Gears of War 2

[Cyros]

Re: Gears of War 2

See, I also really enjoyed the MP too. Me and one of the people on my hallway played the hell out of it.

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Gears of War 2

I hated multiplayer too but loved the SP campaign, despite the storyline holes. That game was just flat out fun to play and challenging as hell. I stunk at the multiplayer too, so that may have played into it

I think the Unreal3 engine is going to have a huge impact on this game. I think I read in the article that they'll utilize some of the advantages offered by U3 to spice up multiplayer, which would be awesome.

I really enjoyed GOW, and I am ultra excited for GOW2. The SP campaign was great and playing through it in co-op was fun.

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

4/9 - Video Games Weekly

Charch is once again joined by Andy McNamara and Nick Ahrens to discuss Gears of War 2 and other big time games.

Talk about the GI Gears 2 cover story starts about 19:30. They don't talk to much about it for obvious reasons, but they sounded super excited about what they saw.

• Graphics have gone to nutso level. Color palette isn't as washed out as the first game. The games looks like a matte painting from a movie.
  
• A lot of the game will take place underground. A underground level they saw had all this bio-luminescent plant life that animated.
  
• More weather effects. Snow was mentioned. Gibs on the snow!
  
• The derricks have these mine capsules that hold 2 guys. You kind of paratroop into the ground. So, this derrick goes out and picks up what looks like bullets with grinders on the end, and then shoots you into the ground. That's how you get around in the world and go to these different missions. These derricks are 3 stories tall.
  
• Epic is doing a lot to make the story better.
  
• The team at Epic is very committed to making Gears 2 multiplayer fantastic. Some of the things they heard over some cocktails are very very exciting.

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Gears of War 2

4/9 - Video Games Weekly



Talk about the GI Gears 2 cover story starts about 19:30. They don't talk to much about it for obvious reasons, but they sounded super excited about what they saw.

• Graphics have gone to nutso level. Color palette isn't as washed out as the first game. The games looks like a matte painting from a movie.
  
• A lot of the game will take place underground. A underground level they saw had all this bio-luminescent plant life that animated.
  
• More weather effects. Snow was mentioned. Gibs on the snow!
  
• The derricks have these mine capsules that hold 2 guys. You kind of paratroop into the ground. So, this derrick goes out and picks up what looks like bullets with grinders on the end, and then shoots you into the ground. That's how you get around in the world and go to these different missions. These derricks are 3 stories tall.
  
• Epic is doing a lot to make the story better.
  
• The team at Epic is very committed to making Gears 2 multiplayer fantastic. Some of the things they heard over some cocktails are very very exciting.

*faints*

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Gears of War 2

[Spectre]

Re: Gears of War 2

This game looks absolutely gorgeous- they weren't kidding when they said the visuals would be among the best we'd see in consoles.

That character looks awesome

[sportsdude]

Re: Gears of War 2

wow I cannot wait. GOW has the best art/atmosphere in a shooter I've ever seen.

[jmood88]

Re: Gears of War 2

I really hope that there's more color and not so much darkness and washed out colors. Those two environment pictures look great.

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

NYCC '08: Talking Gears 2 and So Much More

IGN: A magazine article is quoted as saying, "the gameplay of Gears 2 will appear mostly familiar to fans." Some are feeling like that might be a bad thing. I mean, people need evolution to a sequel.

Capps: Wow. Yeah, I don't think there will be any concerns with that. If you played Gears you'll hop right in and have fun with it, then you'll realize that everything is a little tighter and a little better and that there's a lot of new game mechanics. You know the new active reload, you can play the whole game through and have no idea it's there. And in fact, there were people in the first game who played through the game without ever knowing about that. They just went straight to the combat, skipped training, never read the manual. There's a lot of stuff like that where there's cool gameplay mechanics that you can skip and not worry about.

The basic core of get behind cover, pop over and shoot dudes is what Gears is all about, right? The whole way we built Gears 2 was this whole bigger better more badass process. We took every system, like chainsaws. How do we make it bigger than before? How do we make it better? How do we make something that takes it over the top from last time? We went through all our gameplay systems that way. I don't think anyone is going to be disappointed. We showed the chainsaw dueling, there's a lot of new mechanics that I think a lot of people are going to trip out on.

