Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection review

Posted by Josh Salem on July 26th, 2009

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Marcus, Dom, and all the Locust hordes you could ever hope for are back in what I would like to call the Ultimate Gears 2 collection. Unfortunately I am not allowed to name these DLCs so instead, Gears of War 2 would like to proudly present the All Fronts Collection.

The Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection is exactly that, a collection of every GoW2 map add on to date. With this collection, the over 5 million gamers who have clashed with the Horde since it’s launch last fall will not only get access to the Flashback map pack, not only get access to the Combustible Map pack, not only get access to the Snowblind map pack, but also get access to the brand new Dark Corners map pack as well as the elusive deleted campaign chapter entitled Road to Ruin. That’s right, a chapter campaign and 19 maps are being released in the All Fronts Collection this July 28^th, for 1600 MS points. For those of you who have been keeping up with the horde and already have Flashback, Combustible, and Snowblind; the Dark Corners map pack with Road to Ruin chapter will be available by itself for 1200 MS points. Now that the general details of this glorious package have been taken care of, let’s move onto the details of the All Fronts Collection and revitalize one of the best titles of last fall.

First let’s talk about the 7 brand new maps that come in the Dark Corners map pack of the All Fronts Collection. While this DLC only comes out July 28^th, I was able to test and explore the following maps utilizing AI combatants. I was unable to find a full game to play it in online although I did find one other person online at 4 in the morning looking for a team once, that was as close as I got.

Allfathers Garden: This map takes place on the sacred grounds of the Coalition founders and half the time when I wasn’t killing or being killed, I would just stroll around and enjoy the scenery. With plenty of places to dive for cover and even more high power weapons popping up, this map will either have you raging on or being raged upon. I found the balance of this map interesting as it either came down to sheer skill, or whoever could grab the beefiest weapon the fastest. Interestingly enough, the corners in this map aren’t very dark…

Memorial: Again a fan of the heavy weapons in Memorial; this map is set near the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Sounds ominous and a bit over the top if you ask me. Overall this map will be pretty much run by whoever has the Boomshot, and only if they actually know how to use it properly. Memorial is a fairly large, brightly lit open area. It features a small upper area as well as hallways below so while there is some open space, you can still strategize and catch your opponent off guard. The corners are not dark at all.

Highway: This feels like you’re in the belly of the beast. A Locust themed level has you fighting through a number of complex passages underground as you try to keep your team alive and decimate the enemy. With plenty of grenade happy locations as well as sniping vantage points, I can easily see this becoming one of my favourite or most hated of the new maps. The corners in this map are Locusty.

Nowhere: You play in the middle of nowhere, a desert. This aptly named map will have Longshot fans jumping in glee with everyone else jumping out of the way! Scrapped cars and shuddered store fronts litter Nowhere as timely gusts of sand will come and minimize visibility. With shields, staircases and rooftops (that have heavy weaponry), Nowhere turned out to be one of my favourite new Horde maps to play on. Again however, no dark corners in this map!

Sanctuary: I’m not sure about you, but when I look for sanctuary… I want it to be somewhere safe, not a dark dreary grave yard looking map. Many staircases, barriers, and yes dark corners to hide around make Sanctuary one of my all time most frustrating maps to play on. Take my word, be careful when climbing stairs as there is often a barrier at the top, and with barriers in strategic places often come mean online gamers ready to blind-blast you. Definitely this map will have the highest kill counts of any of the new maps.

Way Station: I enjoyed Microsoft’s explanation of this map so much I had to quote it, “In the limbo between death and ‘processing’ you’ll find Locust way stations like this one, filled with COG soldiers. Tread lightly and practice patience – it’s best to sacrifice firepower for stealth while navigating this minefield of hidden grenades.” I could not have said it better myself as while playing this map, I feel the majority of my deaths came from grenades stuck to walls. This Locust map I think is my favourite to peruse as in the centre of the map, you find a huge river of lava! This somewhat interactive map has a few dark corners (far away from the lava) as well as a secret or two.

War Machine: another train themed map, this station includes Longshot, Mulcher, and Boomshot fun; but wait what’s this? You’ve been here before? Oh you must have been a fan of the original Gears of War as this was taken from that game of yesteryear. And yes, dark corners abound.

Overall, I found there was a great variety of maps included in Dark Corners, however, I may have missed something as I don’t really know why the pack is titled so as the maps included rarely involve corners without light. I guess it’s a metaphorical dark corner? Perhaps a metaphysical one? Either way, these 7 maps bring a new flavour to the Gears world of online play, now all I have to do is practice practice practice.

Onto the lost chapter dubbed, “Road to Ruin”. While you cannot continue your campaign into this chapter, nor save in the middle of it, Road to Ruin is essentially a world of it’s own. When you click on the deleted chapter you are immediately introduced by Cliff Bleszinski, design director of Gears of War 2 who sheds a little light on this missing storyline. He explains that sometimes parts of the game get cut, tells you what to expect in this little extra piece of gameplay, and informs you that you may run into an old friend along the way (here’s a hint, you do run into this old friend no matter what, and it is Franklin) sort of like a deleted scene introduction on a DVD, Cliff introduces this small piece of gaming well… but every time I hear about him all I can think about is how he brought Jazz Jackrabbit into the world, and our hearts.

