As both Bungie and Epic games had been given then chance to play around with the features of Natal well before its announcement, the question has been posed as to whether or not Natal controls will feature into their future titles with both Halo: Reach and Gears of War III on the horizon. Epic’s Cliff Bleszinksi says that though they’re keeping an open mind, he thinks it’s unlikely: ”Y’know, we’ll take a look at Natal–no promises–but it’s likely that the classic control interface is what Epic will be working on in the foreseeable future.”

He did admit as many have that in some ways Natal could be used in conjunction with the existing controller: “ I think there’s ways that you could merge the two interfaces and supplement a classic game with Natal controls to make something compelling.” Thus far the camps seem divided along more or less predictable lines with casual game focused companies more interested in motion devices and the rest looking at them with either mild interest or utter disdain.

This time around, it’s time to take the fight to the Locust, who were NOT in fact destroyed by the Lightmass Bomb (just a good chunk of them).  Actually, the Lightmass Bomb did about as much damage to humanity as it did to the Locust, causing a fatal respiratory disease called rustlung after people breathed in vaporized liquid Imulsion.  And better yet, the remaining Locust have figured out that emergence holes aren’t just for moving troops any more, and figured out a way to make holes the size of cities, pretty much sealing humanity’s fate.  The last human stronghold, Jacinto, is under siege by the Locust hordes, and thus, humanity’s got to go blast up some Locust in order to keep the ground under their feet intact.  Meanwhile, Dom’s still looking for his wife Maria, and the Locusts have a whole host of new and horrible devices to rain death and misery on humanity.

You see that?  That’s a PLOT.  In fact, if the inevitable movie version–last I heard slated for 2010–is anywhere near as deep and as rich as that plot description I just put up was, then the movie’s going to be a downright WONDER.  There’s plenty of character development, good voice acting, and everything that’d make a good movie out of this game.

The only problem, however, is that it’s really not much of a game.  Seriously–you spend most of Gears of War 2 roadie running from one patch of cover to the next while occasionally blasting at Locust.  This is then broken up by some of that sweet, sweet plot.  How this thing won Best Xbox 360 Game at the Spike Video Game Awards AND at the Diehard GameFAN Awards when there were perfectly good copies of Fallout 3 hanging around is utterly, utterly beyond me.

Oh, sure…the gameplay is a whole different horse on multiplayer mode, with plenty of interesting modes to play including the new Horde Mode, in which you take on steadily expanding waves of Locust in a battle so big that “epic” sounds weak beside it. And of course there’s all the standards like Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, modes that are downright SOP (standing operating procedure, in case you don’t habla) for first person shooters these days.

There’s even plenty of downloadable content, with fresh maps and dashboard themes and for some reason a gold-plated Hammerburst rifle for use in multiplayer modes (and Oblivion took flack for horse armor?  Where’s the justice?).  A glitch-busting patch has also been released.

While I love the plot of Gears of War 2, I can’t help but feel let down by my involvement in it.  I mean, sure…my steady succession of run, duck, shoot, repeat is saving humanity from bloodthirsty monsters, but man, is it ever DULL.  I’m half tempted just to let the Locust have Sera and tell whoever’s left on the planet to just pack up for Earth already and nuke the site from orbit.

It’s the only way to be sure.

Talking to Total Video Games, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski discussed the absence of a PC version of Gears of War 2, citing piracy as one of their problems.

"Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons,” he explained. “Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy."

He elaborates on the matter, saying how anyone who is “savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software.”