E308 - Microsoft Press Conference-Gears of War 2

Everyone has played and fell in love with Epic Game's unique shooter for the Xbox360 that came out about 2 falls ago. Upon completing Gears of War your left with a cliff hanger with a strange being that might seem like the leader of the locus horde talking about humans not understanding the true reason of the war between Earth and the Locus Horde. Now Cliff Blezinsky came back today to reveal more information on their upcoming project, Gears of War 2. Marcus and Dom are back and most of the gameplay elements haven't changed since the first gears of war. In the demo we see a new city being torn by locus and our two main heros going to the heart of the invasion to stop the threat. Everyone has already seen some of the previous elements like the lancer battles and being able to use humans or other people as a hostage shield. Today we learned about the deploy shields that can be found by killing certain locus and can be sued to deflect bullets while rushing through an army of locus or can be set down and can be used as a cover spot to regain health and blind fire your enemies. Now as for even more gameplay elements, Gears of War 2 will have 5 on 5 matches and will introduce their own version of the party system for players to be able to join up with their friends and enter a matchmaking game as a team. New stages will hit the mix like Day 1 which takes place in a city with a giant emergency hole in the center where a giant seeder will come out and start an earthquake that will effect your accuracy while you fire your weapon. Speaking of weapons there are a few new weapons show in the demo and some that were know before today's conference. One is the flame-thrower which is basically what it sounds like...a flame-thrower just gears style. There is also a new semi machine gun type weapon that is similar to an uzi as well as a turret style weapon that can be used once you mount it while ducking for cover and is only know to be used then. From seeing the demo and any other trailer earlier there is a large possibility that vehicles might be confirmed for use in Gears 2, another hit was seen at the end of the demo when Marcus suggested that him and Dom try to "ride" the burmac to their unknown destination. Also the fact that the whole team that developed Gears of War didn't notice that a few of the moves that were being done online were meant to be used such as "frag-tagging" and when two players "shotgun or sniper dual" with each other so Epic Games has added in the fact that you slow down while being shot at and when you are downed you have the ability to crawl around until your team helps you or you die in the middle of the battlefield. Curb stomping hasn't been fully removed like paranoid gamers thought it had been and was replaced by a few other moves that will instantly kill your opponents by curb stomping or beating them with your gun...lol "beating them". Towards the end of the GoW2 demo our man Cliffy B. spilled information on a new multiplayer mode called "Horde" where you and four other friends take on wave after wave of locus while they increase in number and in strength. Gears of War 2 is officially going to be realized on November 7th,2008 exclusively on xbox360 Thats all for Gears of War 2 so make sure to check back here on the TGN forums for the rest of the games and news shown at today's Microsoft E3 Press Conference and information on the rest of the competition at E3 starting today all the way till Thursday the last day of the E3 gaming expo.