This chapter, or at least little extra bit of story-based gameplay takes place immediately after *SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT* Dom finally connects with Maria. He’s depressed, he’s lost his way, and he wants to take it out on the Locusts. As Marcus Fenix, do you do as Dom wishes and go in, ‘guns a blazin’ or do you use your noggin, and do things a little differently? Here’s what I liked about Road to Ruin. You’re given a choice, you can push one trigger and fight your way through, or you can push the other, don some Theron guard armour and sneak your way in.

I’ll start by discussing what I consider the more entertaining of the two and go in guns blazin. Here you literally just go in and kill everyone, there are A LOT of Locust beasts to destroy, a lot of weapons to use, and a lot of ammo to keep you going. The basic formula for this chapter is that you blast your way through a room with baddies hiding everywhere, pick up their ammo and grenades (I highly recommend holding onto a Boomshot and as many grenades as possible until you get to the end), clear the room and go into the next waiting area. Here you climb a ladder and flick a switch to open the next gate, but not before sounding an alarm bringing bigger and badder Locust hordes out. This happens about 3 times until the last gate instead has you fall through the ground and you must defend yourself in small corridors until the coast is clear. Once out you begin to cross a bridge only to be confronted by a Brumak! Time to high tail it to the near by turrets and take that bad boy down! You fight a little bit more until you are introduced with pretty much the first bit of story since the introduction and decision at the beginning of the chapter as you release Franklin from his jail cell and toss him a shotgun for support. Here’s where the fun happens though folks because the next bit gets intense. Without giving too much away your led into a big room with plenty of cover and must defeat wave after wave of increasingly difficult Locusts, culminating with a face to face battle against a Reaver. Remember when I said to keep all your big explosives, it was pretty much for this whole last battle. The chapter ends after the Reaver is slain and you get your achievement for taking vengeance on the Horde. Over all I found going balls to the wall very therapeutic – limbs flailing, grenades lobbing fun. While short (it took me 15 minutes on normal, 2 hours on hardcore with lots of dying, and will probably take you a lot less with co-op) and light on the story, I found that this little addition was a fun treat as long as you’re not buying the entire DLC just for Road to Ruin.

Now about the stealth mode; while I fully appreciated the fact that Epic gave us a choice here and a new way to play Gears – I would have liked it to be developed and explored a bit more. Perhaps not just sneaking but also introducing stealth kills or something. So you start out by putting on your trendy Theron armour, but your faces are still shown and your guns are as blue as the sky… but the Locust don’t seem to notice, it’s only when you get close enough for them to smell you (???) That they will sound the alarm and kill you almost instantly. Again you take the same path (more or less) that you did when you went in with guns prepared but you must follow Dom past the rotating guards from room to room keeping as far away from the guards as possible and not firing a single shot. In two instances do you turn a wheel to get the grubs to look the other way by making something fall, but otherwise it feels like a game of ‘red light / green light’ (remember when you were a child and you tried to sneak up on the one who was ‘it’ without them seeing you?). When you get to the Brumak, you just run by it, down the stairs and underneath it in a tunnel, meet with Franklin and from here on out the rest of the level is exactly the same (big battles) but you don’t have the benefit of 4 grenades and 9 Boomshot bullets. Finish the battle and the deleted level is over; you get a different acheivement and pat yourself on the back. Passifism in one of the most gruesome games to date. Again, this should take roughly 15 minutes or so if you know what your doing, longer if your like me, shorter if you have a buddy to play with.

I enjoyed both modes of Road to ruin, stealth was a different take on Gears while guns blazin was just really good mindless fun. Overall a very short bit of extra gameplay and like I mentioned before no matter which method you choose you still meet up with Franklin and have the big battle at the end (at which point the game would continue on with the main story line if it was never deleted in the first place). While it’s cool to dress up as a bad guy, it’s even cooler to kill the bad guy in my opinion. The Road to Ruin was filled with tons of variety not only in enemies, but weapons and level design as well as one of my favourite portions of the stealth mode has you look on as a Locust jerk tortures and kills a thin human, should you have blown your cover and tried to save him? Was it in the interest of the greater good that his sacrifice kept you hidden? This area of the game is pretty much wrought with moral dilemma.

So, there you have it, for 1600 MS points you get 19 maps (6 of them brand new, one new to Gears of War 2) as well as the Road to Ruin deleted chapter. Or for 1200 MS points you get just the Dark Corners map pack (6 new maps and one new to Gears 2) and Road to Ruin. If you never downloaded a Gears 2 map pack before I highly recommend getting the entire All Fronts Collection. If you have a couple of the map packs, I still recommend shelling out 1200 points for the Dark Corners pack and Road to Ruin. If you want to get it for Road to Ruin by itself, I’m not sure if it would be worth it for a maximum 3 hours of gameplay. While it would have been nice to see a stealth option for some parts of the GoW 2 campaign, it was refreshing to at least get a taste of what could be coming in the future in terms of more campaign downloads or even Gears 3!

For Road to Ruin:

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 2/5

For the All Fronts Collection:

Gameplay: 4/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 5/5

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Tags: dlc, Gears of War, map pack, xbox 360

Categories: Gaming, XBox Reviews