• This is part 8 of our complete Gears of War 2 game guide, featuring Act 4 No Turning Back.

  • No Turning Back

    1. It's time for a gondola ride. As you get out over the abyss, you'll be faced with reavers dive-bombing you.
    2. It's useless trying to hit the reavers when they're far away, so wait for them to get close and commit to an attack. You don't need to hit them particularly hard, but you do need to do a fair amount of damage as they close in on you.
    3. Avoid taking three hits to the gondola to survive. After clearing three reavers, a second gondola full of Locust will descend from the palace and attack you. Kill the drones, then hop aboard. Hit the switch on the wall.
    4. Shoot down two more reavers and you'll survive into the palace. Disembark and head inside. Take the spiral staircase when you come to it, but grab the ammo around the left side of it first.
    5. Collectible! Locust Calendar. Look for a sundial-type object to the left at the top of the stairs.
    6. Descend the stairs on the other side and you'll come upon a Locust patrol. Find their kantus and kill it first. There's a lever to raise cover just before the Locust position as well.
    7. TIP: On an offshoot path to the left of this fight is ammo and grenades.
    8. When the Locust are clear, grab some ammo and take the stairs to a lever. You can pick which path you want: the staircase or the lift. Both go to the same place, but the lift team has to help defend the staircase team so it can use the controls to keep the lift moving.
    9. Each level has gets tougher as you go down. The second level has a boomer, and the third a grinder. Clear out the third level and rejoin the squad a little further down the path.
    10. In the next room, use your elevated position to pick off the two boomers and kantus. When the bridge activates to the right, run down and across it to find a thin hallway. Inside is a lever that drops the Locust's cover.
    11. Collectible! Locust Defensive Plans. Look for an ammo box in the room with the lever. It's right next to it on the floor.
    12. Clean out the last of the Locust and descend into their area. After the cutscene, you'll need to find cover quickly to take on two grinders.
    13. Despite their power, in the bottleneck where they appear, you should be able to rout the grinders pretty fast. A drone will bust down a door behind you. Kill it and exit that way.
    14. You'll be on a staircase above Locust again. Use the better positioning to take out the kantus, then the flamer.
    15. Now descend and head left. A door will open, leading you into a tunnel. A lift rises, revealing a mess of Locust, including two maulers, two therons, and a kantus to keep everyone in the game.
    16. Kill either the kantus or the maulers first, whichever seem to pose a bigger threat. Keep good cover and try to knock them all out as fast as you can. As soon as you kill everything, the chapter ends.

  • The Best-Laid Plans

    1. Leave the lift and head toward the palace door. As you do, you're ambushed.
    2. Get behind cover and be careful not to step on the switch in the center of the ring. Doing so raises and lowers cover, so if yours goes down, step on it to raise it back.
    3. These bad guys are heavily armored Palace Guards, and they're tough. Try to hug the walls to keep them from getting a bead on you, then plaster them with fire until they go down.
    4. Eventually the ambush will end. Head back toward the lift and hang a right around the outside of the palace.
    5. Ahead are bloodmounts and some other enemies. These bloodmounts are tougher because they carry palace guard riders, equipped with Torque Bows. Keep your head down.
    6. TIP: The cover in this area is activated by standing on the yellow-tinted metal surrounding the slot that it rises out from. Keep this in mind when moving around or finding a place to dig in.
    7. More enemies arrive by lift just beyond this fight. Look for a foot switch to the right to activate cover, then lay into the kantus that's accompanying the palace guards. Kill it and mop up.
    8. Collectible! Locust Invasion Map. Go past the lift a little ways until you see another foot switch for cover. Just ahead of that should be a sealed door on the right. In front of the door is a piece of paper.
    9. If you want Torque Bow ammo, follow the path around the outside of the palace to find some. Otherwise, board the lift and head down.
    10. You'll enter the bloodmount stables. While it's tempting, don't bother to shoot the animals in the cages. Instead, proceed to the lever ahead to get a choice of paths.
    11. You'll soon be facing various kinds of boomers, including flamers and maulers. After that, a bloodmount with a palace guard rider shows up to join in.
    12. When you're done, you'll be reunited. Continue across the room to the exit.
    13. Collectible! Trinity of Worms. As you reach the outside, you'll see the staircase is on the far right. Do a 180 and head back up the stairs to the area where the grinder attacked your team from the window. Run all the way down that hall to the base of the stairs at the other end. Look a little to the left for an artifact shaped like a three-pointed pinwheel.
    14. You'll need to fight your way down the stairs. None of the palace guards you meet are particularly threatening, but be careful of the one-hit kill possibilities the guards armed with Torque Bows present.
    15. You'll fight something like 10 or 12 guards by the end of the stairs, plus tickers. At the bottom, the room opens up, with palace guards to the right and left, and a kantus to the left as well.
    16. The palace guard to the right has a Torque Bow, making him the most dangerous. If you have something strong like the Longshot, use it on him first.
    17. Next is the kantus. Bring him down to take away the living dead ability from your enemies.
    18. Kill the last of the guards and the chapter ends.