IGN: It seems like right now you guys are focusing on… you revealed the tech at GDC – Unreal Engine 3.5 or whatever you guys call it – then the character reveals. When are going to see some gameplay?

Capps: Multiplayer is next. All of the gameplay mechanics, related to shooting stuff, appears in multiplayer gameplay. We just did a bunch of multiplayer playests this week with some print media and that should hit in a month or so. We've still got new weapons that will be introduced, new characters, and still new mechanics. That's what's next.

IGN: Okay, I know this is going to be tough. Say you're no longer the president of Epic. You are a 25-year old Gears fanboy desperately awaiting the sequel. What does Gears 2 have to do for you – not being the president of Epic – to clear the bar?

Capps: Gotcha. Well you know, that's sorta my job. I'm not on the team, I'm the executive producer of the team. I do a lot of the step back and say, "People are going to be disappointed unless we have this." One of the big ones, and I think we talked about it during the first reveal, is this doesn't feel like a war, it feels like a four man incursion behind enemy lines. With Gears 1. It's supposed to be all of humanity fighting. One thing that I really wanted to see was big scale combat. I want to see D-Day against the Locust. It's called the ****ing Horde. Where was the Horde? You saw that in the GDC Tech Demo, obviously that's the direction we're going.

The reason the encounters are so small and there were so few characters is because our characters are super detailed and we didn't want you doing the run at 30 miles per hour, shooting snipers across the map like in UT (Unreal Tournamet). We wanted to bring them up close. That's why it takes three clips to take down a Locust it's because we want them marching right at your face and super high detailed characters aren't a good fit when there's 50 of them. We've got some tech that's making that **** work now. That's a big one for me.

For a hardcore Gears fan, I think there were a lot of folks who wished there was more backstory and knew more about what was going on. We did a lot of allusion to it, but that was the primary. Get the game, make it fun as ****. Gears 2 we've spent a lot more on [the story]. We've got a full-time writer throughout the entire project. We went through Gears 1 and said, "What are the pieces that, you know, like Dom's looking for someone, what is that about?" Then bring that into Gears 2 and make our plot a lot more emotional. I hope it works with fans because we know we have a shooter audience that's not really looking for character story and background always. I'm hoping we can make them happy that it has more depth to it. Our voice actors were crying in the studio while recording the lines. I mean, there's some real depth to it. I hope it works.

IGN: Again, with the new tech behind the Locust and whatnot. The GDC Demo showed a lot on screen.

Capps: Yeah, it was hundreds.

IGN: Yeah, I don't think people expect to actually be in the game. How many do you think, realistically with fully realized AI and everything going on in the game world, how many do you think we'll actually see on screen?

Capps: I think it'll look similar in scope to what you saw at GDC.

IGN: Really? When I see it and I'm playing the game I'm gonna look at you! (laughter)

Capps: Well right now it is, dude. We're five months from shipping, or seven months from shipping but right now that's exactly what we're aiming for. It's kind of how we work. The artists come up with something that makes everyone say, "There's no way we'll ever ship that, are you ****ing crazy?" And then the engine team does its best to catch up and we meet somewhere in the middle. But yeah, it's not gonna be "ha ha, it's just ten dudes" it's going to be way over the top.

IGN: How far along is the game right now? 50 percent? 60 percent? Alpha, Beta? Pre?

Capps: Ah, we don't do percentages, but we're pre-alpha for sure. We're a lot further along than we were with Gears 1 at this time frame. Gears 1 was kind of a miracle that we shipped it when we did. Our guys crunched like crazy and all sort of came together at the last minute. If you've seen the documentary that we did on Gears, we were gonna cut multiplayer the week before E3 because it was so ****ed up. We put it together and it was great. This one, I feel a lot better about it, I think is the right way to say it. We'll make it on time.

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

Kotaku

Capps admitted that while the original Gears received acclaim for its characters, the story was "disappointing," in that the game was built largely around its environment, not its plot.

So while Ortega might have his work cut out for him in Gears 2, this time around, the Epic team says it plans to address some fan questions on the Gears backstory — and the stuff that doesn't make it into the game will be fleshed out in the comic books. