Last night, in the tunnels that run deep under Toronto, Xbox Canada and High Road Communications hosted the Gears of War 2 launch event. The evening started with community members and press meeting at Bay subway station. Attendees were greeted by Xbox Canada’s own JadeLive. After receiving guest badges, we were escorted down into the bowels of Toronto’s Lower Bay subway station. Yes, that’s right… the GoW2 launch event was held at the abandoned subway station.

On the way in, we each received a swag bag containing a copy of Gears of War 2 and a Gears of War t-shirt. Swag in hand, we descended the stairs and found ourselves on a dimly lit subway platform flanked by two subway cars. Between the cars were dozens of wide screen televisions displaying Gears of War 2 start screens.

I headed to the back and started playing the five player horde mode with fellow community members KowZ and The Forum Troll with a few other folks. Horde is all about teamwork and communication. Considering all we could hear was the rumbling of the subways above us, we still managed to fight off the Locust and make it to wave thirty five. I avoided checking out any of the television sets with the GoW2 campaign mode going on as I didn’t want to see any spoilers! Also of note, was the set of ten televisions back to back (five on each side) where people were playing 5 on 5 COG versus Locust. Ridiculously fun. DarthAlbert III and Mister Switch of ohmpage.ca played on opposing teams with much smack talk between the two.

Thanks again to Jade and her team for inviting us to their brilliantly planned and executed launch party.

Some quick thoughts about Gears in this special edition of Quick & Dirty for GoW2:

Gears of War 2

Teh Good

- Horde mode

- Better cover system including meat shield (use your dead opponent as cover)

- Improved graphics and audio

Teh Bad

- The controls when driving vehicles are still a bit wonky

- Voice “acting”

- There’s still nothing you can do should a team member go rogue and chainsaw you from behind. I’m looking at you HalfLife84!

Teh Verdict

If you enjoyed Gears 1 you will love Gears 2. More than just Gears 1.5, the new weapons (mortar!), enemies, and multiplayer modes create a brand new Gears experience. This game will account for a ton of time on Xbox Live for me and many other gamers. Gears of War 2 is a must buy this holiday season, make sure to pick up and join in on killing the Locust!

CONTEST TIME!

EDIT: CONTEST IS CLOSED folks.  Congrats to Carnage1975.  Hopefully your golden Hammerburst will still look nice and sparkly when it’s on the ground beside your freshly chainsawed corpse.

Img source: IGN.com

I know you want this sweet gold-plated HammerBurst firearm. Well, thanks to our good friend JakenBear at Xbox Canada, tehflakes.ca has a code to give away for one. All you have to do is respond to this post with your comments and one lucky winner will be chosen at random to win the code. Good luck!

Photos by okaybuddy. More pics available here.