Joystiq

The May 2008 issue of Game Informer, available in red and gray flavors, promises a "world exclusive first look at Gears of War 2" – lucky for us, a poster at NeoGAF took the time to share the juiciest Locust-filled bits with the rest of the class. Of course Marcus and Dom are back, but so are several new characters like Chairman Prescott ("an almost dictatorial military leader"), Tai Kaliso ("a spiritual and meditative warrior from a tradition of honor-bound fighters"), and Maria Santiago (Dom's "lost love"); the Locust also have some new additions like the chanting "Kantus" who can focus those chants into concentrated sonic blasts (you're going to start acting quizzical now? They're underground monsters ...), and resurrect fallen Locust warriors.

New functionality includes upgrades to Unreal Engine 3 as demoed during Microsoft's GDC keynote (obviously), a "SHUT UP" button to skip the yacking and get back to the shooting of the bug people, "drop in and drop out co-op" with different difficulty settings for different players, chainsaw duels, refined cover mechanics that should make it "harder to get hit while protected," a fourth even-more-casual Casual mode, and more. One area they aren't quite talking about yet is multiplayer. Game Informer writes, "We hear hints of ... multiplayer content that takes advantage of Unreal's new ability to deliver huge numbers of the Locust horde at one time, but confirmed details will have to wait until a later date." With most gamers, ourselves included, finding Gears' almost-excellent multiplayer implementation regrettably spartan, this is the one area we want to hear a haloff a lot more about.