A while back I reviewed a game called UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE, a PS3 exclusive that in my humble opinion sounded the death knell for the action movie as we know it. It did such a beautiful job of combining story and immersive game play that blockbuster action entertainment ala DIE HARD or INDIANA JONES paled in comparison. I've been playing action games and watching action movies my entire life, but this was the first time a game seriously had me wondering why I even bothered watching action films. Why just sit there whiling away the time, wondering how long this car chase or that fire fight was going to last, when I could load up a game and control the action? Why fade out, waiting for the characters to reengage me in a meaningful way, when I could actively control the action, thrill to mindless action and then reconnect with story and emotion after I've made it out of harm's way? The game was that good, the technology and structure and story and emotional involvement finally reaching a point where it was better than any movie could possibly hope to be.

As a lifelong gamer it's been a long time coming. For years and years game developers have promised as much, but depth and tension are completely different animals. Timing a button press - mastering tension - and warming inside when you beat a particular tricky section of a game is not the same thing as feeling something real, something deep and passionate and emotional for a pixilated sprite. At long last, a recent spate of games has actually begun to deliver on the promise of cinematic resonance. Exceptional games like UNCHARTED, the GOD of WAR series, and the original GEARS of WAR have come along and killed the modern action movie.

RIP Arnold. RIP Sylvester. RIP Willis and Diesel and Statham.

Granted, non-gamers will balk.

If you don't play video games there is a pretty steep learning curve and even though I've just officially declared them dead, I know the action movie isn't going anywhere. The non-gaming community still needs their adrenaline crunch, but man oh man, I feel for the action junkie unacquainted with a gamepad. You, my friend, are missing out. In a perfect world, a world where everyone, young and old, felt comfortable manipulating the sticks, a world where everyone understood the basics of level design, we'd stop getting these stupid action films and start getting more of these incredible games.

In this brave, new world, in my dead stare, jittery thumbs world of leveling up and getting down, a little game about treasure hunting, pirates, and Sir Francis Drake's lost fortune (UNCHARTED), heralded in a new age of action and adventure, assassinating the big-budget Hollywood action picture as we know it. Now, enter GEARS of WAR 2, Epic Games' mega-sequel, to blow its bloated corpse to wet, smacky gobs of gristle and grue.

Everything about GEARS of WAR 2 screams, "Spectacle!" It is bigger and better and bolder than its wildly popular predecessor. A wild ride from start to finish, and a paean to American patriotism and honor to boot, it's the type of experience that should have the Michael Bays and Jerry Bruckheimers of the world sweating bullets (not dreaming up ways in which to rip off ideas). When done wrong, action sequels can stink to high heaven (SPEED 2, anyone?), but when done right (EMPIRE, GODFATHER II) they have the power to transcend the original. So it goes with GEARS 2. Epic Games took all that was great about the original GEARS and turned the volume up to eleven. It's louder and bloodier and longer and in the end, gobs more satisfying.

In the world of GEARS, humanity has been at war with an alien race called the Locust Horde for the past twenty years. Countless lives have been lost, entire cities decimated, the world (the action take place on a fictional planet) reduced to a ravaged warzone. The Gears (the united armed forces), humanities only line of defense, have been fighting the good fight in a seemingly endless struggle for dominance. It's all pretty standard, sci-fi space opera stuff, but what separates GEARS from the thousands upon thousands of other humanity vs. alien scenarios is that the Locust Horde come from within the planet, not outer space. The filthy "Grubs" burrow up through the surface via Emergence Holes , attempting to destroy humanity from the inside out, sinking cities, surprising armies and making life a paranoid hell with their white, white skin and freaky, freaky reptilian / worminess.

The sci-fi plot is cool, The Locust scary, the graphics beautiful, the action fairly standard - you play Marcus Fenix, a bad ass GEAR that shoots, chin checks and chainsaws his way through Grubs like nobody's business, but a game is as only as good as its game play and the GEARS of WAR series delivers in spades. Both titles revel in intense firefights and incredible action sequences. When the original game came out, it redefined and set the bar for third-person action shooters. Since, its simple, effective, run and gun cover system has been imitated and appropriated ad nauseam. GEARS still does it the best. Battles are INTENSE and extremely satisfying. Nothing beats lining up a shot (a tricky thing to do with the world warring around you) and blowing a Grub's head to meaty bits with a torque bow (a futuro-crossbow thing that fires exploding arrows).

The original GEARS was content running Marcus from firefight to firefight. Which was fine, these battles are the meat and potatoes of the game after all and they never get old - the AI is sharp, the cover system precise and the gunplay uber-thrilling. GEARS 2 is riddled with plenty of these signature battles, but it steps things up considerably, adding in a few fresh teaks. There are drivable vehicles (animal and machine) and a few environmental puzzles and the ability to play through the whole game with a friend in co-op mode. Some new weapons are introduced and the tense narrative whisks you along from an armored convoy to the requisite abandoned factory to the Grub's underground dwellings. I am not a Spoiler kind of guy, so that's about all I can say, but rest assured, there are some HUGE moments in terms of game play and narrative that will blow you away.

I can't talk about GEARS without mentioning multiplayer. I don't spend much time on XBOX Live (I get my ass kicked again and again), but GEARS 2 is THE GAME for online action.

The game isn't without its faults, though they are almost too few to mention. Maybe a little more variety in the color palette? GEARS 2 is graphically gorgeous, but it is saturated in browns and grays and blacks. Also, I hope GEARS 3 (it's inevitable) jettisons the rail sequences. To the uninitiated, a rail sequence usually plops the player onto a moving object (in this case a rolling drilling derrick or a- almost got me! No spoilers!) that dutifully follows a prescribed path, and then has the character (in GEARS' case) defend the object. Kind of like a mobile shooting gallery. The sequences are usually boring or frustrating. What else? Sentimentality?

In the press junkets leading up to the game's release, GEARS' lead designer, geek turned mega-rich-rockstar-god, Cliffy B, continually hyped GEARS 2 as an emotionally rich experience. He stressed how much more time went into the story and that this time around he wanted gamers to actually connect with characters and feel their plight. He even asked that the game press stop calling him Cliffy B and start using his formal name, Cliff Bleszinski. Apparently, GEARS was growing up. Well, the promised emotional content is definitely there. Dom, Marcus' ever present sidekick, is questing for his long lost wife and a huge emphasis is placed on the fact that a great many soldiers have lost their lives during the war, but in the end it's still more Cliffy B than Mr. Bleszinski. Not that this is a bad thing. As much as it wants to be poignant, GEARS of WAR isn't really about emotional arcs or compelling drama, it's about killing aliens with chainsaws and blowing shit up. Nobody does it better. Thankfully Epic (and even Mr. Bleszinski) understands this and the emotional content rounds things, making the game feel fuller, but it never outshines the ass kicking.

This is exactly why GEARS OF WAR 2 is a zillion times better than any action movie. You don't watch DIE HARD waiting for Bruce Willis to cry or emote. You get a little, it makes you care about John McClane enough to root for him, but then you thrill to the action sequences (until they drag on into boring, obnoxious, expensive noise). Same for GEARS - you get a little emotional content, but then it's on to the ass kicking, except the ass kicking never becomes boring or never delves into nothing but flashy noise because you are the director. If it's boring it's your fault.

So then, gamers, go buy GEARS OF WAR 2 and bask in the endorphin overload.

Action aficionados, take note - get a game system, learn, practice, once you've played through a few titles the controls (as daunting as they seem at first) become second nature and the games become FUN (the frustration evaporates completely - well, almost). Do it now! Today! The future is here! The epithets have been chiseled! Pick up the sticks and give 'em hell!