Taking aim at multiple glitches in Gears of War 2

by Xav de Matos { Dec 31st 2008 at 5:30PM }

Here is the scenario: You're Epic Games and you release a game hailed by most as yet another gem in your impressive portfolio. Gamers are excited, "Gears of War 2!" they shout as they line up to get their hands on it as soon as possible. They buy it in droves to the tune of nearly 3 million units. Weeks ... nay ... days pass and online aficionados realize the game doesn't work properly. Matchmaking seems slow, sometimes asking your customers to wait 10 or 20 or 30 minutes for a match. Suddenly your blockbuster game is falling from the top of Xbox Live charts like a one-legged stripper from a dancer's pole. Now, as gamers decide which title to call the best of the year, someone has compiled most of the egregious bugs your game has throughout its online modes into one tidy little video package. Well, at least the customers have new maps for $10, amirite?

Seriously, can a brother get a title update to make the Live play as fantastic as the single-player, please? 'Cept Horde. That's still rad and flawless.

[via Destructoid]

Tags: epic-games, gears-of-war-2, requires-fixing, x3f-twitter

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

In A World (XBL) @ Dec 31st 2008 5:38PM

I've stopped playing Gears 2 until I hear it's been fixed. Also I won't be buying Gears 3 on day one like I did Gears 2, and won't buy it AT ALL (or any DLC) unless the Online component works.

GPX2 @ Dec 31st 2008 11:07PM

Lets hope Gears of War 3 is Big, Better, more Badass...er

I agree to, I stopped playing online because I was getting so frustrated everything just made me hate the game. However it is a "great" game. Like pretty stupid girl, yeah hanging out with her is great for a while then you just can't take it anymore. So until she grows up you can't stand being around her.

slickhead @ Jan 1st 2009 12:57PM

Yeah, It's a pain in the butt to play this game online . I put it on ebay as soon as I beat Horde mode. $45 ain't too shabby.
The best thing about this post is that there are no fanboys or others posting about how the game is fine or plays well online. Yeah, It's hard to say this game is not broken when faced with evidence like this. I suppose Epic will still claim that this is limited in scope.

Skip @ Jan 19th 2009 12:32AM

Yeah, this Gears of war 2 has big problems. I have a new Xbox 360 all games but this one plays fine. This game keeps crashing with "unreadable game disk. Please clean " Nothing wrong with how clean the disk is nor my console. This is the 2nd game CD I have and both of them do the same thing. I think it's just a programers software glictch. You and stumble throught the game if you keep restarting it buy who needs this hassle. Wish I knew who to contact at Epic. Like to give them a piece of my mind about being ripped off for the cost of the game.

vedgiee @ Dec 31st 2008 5:38PM

ahmen.

Beagles @ Dec 31st 2008 5:49PM

Awesome video. That probably took a really long time capturing those voices, and editing that video. Props to the maker.

Zelli @ Dec 31st 2008 5:53PM

That's a great video. Well done with the voice overs. Watch the whole video; the ending is hilarious.

shuref00t @ Dec 31st 2008 6:05PM

Uh, no, Horde is not flawless. Try making it past 20 or so waves with all 5 players still remaining. And I'm not talking about the whiny lames who drop because they didn't get the map they wanted, or didn't get revived when they ran off solo. I'm talking about the constant server host disconnects. But Again, this has to do with Epic's flawed netcode.

myabsolution @ Dec 31st 2008 8:09PM

hmm i only play horde with people i know personally. much more fun, no whiny people.

and yeah ive never had any mystery drops in that mode alone.

Alex @ Dec 31st 2008 8:42PM

No, it's just you.
And who plays Horde with people who aren't on your FL?

Timerider @ Dec 31st 2008 10:36PM

That happens to me all the time. I got to 21 and was disconnected. Another time we got to 26 and two people disconnected and the exact same time. That's not intentional. Pisses me off. And the lag. I was shooting the wall with my shotgun. No bullet holes until 2 seconds later.

GPX2 @ Dec 31st 2008 10:55PM

Yeah, EVERYTHING! in this game is Far from flawless, in single player you have to put up with IMO the worst vehicle missions (namely everyone except the brumack) implemented in a big title game.

As for horde mode, it is the same 10 waves 5 times, give us a boss or something each wave...however to complain about what is there. It is almost impossible to play horde mode without people on your friends list, have it so you can join a on going Horde, also if you die right away, you have to just sit there so boring. Don't know what Epic could do about this, but still all the more reason to quit when you die.

