can do with the tools at their disposal to create rich gameplay of that sort. So what you’re left with is some very simple hiding mechanics and some blatantly obvious environmental distractions to trigger. Stop-n-pop has been replaced with stop-n-wait, as you hide behind cover and keep your distance from patrols lest they smell you (you can actually see them sniffing the air when you get too close, an admittedly cute touch), trigger an environmental distraction, then run past when the coast is clear. As a piece of the complete campaign this would have been an unnecessary bid for ‘gameplay variety’ but as an isolated experience, it’s about as exciting a prospect as a DLC pack of extra vehicle levels.
Thankfully, stealth is optional. Even if morbid curiosity or masochistic urges push you to select the stealth option, shooting off your weapon will immediately alert the entirety of the Locust army and return the game to its chainsaw revving, gore-splashing, expletive-spewing roots. The Road to Ruin is actually a pretty decent theater of war so far as level layout and enemy encounters are concerned. The underground highways are littered with debris and stone slabs for cover, but are fairly narrow, so the action is less about flanking and bartering for position than it is just a constant, gradual push forward down the road. You’ll encounter combinations of just about every enemy in the game, including a Brumak, before a thrilling final battle that forces you to use those switch-activated rising barriers seen in chapter 4 to defend against several fronts of a Locust siege.
Those who were hoping for something on par with the upgrade that Gears of War received in transition to the PC (which, by the way Epic, would make for some fan-****ing-tastic DLC on Xbox 360 right about now) will be disappointed with The Road to Ruin. It only takes about an hour to complete on Insane difficulty, and while it’s certainly fun when you go the guns-blazing route, it adds nothing substantial to the campaign in terms of narrative or gameplay. The stealth gameplay was better left on the cutting room floor. If you were planning on purchasing the Dark Corners package primarily for the single-player content, I’d advise you to save your money. Those who were looking at the ‘deleted scene’ as a free bonus packed in the multiplayer maps, however, should turn the page and read on.
Multiplayer Maps
For all the criticism being leveled at Epic games as of late, their talent for map design remains unquestioned. Gears of War 2 shipped with a wealth of great arenas, not including the Flashback pack or revamped favorites from the first game that released alongside the game. Both of the map packs released since then have been solid collections, with at least one per package standing out as a community favorite. Dark Corners continues that admirable trend with five all new maps and two re-releases, all of which are well-designed and visually gorgeous. Here’s a detailed run-down of the maps:
Allfathers Garden is the largest in the pack in terms of horizontal square footage, and despite the abundance of cover, there’s a lot of open space and long sight lines for snipers to make use of, so players better keep their heads down. The sniper rifles are located on a small, horseshoe shaped upper deck located towards the middle of the map that overlooks the grenade spawn point at the center of the map and offers a decent vantage point of each team’s spawning areas. A Torque-Bow/Boomshot is at the far end of the map, opposite the snipers and equal distance from either spawn point. Perplexingly, a flamethrower spawns only a few feet away, so every match typically starts with a rush to this area; whichever team comes out on top typically walks away with two power weapons. Matches are typically fast paced for the opening minutes, as every area on the map has multiple entry points and it’s very hard to hold down any position on the map for a long period of time. That means lots of sprinting from one area to another in order to flank the opposition and maintain an advantageous position. Those same characteristics make it a poor choice for Horde mode, however.
Highway consists of two levels that are both immediately accessible from the spawn area, and both lead to the same large, open center area of the map. The path through the lower level consists of tight, twisting corridors that bring the combat into close quarters, while the upper level leads to a balcony view of the large center area, perfect for taking pot-shots with lancers and hammer-bursts. Those players that emerge into the main area on the lower level can take cover behind columns and hide in alcoves as they head to the sniper-rifle/torque-bow spawn points at the far end of the map or make a run for the grenades placed in the open at the center. The upper level and lower level meet in this area via a large stairway, at the top of which lies a mulcher/mortar whilst a flamethrower/boomshot hides beneath. As you can imagine, this staircase is the site of some truly epic battles as teams battle from above and below to control the power weapons and hold the vertical advantage over the enemy. Trying to hold this location in Horde mode is absolutely exhilarating.
Memorial shares its not-quite-destroyed beauty aesthetic with the Jacinto map, complete with sunny skies and towering stone buildings. Intentionally or not, this map has Annex and King of the Hill written all over it. Turn one corner from the spawn point and you’re in the middle of a large open courtyard with low-walls arranged in a spinning ‘wheel’ formation around a large monument. The hammer of dawn or mortar spawn is located at one side of this area, behind the monument, while the grenades are at the other, between the two staircases that lead to the upper deck of an adjacent, smaller quad where you’ll find a sniper-rifle/torque-bow. There are also corridors alongside the staircases that take you beneath the upper-deck and into the quad where you’ll find a flamethrower or boomshot. The corridors run parallel and have openings in the walls and ceiling that allow for players on the upper and lower decks to exchange fire from every direction. The back-and-forth battles over the hammer-of-dawn spawn point are crazy affairs, as the team that locks down the position generally has to deal with grenades being lobbed at their position and sniper-fire raining down from an elevated position.
