14 DAY TRIAL // Game Informer, a US-based games magazine, featured an all new Gears of War 2 preview filled to the brim with new information about the game and especially the much-talked-about new story arc that's supposed to be meatier and much more interesting than the original one.
The sequel will be set some six months after the end of the original game and old war horses Marcus and Dom will get some new comrades in their Gears unit. Apparently, Tai is a warrior that draws his strength for the fight from long hours of meditation and is in touch with his inner spirits, while Dizzy is a former Stranded that has accepted to join the COG forces in order to guarantee his family's safety from the ravages of war.
The new improved and fresh-blood infused Delta Squad will now be taking their marching orders from Chairman Prescott, and it appears that the campaign is all about taking the fight to the Locust in their underground tunnel labyrinth. Of course, Delta also has a more personal task at hand, that of finding Maria, Dom's wife. It ain't going to be easy with Cliff Bleszinski talking about how the Delta Squad is going to go up against a monster that "make[s] the Brumak look like a baby panda bear."
Drop-in and drop-out cooperative play is in and more backstory will be integrated in the game setting. The collectible COG tags will always have a story to tell about their previous owner while the cutscenes themselves will offer more details about the world of the game.
On the tech side, it seems that Gears of War 2 is pushing both the Unreal 3 engine and the Xbox 360 games console to their limits. Features will include better character lighting, some ambient occlusion, the ability to have hundreds of Locust on-screen at once without a hitch in gameplay, better water effects and soft-body physics (I really wonder what that ambient occlusion thing means). Also, load times will be lower and the transfer cutscenes will now be skippable.
The game is slated for autumn and is currently an Xbox 360 exclusive, although rumors abound that it will also see a PC release after a few months. Hang tight till then, there are bound to be more details coming.