Mazrael @ Jan 2nd 2009 10:52AM

to play horde, I usually have to take it public, I only have 6 people on my friends list as I only add people I know, only 2 own Gears 2..

the AI is flawed that it can fire sideways, sometimes backwards, even in a local MP game, this is where I saw definate proof, also AI teams outright ignoring each other (even the AI's toggle aiming was aiming off in the distance..), and it is really stupid you can't join a horde game in progress, I'm only as far as round 17... and then there's the magic shotgun, in your hands it can take 6 shots to take someone down, put the AI just needs to be 6 feet away & your in pieces..

Then, remember that damn stupid checkpoint coming up to the first Theron Guard encounter of the first game? there's more stupid checkpoints in this game.. currently at 'Maria' on insane.. Dom leisurly gets swarmed by wretches, while I need my head down for the riders/boomers, while getting attacked by wretches Dom ignored..

Gears 1 is definatly the stronger experience, although the sequel has some good features, bugs really mess up the lacking story.. reminds me a bit like the Matrix/LotRs trilogies, where film 2 was lacking.. - but it worries me that this is the direction he wants to take Gears, less of 'just shooting Sh*t'.. well thats all I want to do.. the game just feels less for trying to be more..

ObiWanKennoli @ Dec 31st 2008 6:11PM

That was hilarious. Pure genius. A great video to ring in the New Year with.

DBoyFlex @ Dec 31st 2008 6:13PM

Wow, sure am glad I don't play this game online. After seeing this video, I would almost go as far to say that the online multiplayer for Fable 2 kicks gears' ass. That is saying something.

Eric Carter @ Dec 31st 2008 6:34PM

You hit the nail on the head with that post. Even this first one had more glitches than I can remember. The second one seems to take after the original I also think that they went a little over the top with the movies during game play.

LegendaryRedass @ Dec 31st 2008 8:09PM

This video really makes it look like gears2 online is pretty much unplayable. With all the bugs, how can you be sure they're not being exploited while you're playing? But hey, at least they got new maps out already. Where's the damn patch? And who passes for testers and programmers these days? Apparently anyone.

VelociRapido @ Dec 31st 2008 8:34PM

Freakin' Hilarious!

quesadia @ Dec 31st 2008 8:41PM

I can't you how many games I have had to leave because SUBMISSION DOESN'T HAVE A TIME LIMIT. Yes I see why they did this cause it is a long game, But at least slap 30 min per round if neither team wins the 2 round game make it a tie, fuck. Instead of when the stupid meatflag gets glitched by a smoke and falls out of the map. That's another "honorable mention"

GPX2 @ Dec 31st 2008 11:00PM

I think the smoke grenade is in a league of it's own for glitches and down right online experience ruiner.

As for submission, either make it easier to win or put a time limit. Those game take forever, and that is why nobody votes it.

yo Naturale @ Dec 31st 2008 9:34PM

I'm thinking the presence of a pole would actually make the one-legged stripper a whole lot more stable.

All kidding aside, I have seen a one-armed stripper before. Seriously.

Don't feel too bad for her, she seemed to do all right in her take. Guys were constantly buying lap dances for their friends in the hopes to make them uncomfortable. Okay, that sounds awful too, but she seemed to take it all in stride.

Timerider @ Dec 31st 2008 10:38PM

Anyone having problems with Live lately? Not just Gears. I keep getting disconnected from the host or from Live entirely when playing L4D and TF2.

Muckrak3r @ Dec 31st 2008 10:47PM

I sold Gears2 last week. All these glitches are the exact reason why. Releasing $10 maps before a game fixing patch PROVES the greed of Epic.

Nobody can play this game online and say it's not completely broken.

As for horde, the only reason why that is fun is because you are playing again AI. That takes the lag and glitches out of it. And horde is only fun for a couple hours a week, it gets old after that because it's AI, no human response to what you do.

GPX2 @ Dec 31st 2008 10:58PM

How much did you get for it?...you know since Epic is buttholes, and put the flashback maps as DL content to kill the resale value.

