It really pains me to say all this, but I’d just like to take a moment to talk about just how fucking terrible Gears of War 2 is online.
And you better appreciate that this is coming from one of the biggest fans of the Gears of War games in the world.
First of all, it’s laggy as all hell. At least two thirds of all games are plagued by delayed bullets and useless melee attacks. The recent matchmaking “fix” has not helped things in any way whatsoever. The patch, as far as anybody can tell, has done absolutely nothing at all, except in some cases it has actually made things worse.
How to fix it: Give us the option to search for games hosted in our own country. This will mean I won’t have to play on some bullshit American connection where the entire host team has flawless connection speeds and my bullets take four seconds to come out of my gun.
Second, smoke grenades are both overpowered and inconsistent. Nobody should start with smoke grenades, at all. They should be a weapon that you can pick up. Not only is their blast radius ridiculously large, knocking you down even if you’re twenty feet from it, but you get knocked down for far too long, and the opposing team always seems to have the uncanny ability to stand up instantly after being knocked down by the same smoke, while you linger on the floor for an additional five seconds and get killed.
How to fix it: I pretty much just already said it. Decrease the size of their blast radius, and don’t let anybody spawn with smoke grenades. Make them an item you have to pick up. THEN they’ll be a tactical advantage. Right now they’re just a constant annoyance.
Chainsaws are un-fucking-believable. Seriously, what the fuck? I shouldn’t be able to just charge at someone, revving my chainsaw like a retard, getting shot to hell, only to survive every shot, not even get stunned, and then successfully chainsaw my target. And more importantly, nobody should be able to do that to me, either. Get the fuck out, I’m tired of shooting someone repeatedly only to get killed by them because they’re a fucking chainsaw noob who doesn’t know how to even play properly. It’s blatantly obvious that Epic were so proud that they made such a big deal out of chainsaws that they made them overpowered to encourage everybody to use them more. I’m also tired of chainsaw duels being inconsistent – sometimes I’ll chainsaw someone who isn’t revving their chainsaw, only the game decides that they were revving it, just to give them a chance, and throws them into a duel with me. Similarly, I’ve often been forced into a chainsaw duel when I wasn’t revving my chainsaw. I appreciate the fact that I survived, but what the fuck? I don’t deserve to be randomly given a chance – if I wasn’t defending myself, I should have died. Why? Because that’s fucking fair.
How to fix it: Remove the vacuum effect, where chainsaws just suck you in from five feet away and make it easier to stun people when they’re revving their chainsaws.
The Boomshot is now inconsistent. In Gears of War 1, if you shot at someone’s feet with the boomshot, they would die. Gears of War 2, though, you can shoot at a group of 5 people with a boomshot and they’ll all survive it. But then if one of them shoots a boomshot at you and it misses you and hits a wall ten feet behind you, you’re fucked. Not only that, but the boomshot has even more ammo now. What the FUCK, Epic. It was bad enough when it came with 2 shots by default, but now three?
How to fix it: Default ammo of 2, not 3. And I don’t fucking know what they did to make it so inconsistent. Just make the explosions make sense again.
Torque bow is way too easy to use now. If someone gets the torque bow they’ll pretty much devastate the entire opposing team, regardless of whether or not they know how to use it. The blast radius on its explosions are far too large, and it’s ridiculously easy to aim and even blindfire it now.
How to fix it: Make the blast radius smaller, and bring back the targeting thing it had in Gears of War 1.
Grenades. God damn it, FUCK grenades. I am sick of this shit. Grenades are way, WAY too powerful now. I don’t know why the fuck Epic made explosions so fucking big in this, but it doesn’t matter how far away you are from a grenade. It WILL kill you. Even if you’re already dead, the explosion from a grenade will spread out like some sort of invisible, vindictive entity, seeking your very soul, resting in the afterlife, and turn it into meaty chunks.
How to fix it: I’ve got “Make the blast radius smaller” on copy/paste at this point. I also think you shouldn’t be able to carry more than one grenade at a time. Also make them spawn a little slower.
Glitches. I guess it wouldn’t be Gears of War without game-breaking glitches. Every now and then you’ll spawn without the ability to run or shoot. That’s right. You’ll just have no guns, and can’t run. You’re pretty much fucked if this happens and you’ll just have to wait til you die. However, you can fix this by picking up a weapon. Sometimes. Good luck with that. Another fantastically frustrating glitch prevents you from respawning in a territories game. This has happened to my friends and I on several occasions during games of Annex – sometimes, you’ll die, and just never respawn. No respawn timer. The game just decides that you’ll stay dead, thank you very much. This leaves your team a man down, which usually costs you the entire match.
How to fix it: I don’t fucking know. I didn’t program that shit. Epic are fucktards.
The ranking system is absolutely meaningless and makes no sense whatsoever. I’ll play a dozen great games in a row, and not go up a rank. I’ll play a single Wingman game, come in third place, and go up a rank. I’ll play another wingman game and come in second place, and go down a rank. I’ll quit ten laggy games in a row and not go down a rank. I’ll join a game, the host will quit, and I WILL GO DOWN A FUCKING RANK.
Y’know what happened to me earlier tonight? I quit a game after thirty seconds and WENT UP A FUCKING RANK. I am not fucking kidding. I quit a game, and ranked up. This proves that what Epic said on gearsofwar.com about quitting making you rank down was a lie, so I’m not about to believe anything else they say.
Ever since the game came out, I’ve been jumping between rank 3 and 4 so often that the entire ranking system is meaningless to me now. There are no methods in its madness. It randomly decides what peoples’ ranks should be. There is no other possible explanation.
How to fix it: Remove ranks altogether. They aren’t a sign of the player’s skill, so they serve no purpose.
The matchmaking itself is awful. You have to sit around waiting for players forever, only to finally join a lobby where three people have either quit or lost their connections instantly, which means everybody else quits too. Quitting was always Gears of War’s biggest problem. Quitters destroy a good game. I hoped Epic would have learned from this and just let people join a game in progress, or at the very least replace a quitter with a bot, but no. If someone quits, their team is now fucked.
How to fix it: Let people join a game in progress, or replace quitters with bots.
They used Ben Carmine’s voice for Anthony Carmine. THAT IS NOT WHAT ANTHONY CARMINE FUCKING SOUNDS LIKE.
How to fix it: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST LET HIM SAY “EEEEEEEEAAAAT IIIIIIIIT” AGAIN.
It disappoints me to say that I’m only scratching the surface with these few comments. The game has many more problems, ranging from minor annoyances to severe cases of extreme bullshit. But right now I’m tired and I’m going to get some sleep.