Gearheads of War

Smoke Grenades
"These largely unused toys now come packed with extra punch, a concussive blast that temporarily disables nearby players and knowcks any shields out of their hands.  You can now also stick any of the three grenades (poison, smoke, frag) on walls to act as proximity-mine traps."  from EGM July 08.

Through a number of developer choices including cover with no jumping, no vehicles, unusual weapons, and unique pacing, Gears of War (almost ironically) offers gamers more opportunity for creative expression in combat than most other action games.  Even with the 3rd person perspective (where victims have a wide field of view), it is easier to sneak up on someone and literally scare the crap out of them, while blowing them to smithereens, than in most 1st person shooters where victims have a narrower field of vision, and larger and more complex maps.  These other games allow for flanking, but not in the same way, or more importantly, with as significant an impact as in Gears. At the same time, I have never heard anyone complain about "camping" in Gears, a phenomenon that occurs in almost every other shooter out there. In other words, Gears is unique in offering such a dynamic style of stealthy gameplay.

Reading about the option to use grenades as proximity mines, I became genuinely concerned that the dynamic stealth of Gears would be lost to some more static, camping-fest version of the gameplay I love.  While Epic assures us that Gears 2 is "bigger, better, and more bad-ass" than Gears 1 (implying that the core gameplay is still the same) I started to wonder if that really would be true.  As I thought about it, two questions came to mind. First, is Gears 2 going to play significantly different than the original game?  Second, which changes in Gears 2 are going to have the greatest impact on gameplay?

As I perused THE DIARY looking for new features and tweaks that would affect the core gameplay, I came up with two lists.  Numbers 1-4 are elements that will slow the game down, keep us further apart, and encourage "camping".  Letters A-C are elements that will speed it back up, bring us closer together, and discourage "camping".  

1. Machine gun stopping power.
   
2. Proximity mines of 3 types.
   
3. New  weapons and tweaks to old ones - the emphasis being on increasing the power of the rapid-fire, distance guns.
   
4. Shields: Meat and Traditional...both portable.

*Note: I am deliberately not including the networking optimizations because the original Gears was never meant to be played with special consideration for the networking issues.

Conclusion?  YES!  The rock, scissors, paper nature of the additions and tweaks to gameplay for Gears 2 will probably ensure that we still get all the fun of Gears 1 ... only with gravy AND melted cheese!

P.S.  The more I contemplate it, the less I think I am going to want to play the "respawn" gametypes.  There is something about the pacing and intensity of Gears that doesn't lend itself to respawing, at least for me anyway.  When I play Gears and die in a round, I almost always enter the death lobby extremely wound-up.  For that reason, the break is almost a welcome respite from the incredible intensity.  If there is respawing, I won't get the break I need, nor will the life I'm given have as much meaning.  Hmm...  I still think MeatFlag is gonna be a hoot, but right now, I don't see myself enjoying it more than say, the map, Raven Down, which is only good in small doses to break up the monotony.

What are your thoughts?