  • Royal Inquisition

    1. Grab all the ammo you can and head out. The mulcher is a good idea too, even though you'll be slowed.
    2. Collectible! Locust Tablets. Head out the very first door and turn left. Walk to the end of the room where the columns are. You'll find the collectible between the last two columns on the left side.
    3. Almost instantly you'll split up. You'll be on opposite sides of a huge room, with a gap between. You can support the other team some from your side, but mostly your hands will be full.
    4. Head down your hall expecting to face palace guards, tickers and maulers. The mulcher should squash them pretty easily.
    5. Nothing is too surprising along the way and before too long, you'll reunite. You'll also find a lift there.
    6. At the bottom, you'll fight palace guards in waves. Step up to the cover tiles so cover pops up for you and lay into your enemies. You're separated by an impassable gap, and the only way across is to finish all the guards.
    7. Look for the guard with the Torque Bow to kill first. After that, destroy the enemy at your leisure.
    8. Grab ammo and continue on. You'll come to another spot where you'll have cover. Move up to the best position for your style of fighting and kill the guards ahead to advance.
    9. For the third set of guards, you have to hit a foot switch to activate the cover, but it's all along the front and left sides. This means you have the opportunity to flank your enemies.
    10. The palace guards get reinforced here periodically by more of the same, so you'll be fighting something like 10 of them, all told. Move to better positions if you need to and avoid taking fire as much as possible.
    11. Just a little further is a trap. You'll fall on a section of the floor into an ambush.
    12. Clear out as many of the palace guards as you can, hiding behind whatever cover you can get; for example, the central pillar. When it's pretty safe to do so, go to the valve and start turning it. This will raise the lift out of the ambush and back into the great hall of the palace.
    13. TIP: You can win this battle regardless of how many enemies you defeat, so long as you raise the lift back out of the hole.
    14. Gather ammo from the crates here. They respawn, so get totally full. Then advance on the throne room. When you do, you'll receive the Have Fun Storming the Castle Achievement.

  • Boss Fight: Skorge

    1. At the outset of the fight, Skorge comes at you with that chainsaw staff of his. Rapidly hit B to beat him with the saw and escape death.
    2. Most of this fight is survival. When Skorge jumps away, he'll summon tickers to go after you and flood you with ink grenades, plus blast at you with his Gorgon pistol. Grab cover and keep moving to dodge the grenades, then thin out the tickers.
    3. Next Skorge will drop stalactites on you from the ceiling. Look for the dust falling, which indicates exactly where the rock will fall.
    4. As Skorge chucks more ink grenades at you, he'll cut down one of the massive columns in the room. Make no mistake: This falls on you wherever you go. You have to Roadie Run to the clearest area of the room to avoid it. Just book to open ground as fast as possible.
    5. Skorge will come after you with the saws again. Pound the B Button to win the fight. This is the only way to damage him.
    6. If your cover is down, run over the center button to restore it. Watch for stalactites, then get down.
    7. He'll repeat his process of attacks a third time. First you'll get tickers and cover, next stalactites and grenades, then a big column crashing down on you. Dodge all three.
    8. Skorge will come at you with his one remaining saw. Catch it and win the battle with B to defeat him.
    9. Leave the throne room via the front where you'll link up with Baird and Cole.
    10. Roadie Run across the bridge as it extends. You'll be under fire the whole way, but don't worry about it. Just lower your head and run to the end.
    11. Next you'll be riding on a reaver. The rocket cannon is extremely powerful, so just use it to thrash everything in your way. You also have the ability to dodge to the sides with the Left Analog Stick in case things get dicey.
    12. After flying a while, you'll land to support some Gears. Blast everything until a brumak appears to your left. The strategy is the same; in order to survive, hit the brumak with everything you have as fast as you can.

  • Boss Fight: The Hydra

    1. You're facing backward now as you fly through the tunnels, and Skorge's huge reaver ride, the Hydra, is after you.
    2. When the Hydra first appears, it will be blasting you with a huge turret on its back. Concentrate your fire there.
    3. TIP: In almost all cases in this fight, small bursts of fire are better than long sustained fire. That's because the troika will overheat, and there is almost no point in this fight that you can afford to be defenseless.
    4. When you've cut the turret down, the monster will just try to eat you. Shoot the glowing orange bump on its tongue to knock it back.
    5. You'll have to take down rocket fire next. The monster fires a ring of rockets at you, plus one in the center. Of all of them, the center rocket is the only one that can hit you at all. Try to knock it out with quick bursts of fire.
    6. This first time you'll only deal with four or so rocket volleys, so even if you miss all of them, you should survive. The Hydra then returns with the turret again.
    7. Kill the turret fast and shoot down any rockets that come your way. Make sure to use burst fire here, as the Hydra's attacks come faster and faster toward the end.
    8. Blast the monster in the mouth and get ready for a sustained rocket attack. You'll face volley after volley as you near the end of this fight. Knock as many center shots down as you can.
    9. Just after all those rocket attacks, the turret will appear again. Dump everything you have into taking the turret out here, as this is about the end but the thing will lay into you, especially in your weakened state.
    10. Killing the turret allows you to escape and ends the act.

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