Muckrak3r @ Jan 1st 2009 8:05AM

It sold for $44 last week on half.com. Apparently people don't care too much about the map pack DLC code.

dronesensor @ Dec 31st 2008 11:29PM

uh, the single-player campaign was boring. same scenario over and over and over again: a bunch of locusts run to their seemingly pre-determined cover positions, you run up and blast them while your dumbass teammates sit back with their thumbs up their rectums, wash, rinse, repeat. the only break in the formula were the vehicle levels, which were goddamn terrible.

multiplayer is the draw of gears. otherwise you're left with a generic action game, with a lazy, cliched story & characters, that happens to have a fantastic cover system and some neat weapons, but no unique or diverging scenarios to keep them interesting. let's face it, without the addictive multiplayer component and the millions of dollars microsoft spent convincing impressionable 16 - 25 year-old males that it was "TOTALLY BRUTAL AND SICK TO THE XTREME, BRO!!" (the 360 is the mountain dew of gaming), no one would give a rat's ass.

SadisticHam @ Jan 1st 2009 12:55AM

Why is it whenever someone doesn't like a game they can't stop at "hey i don't like this" but instead think there opinion>anything.

Every time a game gets bashed you're guaranteed to see one of two words, in this case both: Generic or Cliched.

yo Naturale @ Jan 1st 2009 1:26AM

"Every time a game gets bashed you're guaranteed to see one of two words, in this case both: Generic or Cliched."

It's all relative, SadisticHam. Give them a couple decades and their tune will most likely change to something like this:

"When I was growing up they made quality video games, about interesting things; like space marines!"

Maybe by then they'll learn what the word archetype means too.

DJcube @ Jan 1st 2009 9:52AM

I'm still waiting for them to fix the weightless corpse bug in the original.

Conor @ Jan 1st 2009 10:51AM

I gave up on gears 2's multiplayer a good while ago.
I'm on the fence about trading it in, I'm holding out to see if they'll fix the damn game.

I think everyone should stop playing it, so it falls further down the Live activity charts and that'll put a lot of pressure on Epic to fix the damn game once and for all.

Bobluling @ Jan 1st 2009 12:08PM

I just don't understand why people love this game? Its one of the worst games I've played in a long time.

thatguy @ Jan 1st 2009 1:02PM

I've yet to play Gears 2 online and I've had the game since day one. I guess I'll just hold off for awhile.

Bravelionheart @ Jan 1st 2009 1:42PM

Wait, make it "as fantastic as the single player"? Did we play different games? The single player campaign was horrific! The "boss fights" were even more of a joke than the first game, the story still lacked any emotional weight (except for Dom's wife, a brief cutscene in a 6 hour game) or proper storytelling, they managed to cut out most of the "destroyed beauty" aesthetic that made the first game great and kept us underground, never fulfilled their promise to make the player feel as though they were a part of a major war, and once again win the "Shameless Valve Impersonator Award" for not-really-an-ending-ending.

Compared to the original, the campaign mode for this one fails utterly. It was phoned in.

Digitalspirit @ Jan 1st 2009 2:16PM

Having seen this video I'm glad I sold my copy on eBay. It's clearly made to cash in on the original and not as a marked improvement any sequel should attempt to be. Shame Epic got greedy and decided to forego the Unreal franchise for this waste of time.

ZhiZeng @ Jan 1st 2009 4:00PM

I'll admit that I was one of the masses who picked the game up and migrate with his buddies, however I sold the game with 4 days. I couldn't get into matches, the single player wasn't stimulating. It just wasn't for me. I can definitely understand the betrayal that the video portrays.

cquigley @ Jan 1st 2009 5:00PM

Does anyone else realize that Gears 1 had the same glitches? People just want something to complain about. No game is without their flaws. You have to give it time to be fixed.

Bravelionheart @ Jan 1st 2009 7:15PM

So now we can't criticize a game for being flawed? We just have to accept it? B.S. If we don't make them realize that they've really buggered things up, then they won't bother to change anything and just continue their bad behaviour. You don't reward idiocy and failure, you reward a company for doing well. Epic failed, so they have to deal with it. I'm not going to give them champagne and roses when it wasn't at all earned.

cquigley @ Jan 1st 2009 7:53PM

so you're telling me that Gears of War 2, which won GOTY on this very site, was a completely flawed game? I never said that you can't criticize the game. I'm just saying that if you think about it the same glitches were present in Gears 1 and nobody was saying that that game was completely flawed. I'm saying that they will fix it you just have to be patient and constructive. Not bitchy.

somguy @ Jan 4th 2009 12:54AM

If "the same glitches were in Gears 1", I think people have the right to be even more pissed. They had them fixed in the first one, why (and how?) reintroduce them? Not like they tweaked the engine OR ANYTHING in the game very much.

The reason more people are pissed, is that they already released a F***N map pack, before even addressing there were issues with their game.
All Epic can see now is MONEY.