Gears 2 slides further down Xbox Live activity chart

The bottom line is that Gears 2 just isn't Gears as many Gears 1 freaks remember it.

Epic got caught in a really weird situation were they rushed out the multiplayer for Gears 1, and f**ked it up so badly that everyone loved it. It wasn't what they intended, but instead turned into this unique experience where the game focused on up close battles, the shotgun shuffle, fighting for power weapons, etc.

Now, with Gears 2, they had time to make multiplayer the way they really wanted it to be - more focused on mid-range machine gun fights and popping up and down in cover with your lancer. Basically, like every other shooter out there. The problem is that everyone that loved Gears, loved the up close, shotgun shuffle Gears, not sit around on your ass and shoot the lancer Gears.

At this point I'm firmly convinced that Gears 1 was the best accident to ever happen in gaming. Every major design decision they made in Gears 2 is something that pisses off Gears 1 fans, they wouldn't have done this if Gears 1 played the way they intended it to in the first place.

I would not be surprised if a year from now, Gears 1 is back around the top 5 of XBL games played and Gears 2 is out of the top 10 entirely. Many hardcore Gearsheads have gone back to Gears 1 already. It's core is just a better game. Gears 2 is crappier core gameplay with a bunch of features thrown on top to cover it up.

oh and here's another problem :

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1SbOWONpM&fmt=18

I'll tell you what happened in my case; I stood in line @ midnight, I bought the game and enjoyed Horde mode with my friends, but when we tried to take it into multiplayer vs., we got the "search" message. for 30 minutes. Then COD:WaW came out, and I could get into matches no problem. I haven't had a desire to play Gears online since. I'm wrapped up in a game that actually has me logging matches.

Anyone know where L4D is on the XBL activity list?

I know most of you posting on this thread probably have a 360 but if you do have a PS3 and are looking for a good balanced game, WarHawk does a pretty good job. It's not as graphically pleasing as Gears would be but it's a great game that doesn't have many issues and it's a blast just to pick up and play. Just my thoughts.

Oh and the shotgun shuffle is something retards do. Randomly tapping the Right trigger until your enemies die is still in effect, so I don't know what some of you are talking about.

LOL at whoever said the game was more serious unlike others online...So true LOL..

Anyways as a fan of gears 1, I ultimately feel it's because Epic alienated their core audience too much.

Despite the addition of Horde, the removal of split-screen players from public matches as well as having to find a new room every match really do limit the social aspects of the game that gears 1 players were used to.

With regards to gameplay, sure the shotgun was overpowered in gears but is gears 2 any better when most people (not only newbs) have to resort to chainsawing and two-piecing (melee then shotgun...an annoying combo which is actually made easier in the sequel) as their optimal strategy for 1-on-1s?

Anyways end rant. I'm playing L4D & Little Big Planet online these days. :D

the reason people (including me) have left gears is because with gears 1 it was fun even with the lag. And now the lag is still there (disgusting), they ruined the shotgun and they added too many power weapons.

They need to fix the shotgun, they need to fix host advantage. In the game if you are not close to the host, your shotgun blindfires at the ground rather then the wall your shooting at. And as of now there are tons of people glitching matches in order to get rank 5.

Gears 1 was worth sticking with even with all of the lag and bad weapon balancing. It could be frustrating sometimes but as soon as you worked out how to cope with lag it was loads of fun. Gears 2 (Horde mode aside) is just frustrating.

Who's stupid idea was it to make shotgun recoil feel like a concussion blast? It's useless! Thank god for L4D.

now i LOVE gears2

but the ONLY THING that will bring the people back is to KILL THE MATCHMAKER!!!

KILL IT TILL IT IS DEAD. that is all.

good dai

Simply put, it's Matchmaking that has ruined the game.

Matchmaking doesn't take as long as before, but it still picks the most awful host. Either it picks someone that lives in another country or it just picks a person with crappy connection. Host lag is what breaks the game. With host lag, chainsaws are harder to stop because it takes more shots to kill them and obviously your bullets are delayed.

