Gears of War 2

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

Gametrailers put some new videos

Gridlock Flythrough
Day One Flythrough
Security Flythrough
River Flythrough
Multiplayer Gameplay


The weapon sound effects have been beefed up a lot. Again, I love the added tracer effect to bullets.

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

The new mode Horde will be detailed tonight.

New Gears of War site launches.

...

Walkthrough and trailer from the Microsoft conference.

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New Screens and Artwork

[in mid air]

Re: Gears of War 2

That last picture is f'n AWSOME!

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

E3 2008: Gears of War 2 Horde Hands-on
Wave goodbye to your free time.

It's called Horde and it allows for five human players to link up and do battle against wave after wave of AI-controlled enemies. I played it, it's awesome and it's going to ruin what little social life I have left.

Not only did Epic take the veil off a brand new mode, but we also got to play on two new maps with new weapons and some fantastic enemies that change the Gears experience ever so slightly.

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

TeamXbox Hands-On with Horde

Because you see, the new co-operative mode being built into Gears of War 2 – appropriately titled “Horde” for reasons that are about to become clear – was far and away our favorite thing we played that day. And most of the other editors from various websites who were there, including our kissin’ cousins at IGN and Gamespy, agreed with us. If Microsoft wouldn’t have stopped us, I might still be there playing it.

In Bleszinki’s own words, Horde is their attempt to recreate the gameplay of Geometry Wars or Smash TV in the Gears universe. Taking place on any of the multiplayer maps available in Gears 2, Horde puts you and your team in the middle of an oncoming horde or enemies, spawning from every corner of the map. You must kill all of the enemies before they kill all of you to win the round. Only one person on your team needs to survive to keep the game going, any one else that did get killed will get respawned at the beginning of the round.

There are fifty rounds total, each one more difficult than the last, not just in number of enemies, but types as well. This was where we got to see some of the new enemies that will be included in Gears of War 2. One of them is called the Ticker and is sort of like the Locust version of the improvised explosive device. This little lizard-like creature has big beaver-like teeth that click maniacally. The closer they get to you (and the closer they get to exploding) the faster they click, giving you some indication as to how much time you have before boom time. They won’t pop immediately when they find you, giving you a brief opportunity to melee them and knock them on their backs a few feet away. At this point they’re like an exploding barrel if you shoot them, giving you an extra weapon to use on incoming enemies, or even close emergence holes.

The later rounds of Horde mode start introducing new varieties of Boomers. One of the best of these we saw was called the Mauler, and he swung a big exploding flail above his head like a volatile mace. You’re going to want to take this guy out before he gets anywhere near you and your buddies. But they’re not the only gargantuan things you’ll have to face in this mode. Locust will also bring vehicles in to harass you, including the flying Reavers who can land and walk around on their long tendrils and some thing called Blood Mounts, which are large lizards being ridden by Locust soldiers. Even if you pop the rider, the Blood Mount will still come after you and vice versa.

Horde mode supports up to five players, but if only two of your friends want to play with you, you won’t be able to fill out the team with bots. What’s that? Bots? Yes, Gears of War 2 multiplayer will feature bots. Not much information is available on that at the moment, but if you consider how good the bot A.I. in Epic’s other series Unreal Tournament is, then you can probably assume they’ll put the same time and effort into making Gears 2’s bots just as life-like.

Horde was an absolute blast to play, and we predict it will be hugely popular when the game ships later this year. Even though there are fifty rounds, at the time we played it the testers hadn’t made it past round twenty-six according to Bleszinski. So those who beat the mode should be part of a pretty exclusive club. That’s what we like in our games: insurmountable challenges that we can’t stop trying to surmount. So, Gears of War 2 multiplayer is looking great. Can we please play some single player now?

[Blaxican8504]

Re: Gears of War 2

Oh man...that is just insane! I can't wait!

[mizzta21]

Re: Gears of War 2

TeamXbox Hands-On with Horde

i didnt read the article but can someone tell me quickly ifyou can play this mode alone?

[in mid air]

Re: Gears of War 2

Gear's 2 Horde Mode Will Have 50 Waves of Death

During a sit down session with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, MTV Multiplayer confirmed that the game's new five player cooperative Horde mode will include exactly 50 different waves of Locust enemies, each getting progressively more difficult. Seeing that the difficulty curve in later waves gets noticeably more challenging, you'll be able to "bookmark" your Horde mode progress every five waves. But just exactly how difficult does it get? When the lead designer of the game admits that he can only reach wave 27 then you know things get really impossible and really intense

Sweet. Sounds like its gonna get INTENSE! LOL

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2 Limited Edition ($69)

• "Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2," a 48-page hardbound book including character profiles, exclusive concept art, and foreword by Design Director Cliff Bleszinski
• Bonus DVD including exclusive making-of-the-game video footage, design galleries with audio commentary by Epic Games, and promotional videos including the E3 2008 trailer, "Rendezvous"
• Dominic and Maria Keepsake Photo
• SteelBook™ DVD case
• Exclusive Xbox LIVE code to unlock a gold-plated Lancer Assault Rifle for online play

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

Interview with Josh Ortega

IGN: Speaking of seeing potential in an unformed universe, with the characters did you see specific character archetype characters and places you could go with them?

Josh: Yeah, right away there was stuff with the arc of the story that me and Cliff and Rod (Ferguson) as well were all on. We had to fight for a few story points but I think they're going to be things that are new for people. Stuff that people haven't quite experienced, at least not from a third-person videogame. Maybe in other media, but yeah, it was really one of these things where there's a wealth of possibilities and with all the characters and the templates that they set up with the first one. Credit to everyone who worked on the first game for setting up a lot.

