Three weeks ago Greg and I attended a Gears of War 2 press event in London. A dozen or so journalists were put up in the St Martins Lane hotel near Trafalgar Square and allowed to play the game all night. The multiplayer modes were running downstairs in a large conference suite, but we also had an Xbox 360 and a copy of the game in each of our own rooms. The results were embargoed until today.

Here's what I took from my ten or so hours with the game. Greg's point-of-view will be different, I'm almost certain. This isn't a review, because I didn't finish it, it's a sort of first response, written a day afterwards.

Just to give you a hint: I bloody loved it.



At the beginning of Gears of War 2, humanity isn't so much on its knees as face down in the space dust, with a Locust foot pressing on its skull. The remnants of the population are hiding out in Jacinto, the only city that the alien hordes can't burrow under. But here, survivors are being eaten away by a new pest – a disease known as rust lung, caused by the Lightmass Bomb detonation at the close of the first game.

And this is by no means the last moment where humanity must face up to the consequences of its own actions. Weirdly for such a visceral, balls-out blaster, the value of human existence provides a bit of an ongoing theme, lurking in the background as you chainsaw aliens to pieces. Right at the start of the action a politician delivers a stirring speech to the gathered gears, lamenting mankind's atavistic need to fight, but then insisting that the only way forward is a counter-offensive against the Locust masses, taking the battle into their subterranean homeland.

And that's your job in Gears of War 2, inhabiting the blood-splattered boots of Marcus Fenix and leading Delta squad into the unknowable underground hell. But as you go through the game, both the nature of the Horde and the attempts to 'save' humanity are brought into question. Someone somewhere has a hidden agenda and your military commanders are keeping it from you. There's something rotten in the state of Jacinto; there have been… experiments.

In general, though, you're pretty much where you were in Gears of War: fighting your way through an obliterated landscape, facing greater numbers of ever more vicious and heavily armed Horde monsters. This is everything you loved about Gears of War, polished, heightened and exaggerated. The visuals are amazing, not just for the incredible design detail – the charred landscapes, the devastated research stations covered in rust and broken glass, the weird alien vegetation – but for the extraordinarily accomplished use of dramatic lighting. Gun metal glistens and glints, while looming shadows swallow lurking enemies whole and explosions sear your retinas like burning phosphorus. It's a brilliantly solid, gritty world – like a war documentary, filmed on a camcorder by terrified soldiers.

The pace is relentless. One minute you're ricocheting down a valley manning the gun turret on a massive tunneling rig, the next you're blasting into the depths of the earth aboard a hideously dangerous grind lift. Levels mix claustrophobic tunnels with vast chambers, often allowing you glimpses of far-off locust battalions as they swarm in your direction - or toward stricken comrades. Guns, as in the first game, feel perfect, with semi-automatic rifles providing measured, controllable fire, while shotguns splatter death across the walls.

A couple of things, though. While the cover system has obviously been improved and tends to work well, there are still a few fiddly moments. Encasing the run option within the cover mechanism can make things tricky, because while running, Marcus has a really wide turn circle – not great for navigating labyrinthine tunnels at speed. There are also a couple of stages that seem to pastiche well-worn videogame clichés (at least I hope they're a pastiche) – these don't work well and draw you out what is an incredibly immersive experience for most of the time.

Away from the single-player campaign, me and Greg spent a long time playing Horde, the frantic new co-op mode, in which five human comrades battle together through waves of locust soldiers. The aim is to kill a set number of enemies within the strict time limit, and any soldier downed during the effort is out of the game until the stage is beaten. The fights take place over a number of locations festooned with gun emplacements, burned out vehicles and withered trees. It's an absolute blast, a sort of turbo-charged sci-fi version of Assault on Precinct 13. Locust troops of every kind charge at you, including loads of GoW favourites and all the newcomers. And the really cool thing is, when you are killed, you get access to a god mode that lets you explore the whole area, informing your still-living mates about enemy positions.

The new Submission mode – or as Epic calls it 'Meat Flag' - is a killer too. It's essentially capture the flag, except, you're out to capture a 'stranded' - a civilian human – who must be shot to his knees, then grabbed and dragged to your base. The carrier can only use a handgun to protect himself so teamwork is essential. Also, if the guy with the stranded gets taken out, the freed civilian turns into a bad ass killing machine, slaughtering anyone caught nearby with his shotgun. "It was an idea that probably came up while we were drunk one night," explained Epic's Mike Capp to me the morning after the press event. "A flag with a gun…"

So, yeah, amazing. An utter screaming headrush of a game, which provides totally and unapologetically ceaseless entertainment. There's lots I haven't sampled yet – the drop-in/drop-out co-op sounds fun, allowing players of different abilities to jump into each other's games, with the difficultly level altering accordingly. There are intriguing narrative strands developing in here too, including – strangely enough - an ongoing love story.

There's also a question that keeps coming back throughout the game, in plot points, and dialogue and artifacts discovered during your journey. Is this desperate, nightmarish tragedy of an existence really worth all the effort? It's like the 2029 scenes from Terminator – just violence and death handed out by a totally alien intelligence. Gears of War 2 could well be the most nihilistic shoot-'em-up ever created. The great thing is, whatever you're fighting for, even if it's worthless, it's terrific fun.