Those of you who know me realize how much of a stickler I am about video game storylines, but Gears always gets a reprieve from my wrath.
Why? Because I respect someone who doesn't even bother trying to appease that side of me more than I respect someone who does try and fails miserably. I was worried when I heard there was "more story" to Gears 2. Thus far, it hasn't been a problem. It's still the same "20 seconds while you walk" stuff of the first, leaving the vast majority of the game open to killing things in the most spectacular way possible.
That's what I want from an action game. It must be hard to do because very few manage to do it (Gears... Maybe Halo can be thrown in there because Master Chief is so fuggin' cool). I'll take that any day of the week over Kojima and his tireless, repetitive dialogue... But before I get flamed, I liked MGS4. I thought it had some gameplay bits that were above and beyond anything seen in video games. His use of Postmodernism in games is some of the finest Postmodern work I've ever seen (the final battle is OMG epic, even though the controls are rubbish).
Anyway, enough about MGS. Gears 2 is playing out just how I wanted it to and I'm very, very happy about that.
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