Xboxfocus.com confirms many details about the upcoming Gears of War sequel [1] aka "The non-halo reason we love Xbox so much!".
If you are not excited about this sequel then either you don't own an Xbox 360 (why not? go get one, this one is gonna rock!), or you hate games that promote violence, in which case, get a Wii and grow your hair long, hippie. Just kidding of course we love long hair, but we also love long hair people that do covert operations with online multiplayer!
Anyways, here are the details from Xboxfocus.com:
It's official: Gears of War 2 is gonna rock.
There has been an "epic" (lolpun!) amount of rumors flying around
regarding Marcus Fenix and gang. Well, compiled below is what Epic has
confirmed and denied -- officially, mind you. Some include matchmaking,
larger battlefields, better AI, and basically anything else that you'd
imagine would make a game bigger, better and you guessed it: more
badass!
CONFIRMED:
-Battlefields will be much larger than in the previous installment.
-There will, in fact, be chainsaw dueling in single player as well as multiplayer.
-There is a new poison grenade, which will kill anybody it hits and slowly drain the health of anybody around it.
-The "meat shield" is usable in both single player as well as multiplayer.
-The cover system is no longer as clunky, and has been edited to further prevent people "sticking" to walls and such
-The story begins six months after the original ends.
-A new pistol called the "Gorgon Pistol" is available, firing a
six-round burst much like the hammerburst from the original.
-The hammerburst is now a semi-automatic gun.
-There is now a larger difference in active-reloading from gun to gun.
-Drop-in/drop-out co-op.
-Blood trails will allow you to track your prey much more effectively in case they decide it's time to run away.
-A new war journal to keep track of your endeavors.
-A much more emotionally evocative story that will be much deeper and more interesting than in Gears.
-Difficulty settings modified. Casual is now much easier, while Insane is harder.
-Weapon-specific melees. New kinds of executions.
-At least two new species of Locust. At least one more chainsaw method. 5 vs. 5 online battles.
-New online mode called "Wingman," where it's essentially a 2v2v2v2v2 game.
-Gridlock is a multiplayer map.
-The ability to have each player use their own difficulty setting in co-op mode.
-Completely destructible environments.
-Enhanced physics.
-You can be damaged and killed whilst chainsawing.
-Longer campaign.
-More usage of vehicles in campaign.
-A new "dynamic-conversation camera" used during cutscenes to give them a cinematic feel.
-The addition of a flamethrower, dubbed "Scorcher."
-Assassination game-type renamed to "Guardian."
-Unlimited respawns until each team's respective leader dies, at which points player cease respawning.
-Matchmaking! New game-type dubbed "Meat Flag."
-Sort of like Capture-the-flag but the flag is a human player who stays in the center of the map.
-Each team must down this player to be able to drag him back to their base.
-Getting damaged slows you down. You can now choose which weapon to spawn with in multiplayer:
-Lancer or Hammerburst. Portable cover.
-These are big metal things that you can carry around and shove into the ground to act as make-shift cover.
-You can only use your pistol while carrying one, and they can be destroyed by enemies that get too close.
-Grenades can be manually stuck to anything, meaning you have to "tag" the object like you would a person in the original Gears.
-Smoke grenades now stun enemies as well.
-While waiting to respawn, you may fly around the map and take
screenshots of the action which you can then share with your friends.
-One confirmed new map: River
-A symetrical map, each team gets a sniping building and some flat land, which is divided by a river.
-One confirmed new map: Security
-A long narrow map.
-Power weapons guarded by laser-turrets th cannot be destroyed and will kill you if you attempt to get to the weapons.
-These turrets can be turned off. New controls for downed enemies: X Button [Curb stomp] B Button [Melee] Y Button [Punch in a downed opponent's face] A Button
DENIED:
-Campaign will be 10-15 hours long.
-Co-op specific cut-scenes.
-Various endings. The "Acheron" locust.
-Multiplayer mode called "Ordeal" in which teams compete to see who can get to a certain amount of kills first, [Use enemy as meat-shield a la Call of Duty 4's Deathmath.
-Chainsaws-only multiplayer mode.
-Stamina bars that affect movement.
UNCONFIRMED:
-Host powers.
-Carmine's return.
-Whether or not Dom's wife Maria Santiago will be an actual character or simply referred to.
There you have it. All aboard the hype train!