Nowhere looks completely unlike than any other Gears of War locale seen to date. A dilapidated town in the middle of the desert serves as the setting, complete with a diner, gas station, motel and water tower, all of which are rusting, dusty, boarded up and generally unpleasant. Sandstorms hurl their way through the city intermittently and cut down the visibility, forcing players to get up close and personal with the enemy. The layout of the map is actually quite simple but it’s so well thought-out that you never really notice you’re essentially fighting in one large, open area. There’s one wide main street down the middle of the map and it’s filled with wrecked cars, rubble and palm trees for cover. One large building toward the center, the diner, has makeshift wooden ramps on each side that ascend to the roof where you’ll find a mortar/mulcher, and the battles that ensue over this coveted position are simply insane. The sniper-rifle/torque-bow is located just across the street behind the water-tower, and serves as a nice counterbalance to the elevation advantage the diner provides. Moreover, the buildings on the water-tower side of the street have entrances and exits on both sides so the action tends to weave seamlessly inside and out, forcing you to switch between long-range and close-quarters battle-plans. This is the standout favorite of the map pack, and is guaranteed to become the most popular map for Horde mode.
Sanctuary is a re-release of a map that shipped with the PC version of Gears of War. Set in a small, semi-demolished cathedral, the map features a central corridor that runs through the building and two supplementary routes that wrap around above and below it. All three of the paths are fairly straight and offer long lines of sight, so players will have to make good use of the sprint button and the cover provided to keep ranged weapon artists off their backs. Not surprisingly, ranged weapons are arranged as the prizes on this map, with the sniper-rifle/torque-bow located at the dead center of the most trafficked major pathway, boomshot or mulcher available on the higher ground, and a mortar ready and waiting on the ground floor alongside the grenades. The destroyed nature of the cathedral gives each pathway a wide vantage point of the others, so expect to be trading sniper, boomshot and mortar fire through back and forth across the three elevations. All three of the major routes come together on fairly large landings covered in tombstones and other slabs of rock, which serve as the ideal venue for frantic close-quarters battles. This map is fantastic for Execution and Warzone, but it didn’t really thrill me in objective gametypes or Horde mode.
Hey there old friend! War Machine was one of my favorite maps in the original Gears of War, and it’s made the transition to the sequel pretty much unchanged. Really, the only differences are that the stationary turret has been replaced with a mulcher and that a boomshield has been added in front of the Torque-bow spawn point. Those changes haven’t really had a huge impact on the way the map plays, as teams still typically either split up to try and control both the sniper-rifle and the torque-bow spawns at either end of the lower level, or focus all their effort on controlling one of them. The ability to plant grenades definitely slows things down a bit though, as there are so many pillars and blind corners in highly-trafficked areas that players can’t afford to simply dash past like they used to. In a testament to the universality of great map design, War Machine works surprisingly well for Horde mode despite being designed well ahead of that mode’s inception, as players can attempt to hold down the upper deck from the waves of spawning enemies. Not quite a classic reborn, but fans of the original should still be able to find some thrills in their old curb-stomping grounds.
Way Station is set in a Locust industrial plant of some kind, and is basically one large room divided in half by a river of molten metal with mine-carts suspended above it. Members of each team can clearly see each other across the river from the moment they spawn, so expect to fire-fights explode right out of the gate as players take pot shots at each other while using the mine carts and other structures for cover. Opposite the spawn points there are staircases that lead up to an elevated platform with flamethrower/mulcher and access to a large control room. The elevated platform has no cover, so teams have to provide cover-fire for the teammates venturing forth into vulnerable territory. Below the control room is a tighter series of rooms that lead to the torquebow/sniper spawn and give way to some heated close-quarters battles. There are also switches in this room that activate a bridge across the molten river, as well as staircases in the back corners that lead up to the control room, ensuring that teams have a difficult time locking down that elevated position. This map provides non-stop, back-and-forth action and works beautifully with every gametype, including Horde mode.
Final Word
The Road to Ruin single-player content may have disappointed, but Epic’s map designers have come through and demonstrated why they’re the best in the business. There are a few standouts here that are guaranteed to become unanimous favorites, while others will appeal to fans of particular playstyles and game modes, but all of them are worthy of inclusion in your player match rotation. If you’re still playing Gears of War 2 online or even just partaking in Horde mode with friends from time to time, you’ll get your money’s worth out of this map pack. Consider the single-player content a free bonus.