Here's how fucked up the host selection is... When I use wireless I am never host (the way it should be since I have crappy DSL). BUT, when I use a wired connection from my Xbox to my router I almost ALWAYS get host... Uhh wtf is up with that? It makes the game lag for everyone else ALOT and most of the time it ends to being a 3v5 or 5v3 game.

i know exactly why it is falling......the chainsaw is way to over powered, i see were epic was going with it, but it was not the right direction to take. the shotgun is better then gears 1, it could use some tweaking though especially when it is up against the chainsaw

umm...This has nothing to do with GOW2 but I just got Call of Duty 4 for my pc. I usually not a Shooter fan, but damn this game is fun as all hell. What scares me is going online cause my friend told me that it is lvl based and I don't want to sign on multiplayer and not be able to kill anybody.

Because it's not good when you piss off your hardcore fan base by nerfing their favorite weapon (shotgun), overpowering a cheap one (chainsaw) and adding a bunch of new BS (smoke grenades that can knock you down and are useless for cover). Plus, the matchmaking is slow and the game should have had a beta, because it's even glitchier than the original.

Poor Epic? I don't really see it that way.

I just find Gears of War 2 very frustrating. Between the still present lag, people leaving in matches, and horribly unbalanced ranking in games I just don't find it very fun.

well, i don't know why, and i can't speak for anyone else, but for me the reasons i don't play much anymore are:

1. friends are playing L4D
2. Friends are playing with the map packs which i refuse to get
3. Resistance 2 MP
4. party system + ghost cam = sanctioned cheating
5. matchmaking problems
6. Resistance 2 coop

Vcize suck it up, its not that the game is terrible its that ur terrible at it. Gears 1 was an accident as you say because its not a skill to roll around and button mash to kill someone. The reason people are not playing the second one is long wait time for matches and unbalanced matches. Also the other titles there have a bigger following. So if you like Gears one soo much go to these sites that you keep talking about and whine to them about how good the first one was.

Gears of War was an incredible game. When Gears2 was released, I was highly disappointed. They took the power of the shotgun??!! UNREAL! The map pack came available so soon after the game was released and they charge for it?? are you serious? you know those maps could have been released that same day of the game! Greedy Epic! Too bad huh!? I hope the numbers continue to decline.

I have nothing against GoW2. My boyfriend and I'm almost done with it. We almost finished it in a sitting, and then Wrath of the Lich King came out, and I don't know if you've heard but that WoW is sorta addicting.

Who cares whether Gears 2 resembles Gears 1? We should care whether we LIKE Gears 2.

I've played Gears 2 MP every night the past month, (have 3000 kills) and I also played Gears 1 for a year straight, (got seriously) and my final judgment is that Gears 2 is a lot of fun, with great maps, and a fun addition with "Horde."

There are, however, major problems with MP. The biggest: you can't "quit" a game, but must exit to your dashboard, then restart the game.

It seems that Gears 2 just took all the bad things from Halo's innovative matchmaking service. As such, you would think that Gears 2 would be forgiving for people who end up in a 5 vs 3. Make it easy to quit, you know? No. They made it harder to quit, which just exacerbates the matchmaking BS. Very stupid.

Also, players have no choice over what maps they play. You can't choose "Gridlock" but rather are presented with two choices, ie "Stasis or Ruins." Players vote, but if you're stuck with both of these sorry maps, then you're screwed. I really like Avalanche, Rivers, Day One, Jacinto, Blood Drive. The creators did a fantastic job. Why can't I select one of these to play on? Double stupid.

Epic just fcked up on Gears 2.
Multiplayer sucks.
I'm sticking to Gears 1 for now.

There are many problems with Gears 2 multiplayer. For one, the entire multiplayer system. The Gears 1 multiplayer system was vastly superior. If you bring up the host advantage, Gears 2 still has a host in every game, the only difference is, you don't know who it is.