Some people say it's a bad story, it's not a bad story, it's a sparse story. Not everything made it in, not really the fault of everyone else, but what made it in was definitely memorable. Like I always say, Gears every once in awhile will get that criticism and I just have to say hey, what was it the third Lord of the Rings that was top at the box-office and one every damn award? And that's what Gears did, it was the top-selling title and it won all the awards. It's kinda hard to criticism a game at that point. You could nitpick but it did its job; it set the universe. I think it's better to be sparse than to say too much and do something stupid which I think they avoided. That gave me a wealth of possibilities to work with.

IGN: Speaking of the wealth of possibilities. You've worked on Spider-Man, Batman, Star Wars, some obviously recognizable franchises. Those characters are pretty set so you have to follow a path. Do you follow that more where the character is already set for you or do you prefer having a shell of a character that you can build from?

Josh: I think it's all interesting. It's like working with a puzzle. With characters you always find ways to fit your piece in to this grand puzzle because they're never really completed. The puzzle's always kind of being created so you put pieces in. It's like a giant mosaic kind of and it expands all the time so there's thing like with the Spidey story.

It was the first comic I published, not the first I ever wrote or got paid for, but it was the first one that was published. The story for that came about with MJ at a photo shoot in San Francisco and Spider-Man hearing an earthquake and the main thing that inspired that was that I had never seen Spidey on the Golden Gate Bridge. Let's take Spider-Man out of New York for an issue.

So there's always space, if you do your research, research is the key to good writing, I'm a firm believer in that. I think it's the same thing with something like Gears. There's stuff there that you have to research and it's like you were saying, it's pretty much an open world and there's so much to explore and create and shape, you know, which is a lot of fun.

IGN: You mentioned earlier about having to fight to get story points in the game. Was that a fight with Microsoft that stuff might have been too dark or what?

Josh: I think it was more in general. There were folks at Epic too. We said, well that's pretty intense and this and that but you know, right away it was more discussion. We never got to the fighting point. Microsoft, Epic, you know, everyone was very cool and they got it pretty quick. Once I was on board and I was pushing for things and me and Cliff and Rod were on the same page. Once that all clicked I think that was the magic thing where people just started going off. People just started saying, "Let these guys go. They seem to have some magic rolling, just let them do their thing." Credit to Microsoft and to Epic, Mike Capps and Mark Rein and everyone, they let us do our thing. I think we're going to show you guys a story that's going to shock and surprise people.

I mean, yea, I can't talk about it. We'll have some great interviews later in the year where we'll get to the nitty gritty of it all but it's going to get to some stuff that's going to be really surprising.

IGN: Man, that's great. I don't know what else to say except I just want to experience it.

Josh: I know. I'm happy because I've never seen this from a game and there were a couple things that I pushed for right away. I was like, that's it, we gotta do that, we gotta do that. And I just pushed for it. And again, credit to Microsoft and to Epic because everyone said, "We're doing it, we're pushing the medium, that's creative vision." For third-person, again I know, first-person is its own thing. Half-Life and BioShock can do things that we can't do in a third-person game but there are things in our game that first-person games can't do.

[frostbyte06]

Re: Gears of War 2

i didnt read the article but can someone tell me quickly ifyou can play this mode alone?

It just said "supports up to five players", so my guess is yes, but you wouldn't make it that far before you get overwhelmed playing solo.

[ostheman]

Re: Gears of War 2

Wonder how the story mode is gonna be?

Gears Of War:
Very Long,Bunch of Bosses

Gears Of War 2:
Wondering, VERY long story, So many Bosses
----------------------------------------------
LMAO

[Spectre]

Re: Gears of War 2

Getting Josh Ortega on board was a very good move

This game is going to be awesome

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

I was listening to a podcast with somebody from 1UP that got to play Horde up at Microsoft. He and others were only able to get to wave 15, which took them 45 minutes to reach from the first wave. At that point, he said there was like 40-50 Locusts on screen and they were coming from every direction. These were several different types of Locusts too. He mentioned Reavers (from the end of Gears 1) actually land and walk around on their tentacles. They can grab you and throw you. He said one of the waves prior had a some Locusts and 5 Berserkers running around wrecking everything. He also said don't expect 50 waves to be the final number, as Cliff said they would be doubling the highest wave number that they can reach internally.

[in mid air]

Re: Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2 Features "Backwards Compatible" Linked Achievements

Cliff Bleszinski presented Gears of War 2 to Comic-Con attendees today, walking fans through the Sinkhole level shown last week at E3. While that gameplay session may be old news to Gears fans, Dude Huge had two new announcements for the crowd.
T
he first was that Steve Jablonsky, composer on films like Transformers and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, was working on the score for Gears of War 2. Jablonsky was said to have been at Skywalker Studios working on the final mix of the soundtrack.

Even more interesting was the announcement that Gears of War 2 would feature "linked Achievements." In short, goals reached in the original Gears of War will carry over to the sequel, giving the player bonuses. Cliff listed three examples of how linked Achievements will work.

Keep in mind, some may be light spoilers.

- Complete Act One in Gears Of War, unlock a playable Anthony Carmine in Gears of War 2

- Find 10 COG tags in Gears Of War, unlock Minh Young Kim in Gears of War 2

- Kill Raam in Gears Of War, unlock a playable Raam in Gears of War 2

Bleszinski didn't expand much beyond those three linked Achievements, nor did he mention if those unlockables would be limited to either single-player or multiplayer portions of Gears 2. We're currently sitting in on the Xbox 360 creators panel hanging on Bleszinski's every word