Introduction

You may have won the first battle, but the war's just heatin' up. It's called escalation; you up the force to defeat your enemy and the enemy retaliates by one-upping you. With this war going on for years, you can imagine that $#!& is pretty hairy these days.

It'll take strategy and cunning to overcome the locust horde, so we've developed this hardcore guide to help you out. With over 40 hidden collectibles to find and countless headshots aching to be made, the classified intel contained in this guide will prove invaluable to green rookies and veteran cogs alike.

In this Gears of War 2 strategy guide, you'll find:

• BASICS // Basic gameplay strategy explained, with tips for slaying the locust swarms.
• WALKTHROUGH // Our Gears of War 2 walkthrough tailored for hardcore difficulty, packed with tactical suggestions and the locations of hidden collectibles and ammo stashes.
• MULTIPLAYER // Multiplayer tips, with map-specific strategies.
• SECRETS // A collectibles cheat sheet plus info on unlocking hidden characters.

Guide by: Mark Ryan Sallee
Multiplayer by: Samuel Claiborn