Gears of War 2: Dark Corners

Some things should stay buried. Kikizo leaves no dark corner unexplored as we tackle the latest Gears of War 2 DLC.

	Version 360	Developer Epic Games	Publisher Microsoft	Genre FPS

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Except if you're playing the chapter solo you don't even have to worry about that. All you need do is follow your AI acquaintance, who will scuttle unerringly through the fortress defences, seeking shelter at all the right moments, hissing orders like an overworked tour guide. Which leaves players with only the illustrious task of pulling levers to open doors.

It's all over in roughly half-an-hour on Hardcore difficulty, providing you do what you're told. Then you run into an old buddy, the Locust abruptly get wise, and you start playing Gears of War 2 again, basically.

Were this the entirety of the Dark Corners pack we'd be warming up a 4/10. But don't worry, Uncle Cliffy has something else in his sack: seven multiplayer maps. Of these seven, one is a remake of the original Gears map War Machine, an underground rail station with a wide balcony at one end, swimming in sand bags. The rest, however, are brand new.

Sanctuary, a small level set around and within a gutted COG temple, is an immediate favourite. Each team spawns in a graveyard to either end of the ruptured building, and clear shots through the interior are easy to find from the cover points just outside the doors. There are two routes round the exterior of the building, one lower and vulnerable, the other higher and easy to defend. Tombstones and grey-green mist lend everything a touch of Tales of the Crypt.

Those who like a good, clean fight will probably enjoy the space and symmetry of Allfathers Garden, a grand, level map with no major chokepoints. Memorial is firmly the opposite: teams spawn in alleys to either side of the Sacred Flame, a COG shrine surrounded by heavy weapon drops, prompting an immediate bloodbath. The Flame sits below a deep two-storey domed building, accessed by ground floor doors and stairwells which double as sniper's nests.

Highway feels like a Locust tribute to Escher, with its arching paths and tunnels, but is actually quite easy to navigate: weapon drops jut out unmissably on either flank. A channel of molten toxic Immulsion runs down the centre of the rectangular Way Station map, dividing the warring parties till somebody bridges the obstacle by hitting an underground switch, or by crossing the second storey gallery at the top of the map.

Very much the odd one out is Nowhere, a huddled desert township which seems to have been ripped brick by brick from a Garrison Keillor novel, all dessicated fuel pumps, motel signs and dusty counters. It's a simple enough medium-sized map, players trading fire across the main street and competing for ownership of the heavy weapon drop on one roof, but the dust clouds that periodically kill your visibility are a delightful wild card.

So on balance, is Dark Corners worth the 10 quid (ish) or 15 dollars Microsoft's asking for it? If you're a clan patriarch, hungry for the next theatre of war, the answer's probably yes, but that restored campaign chapter leaves a very unpleasant taste in the mouth. Here's hoping Epic is a mite more selective next time it goes rooting around on the cutting floor.

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