Public Matches and Private Matches are horribly done. Private, Ranked, and Player matches. Those were the perfect combination. Why would you call them private matches if anyone can join? Player matches were vastly superior to any system in Gears 2. You could search for matches that didn't have people you know in them. If they were full of people you didn't like? You could leave. If the game was incredibly laggy? You could leave. If you accidentally played a game time you didn't want to play? You could leave. And the best thing of all, when you left, you could find another match in 30 seconds, literally. What was even better was, when in a room, you didn't have to wait 20 minutes in between matches to play. 2 minutes at most, and that's only if someone needed to pee. You could talk to the other team, you didn't switch around players randomly, and you could boot malcontents at any time the host wanted, not just in the "lobby." I could play match after match in a single night in gears of war. Not only that, I didn't have to play on avalanche in every single one of those matches. What was wrong with the map cycle? I don't want to vote, I want to play on all the damn maps. The great thing about Gears of War, was that if you didn't like a map, you knew you weren't going to have to play it again for a long time, or you could completely remove it from the cycle. In Gears 2, i'm stuck playing on the same map, over and over.

In Gears 2, I can play no more than three matches in three hours. I'll explain why. I do not play private matches. This is because, although I have enough friends to fill a room, none of them will join. Why? They're playing public matches. Unlike player matches in Gears 1, my friends cannot leave public matches without seeming like assholes. Why do they play public matches? Because it is otherwise impossible to play with anyone unless 9 friends happen to be doing nothing at the moment, and by some miracle all decide to enter a single private match at the exact same time, and all of them are some how able to connect the host without issue. This rarely happens.
Therefore, I am forced to wait at least 20 minutes to find a match. I admit that the waiting time does seem to go down throughout the night, but not by much. Regardless of how many people in my party, the last time we tried to find matches, it took us 30 minutes to get into one game (which one of my friends lagged out of), 25 minutes to get into the next game (Which was highly laggy), and 15 minutes to get into the next game, (Which was actually decent). And this was with a five person party already there. I could play more than three matches, but by the end of the third match three hours later, my part and I are so ridiculously frustrated, that we all play horde, or get off line. And no, that isn't a pleasant alternative. After beating horde three or more times, it really does get quite boring.
Gears of War had lag in it, but not nearly as badly as Gears 2. In Gears 1, you could see the lag and compensate accordingly. Gears 2 lag is lag you can't tell until you get chainsawed despite the fact that you've emptied half a lancer clip into your enemy. The Gears of War series is an upclose kind of game.

I can understand people who say you should stay back, use cover, and the assault riffles, but if Epic wanted you to stay back, why would they put a chainsaw on the gun? I would stay back, but I don't like getting downed even though I started shooting first and hitting him due to lag. I didn't mind being downed in Gears of War. You know why? Because there wasn't a damn 15 second wait before anything happened. I like the hammerburst, like how it sounds, like how it looks, like how it shoots. Too bad it doesn't do a damn thing against two guys jumping at you with chainsaws. Do you know what would defend against two guys jumping at you with chainsaws? A shotgun. I don't deny that the Gears 2 shotgun works. But it only works when you're not lagging, which is next to never, so the Gears 2 shotgun, while effective in theory, is not so effective in practice. Epic has made the lancer chainsaw combination overly powerful, while numbing the power of the only weapon, other than another lancer/chainsaw, to stop it. Why then, don't I use the lancer you ask? Because of the damn lag and randomness of it. I don't think i'm the only person who's been in mid back roll, and had the chainsaw suck me into it. Do you understand the severity of that statement? The chainsaw somehow has the power to negate the effects of time and space and replace it with a scenario where I somehow didn't jump back, and in fact just stood there and said, "Well, I guess you win buddy!" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but after it happens to me the tenth time in one night, It's how I feel. A game in which I feel surprised and stupefied when I jump backwards and avoid the chainsaw instead of that being the norm, has something wrong with it. I also don't think i'm the only person who's had a chainsaw revved, yet been chainsawed rather then initiating a duel, or shooting an aimed shotgun repeatedly at a person walking in a straight line, and have it do nothing. Why don't I let them get close, and then shoot? Because I get chainsawed! It may surprise some people to find out that the range of real world shotguns, is actually farther then two feet. Incredible. If it's so laggy, why don't you just find another game you say? Because it's a damn public/ranked match. Finding another game means, going back to the dashboard, leaving your teammates high and dry, restarting the game, waiting ten minutes to find another game, wait for the other team to quit because two of their teammates lagged out, waiting another 3 minutes for the match to start and end even though the other team has completely quit, and wait another 10 minutes to find another laggy game! When I find a non laggy game, with good teammates, and a good opposing team, that is the game decided to place you with other people of your own rank rather than ridicoulously putting you with people two ranks lower or higher then you, then the game is incredibly fun. I laugh when I get a kill, and get killed. I have fun and don't feel the need to break a window with my face. It's incredible. Unfortunately, I only play in one of these games about once every three days. I realize if I played more, I would find more of these games, but who has the time to put of with this kind of broken multiplayer?

