Brutal fun. I've always preferred Gears to Halo, probably because I'm a psychopath who would rather eviscerate massive hunks of meat that bleed the color red. But the Gears series has always possessed a weight that I've appreciated. Magnetizing into cover always feels tactile and impactful, even when you didn't mean to. I even enjoyed the Berserker battles, which I imagine haven't aged well for most people. This came out a year after Resident Evil 4, so breaking up the stop n pop cover shooting with intense stealth battles was a logical evolution to the action horror formula. I look forward to replaying the rest of the series and see how Gears 2 shifts with the times. It released the same year as Dead Space, after all.