Bigger and more badass. That seems to have been the goal and design philosphy for Gears of War 2. It's something I heard ol' Cliffy B say at E3, and it's something I experienced during a hands-on session of the game out at Australia's Microsoft headquarters early last week as we got to play through the game's first act.

At this year's E3 I tackled the new Horde Multiplayer mode, and walked away not overly impressed with the game, citing an overall similar look and feel to its predecessor without much in the evolution department. It's not that it's an ugly game, it's just visuals have advanced much further in the interim between now and when the first Gears was dropped (see: BioShock, Call of Duty 4), and like Halo to Halo 2, I just get the idea, changing location and adding a bit more story isn't going to make anything fundamentally better or worse.

That said, I've been pretty keen to sink my teeth into the game to have my fears completely and utterly quashed. So, without dumbing anything down, we were given full, unhinged access to the game's opening sequences, all the way through Act 1 which has given me enough recourse to present you with my laundry list of sequel fears and an answer to each as to whether or not they've been confirmed or killed.

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Fear 1: Story (or a lack thereof)
It's no real secret Gears of War only skimmed across the surface of its story with plenty of hints about Fenix's past, the Locusts and humanity's fight for survival in general. I'll be the first to admit that, despite the on-the-fly in-game narrative around Delta Squad being pretty cool and straight-forward, the overall presentation of just why and how we [humanity] ended up in this position and who (or what) the Locust is didn't do enough.

Upon firing up Gears of War 2, I can at the very least say it appears the story - this time around - is going to offer just a bit more to digest with an opening sequence voiced-over by the Locust Queen giving enough back-story to paint a picture of just where we're at right now.

Equally (though a bit out of place), we immediately learn Dom is desperately trying to locate his missing wife and through this, and a few other tidbits, Gears of War 2 also comes across with a desire to emit more emotion.

Finally, instead of just finding lost COG Tags, you'll now pick up various pieces of information about the game-world from various environments in the form of medical files, newspaper reports etc that are all then added to an overall "War Journal", for you to peruse over later. These are designed to fill in background and narrative facts alongside giving you something else to do in the game-world other than stomping on Locust heads.

Fear 1 Confirmed or Quashed: Quashed (so far)

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Fear 2: Dialogue (will it be cheesy?)
The scripting for the first Gears of War just hinged on being too cheesy. However, thanks to John DiMaggio's (Futurama) nonchalant attitude for the game's main character, Marcus Fenix, Gears of War came across as a game that didn't take itself *too* seriously (but in that good way).

With Gears 2 though, immediately things move in the opposite direction with an awkward "rookie" introduction (who's so green he even drops his rifle), Dom's desire to find his wife alongside the equally tired and clichéd Independence Day inspirational speech delivered by some bigwig as the humans move in to tackle the Locusts head-on.

From here on out (Act 1), I didn't once overly care about what the characters were saying and some of the lines delivered were as bad as those heard in the original Resident Evil on the PSone all those years ago (which, really, is a benchmark for B-Grade cheesiness), it didn't matter how many 'interesting' NPCs the game introduced (your first driver, being one of them), it all just felt too forced.

In this department, Gears of War 2 is very much looking like it's heading down a slippery slope of muted in-game sound in favour of turning up your stereo and rocking out to breaking Locust necks.

Fear 2 Confirmed or Quashed: Confirmed

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Fear 3: Visuals (will anything change?)
When Gears of War hit in 2006, I'm pretty sure there was a collective thud heard around the world from people's jaws dropping to the ground. The vision and scope of the game's dilapidated, gothic architecture juxtaposed to the windy, ominous Locust tunnels gave a real sense of the two worlds colliding. It would have been nice to see more, but what was there was more than impressive.

Gears of War 2 is attempting to show more of the world of Sera, with Act 1 taking you into the countryside and beyond. Say goodbye to courtyard shenanigans and hello to narrow, dark tunnels, forest areas and hick-like small towns and encampments.

Does it work in favour of the game? Unfortunately no. The outside areas look nice when peering off into the distance, but up close, seeing sprite-based branches and leaves on trees from a company like Epic just seems wrong. Moreover, despite a seemingly intended desire to 'brighten' up the experience with said forest and countryside areas, it's still as drab and saturated as ever. Replacing grey blue and black with green, brown and black isn't giving anyone anymore stimulation that what we've already seen. Finally, while there is definitely a greater sense of scope with more enemies gracing the screens and portions of the immediate environment being interactive in a destructible sense, it all still very much looks the same.

Fear 3 Confirmed or Quashed: Confirmed

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Fear 4: Room To Move? (scripting vs open-ended gameplay)
There were plenty of scripted moments in the original Gears of War, so it's not like we're overly expecting the game to suddenly become a Grand Theft Auto in terms of approach, but the first game did have its fair share of areas with more than one approach to completion.

Act 1 (and I concede this is only a portion of a much larger game) just felt way *too* busy in the guiding hand department. The same bottlenecked areas were more than present, but even these were filled with untouchable moments of in-game scripting, triggered by a single event; leaving you watching and waiting for the game to give you the next piece of open play.

It also felt like the on-rails stuff has been expanded here, too (only to the game's detriment). The issue I have with gameplay like this is it's very easy to fail three or four times at a checkpoint, work out the exact formula for the game script, then preempt every moment and move on, unscathed. In short, there's very little skill involved, and while it's cool mowing down a Brumak from a mounted gun on a huge vehicle trouncing across the countryside (from a visual stand-point), understanding the script to doing so and then so easily dispatching one of the first game's most feared monsters just cheapens the overall experience (again though, I acknowledge I have only scratched the surface of the game).

Fear 4 Confirmed or Quashed: Confirmed (so far)

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Fear 5: Fun (will it be if everything is looking down so far?)
The first Gears did an incredible job of keeping you coming back for more. Checkpoints were just right, and while the game wasn't overly open, there was a nice balance between challenging, open-ended bottlenecks, scripted gameplay and on-rails journeys throughout – you never really felt like the game was overly repetitive and you were rewarded for sticking it out with interesting and fun (though not original) new gameplay challenges.

This was digestible because the game (for its time), was very pretty, didn't seem to take itself too seriously and offered just the right amount of forgive and resistance.

Gears of War 2 is an odd entity because so much of what made the first game so charming has been approached here as a negative in that the overall game has been ramped up to fix what may have been lacking in scope and story. Unfortunately these "fixes" are to the detriment of the game because now everything seems too serious, and in favour of offering a more epic narrative and experience, gameplay (and fun) has been stripped right back.

There's still a long way to go in offering final judgment for Gears of War 2, and here's hoping every fear listed above as confirmed is slowly quashed as the game progresses, but so far it's just not looking so good.

Fear 4 Confirmed or Quashed: Confirmed (again though, so far)

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For more info and related media and editorial (and to attempt to judge for yourself), be sure to check out our Gears 2 game page.