And please fix the weapons. I have to go through a minigame and start up sequence just for my shotgun to fire, and when it does, point blank shots do nothing. The shotgun is a lag countering weapon. A lancer battle depends on who has a better connection. I can't dodge and move out of cover because you move so slow when aiming it, and by the time you realize the game is screwing you over and try to move, the stopping power presents you from getting to cover. When you do get to cover though, what happens? You're not close to use the lancer, therefore, you chainsaw, or shotgun. I don't trust the chainsaw, so the shotgun is about all I can do. There are over lag countering weapons overcourse, but they're all power weapons. Boomshots, mulchers, mortars, hammer of dawn, and maybe the flamethrower. In otherwords, weapons that aren't on everymap, are highly sought after and impossible to get because you get hit by three random smoke grenade and can't get up for 10 seconds, or because your teammates refuse to cover you. The shotguns already on my back, i'd like to use it.

But wait, more weapon complaints beside the shotgun? Impossible. The mortar. The mortar is a fine weapon. It just fires way too quickly. You have to run out of mortar range, which you can do most of the time, but by the time you go to kill the guy, he's already fired off another mortar round. So you have to go and avoid again, and the same thing keeps happening. It's not so bad on territories, because you can respawn if you slip up, but on the other game times, it's annoyingly hard weapon to counter unless you have a torque bow, boomshot, or hammer of dawn. The torque being your best bet since there are hardly any boomshots and hammers on these maps. You can nail them with a sniper, but by the time you aim and kill them, you'll probably get caught by a mortar blast anyway. Also, recently i've been seeing my teammates get killed by mortar blasts despite the fact that they're in buildings (not the River houses), or under solid roofs. What the hell?

And the boomshot, I get that it was overpowered in Gears 1, but i've seen plently of instances of people being hit point blank by the boomshot and nothing happens. Don't deny someone there kill after being hit by a rocket launcher explodes right on them. That's just cold.

Torque bow headshot detection could use minor, minor tweaks, mainly horde related. But seriously, in Gears 1 if a torque landed near you, it damaged you. Two torques to kill. In Gears 2, if it lands in your zipcode and you're completely undamaged, it blows you up. Why?

Smoke greandes. Most annoying thing, ever. They should be for picking up, you shouldn't spawn with a weapon that knocks somebody on their ass. If anything, the smoke grenade should stun you like Gears 1 frag grenades. A slight, slight pause, while remaining standing. And the sheer randomness of them. At times i'm miles away, and behind cover and I get knocked down. Other times, an enemy throws a smoke, and my teammates in front and behind me get knocked down, but i'm still standing. Huh? And sometimes it goes off right in someones face and they don't even get tickled by it. But the most frustrating thing, why do the stand up times vary? Sometimes I get up lickity split, and other times i'm knocked down for 20 seconds. 20 seconds! What the hell? Just yesterday, me and an enemy got knocked down by the same smoke, at the same exact time. He got up, walked over to me, and shot me while I was still on the damn ground. I just said what repeatedly and stared at the screen. Again, I imagine this has to do with lag. Blah blah blah, the game is laggy, but you could just get rid of the knock down crap in the first place.

