Gearheads of War

Second, so far, the two-piecing seems to be taken care of.  The melee stun seems to be minimized enough that we were able to play no holds barred all night, with the exceptions of the three rules mentioned above.  ("One-piecing" is still in effect though.  LMAO.)

OK, now here are some minor issues I still have with the game (some of which are common to all online games).

First, the networking code is still not optimized enough to adequately minimize host advantage.  Two brief examples:  I had been downed in the river, I crawled to the top of the ramp and then when Blank executed me, I appeared executed at the bottom of the ramp - a full 15 feet away, second, for all the marbles, I was 1v2 and I threw a grenade clean into the hallway on Blood drive but on the host machine, I must have been behind the pillar I guess, because the grenade must have bounced off the pillar falling at my feet and killing me.  That kind of thing is infuriating, but it happens in CoD4 as well, so what are you going to do? One thing unique to Gears 2 networking however, is the fact that the shottie sometimes simply doesn't fire.  I pull the trigger, but host doesn't recognize my action.  It literally takes one-one-thousand-one, one-one-thousand-two before my shottie fires.   In the meantime, the enemy has already placed at least one good shot on me and I am dead in the water.

While on the subject of the shottie let me just add that like Zoso, I really miss the shottie duels that we could have in Gears 1.  However, that change to gameplay is a deliberate design change and is a legitimate between originals and sequels of a title.  I miss the shottie duels, but such is life.

Second, the Hammerburst is ridonkulous.  I am pretty sure the following claim would stand up to actual experimentation: host active-reload Hammerburst needs only hit the target four or five times to bring him down.  I have said this before but it is basically a long-distance shotgun.  The greater the ping (distance of client from host) the weaker each bullet becomes.  This is something I experienced with the Lancer in Gears 1, and it really becomes unfair because going head-to-head, the guy closest to the server will win. My Lancer in Gears 1 is a spit-ball gun, not much better in Gears 2, and I simply don't have the accuracy to use the Hammerburst toe-to-toe with most gamers.

On the other hand, the good thing about the Hammerburst, is that it forces people to use cover, and it rewards skilled players.  I am not skilled (I cannot keep the reticle trained on my enemy...to say the least), so I don't benefit from this change, but I respect the results.

Finally, thanks to Blankman for hosting. Also, it was awesome to play with a happy Blankman.  Like I said in the room, if Blank is happy, I am happy and can deal with all sorts of stuff, and this was in the face of many attempts to saw him in two (push his buttons so to speak).  I think his shottie was bringing my saw down all the time - I didn't get many kills on him, anyway.

A couple more things:

Papi, Johann, and Circuitz got some great CoD4 gaming in, I think, and it made me happy to see Johann enjoying himself so much and getting a chance to game with those two!  Great stuff!

Also, L4D was great as always, though I think all of us would have rather we were pwning noobs, than each other.  Very few of us made it to the safe house on any of the rounds.  Oh, yeah!  Gravy!

Last little tidbit.  At the end of the night, we played Casual Horde on Fuel Station Levels 1 - 20 and had a great time.  Having only played Horde on insane, it was weird to be able to run around the map and take Locusts down in a variety of ways, while shooting the breeze and laughing. (Zoso kept headshotting locusts right in front of me.  It was hilarious!)   Lots of fun.  

Great people, good times!

Share your impressions, stories, and exploits below, Gearheads!