Grenade tagging. If it's one thing that makes me angry besides the lag, it's ninja grenades. Why would you make a shooter where at times it's impossible to avoid getting killed, or stunned without being able to guard against it in anyway. I can't think of single other game with something like this. If you play Gears 2, you'll know what I mean in these examples. On Pavillion, people mine the wall separating the entrances to spawn. You can't see them, you can't shoot them to blow them up, and you damn sure can't avoid them. The only way disarm them is with another grenade, a frag grenade. I'm not sure if poison grenades set off other grenades, but if smoke grenades do, I've not yet seen the player who can do it. Yes, you can potentially get lucky with a blindfired mortar round, but it's unlucky. A torque could do it, but there isn't one on the map. A shield could do it, if the other time hasn't got it already and they have mined two grenades for such an occasion. But most of the time, your only option is to run into death, praying for that 1 in 10 chance that you wont die instantly. And of course there's the sniper houses on river. Those are similarly annoying. And I didn't even say anything about spawn mining. A way to solve this problem? Don't make the bloody grenades explode so quick. Make them explode like any other grenade, or more specifically, a Gears 1 grenade.

Grenades. The most random weapons in the game by far. Frags and poisons. I'll be quick, poison grenades have a ridiculous range, can go through solid walls, and last too long. Frag grenades, you can't see them anymore. I can see about 1 in 10 grenades. I like to know where they are so I can jump away from them. Secondly, I swear i'm not the only one who's seen one of those grenades explode in mid air or the instant they hit the ground. Last I checked you couldn't prime grenades in Gears of War.

And on the effects of weapons, Cut that stopping power. It's effectiveness should be reduced by half. I'm sick of running into invisible walls. Who gets shot, and then decided to move more slowly out of harms way? If you could do it, stopping power should be vastly effective when getting hit in the front, and much less effective when getting hit from other angles. In truth, there should be an option to turn it off completely in private matches. There should just be a giant, Gears 1 button you can click to play old school when you feel like it.

And what's with the weapon spawning times. Grenades spawn every 10 seconds it seems, but sometimes I don't see another weapon spawn for the entire, long round. I imagine it has something to do with, if it's still in use, and is someone holding it, but that's a bit stupid.

Blindfiring. Are you telling me a soldier who's been fighting a war for survival his entire life and was basically born with a gun in his hand, can't slightly angle down a gun when blindfiring? What law of the universe says you have to fire completely level with cover, otherwise the consequences will be dire? And blindthrowing grenades. Please put that back to the Gears 1 system. Honestly, I never heard anyone say in my years of playing the game, "God, having these grenades go exactly where I want and not fumble in cover really pisses me off!"

Maps. The makes don't have another cover. Period. River, has no cover. Pavillion, doesn't have enough cover. Avalance is pretty good, but you get what i'm saying, there isn't enough cover in the maps. Fuel depot in Gears of War had perfect cover. It was everywhere. I liked that, and I didn't even like fuel depot that much. Is throwing around a few sandbags now taboo? Please make future maps with more cover.


Gears of War was, and still is my favorite game. Gears of War 2 is lacking a lot, that could be fixed. And the majority of what needs fixing is multiplayer. No one complains about the single player, not because the story was awesome, but because they don't have to go through this kind of frustration in single player. You can say I have no life and disagree with me, but I felt like finally writing out this list of everything I think if wrong with gears multiplayer in one convenient post. If you know someone who works at epic, mail this post to them entitled, "Fix this crap"

they game is good, but it is far to difficult for most people to play online. Halo3 is much more fluid and appealing to casual gamers who don't put the time needed to learn how to play competitively.

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I'm just wondering why they just can't settle with 4th place. COD and halo are just better in most people's views. Iove gears, people just need to learn to except the truth...

Gear2 use to define everything that a gamer would ever expect from a blockbuster sequel...the improvement this that..the hype..the anticipation..i bought the game started with the campaign mode...the core game control was completely different from gears1..i have played gears1 soo much like most of the people who own a xbox..that i would know if there is a slightest difference in the controls...gears2 seems to have a completely different core concept..it would take you around 10-15mins or 2-3mins to get use to the controls...we fps tps players are anyways accustomed to change..but yes slick controls matter in a multi player battlefield..anyways..campaign mode is a win-win for me..with new levels and additions the graphics i loved every bit of its glory..however when it comes to xbox live..i stick to my old gears1 no matter what...I tried gears2 on live and honestly it just doesn't do the trick..for me, strictly in my opinion gear2 rocks in campaign mode the best TPS ever!! xbox live is ok tooo but not as good as gears1..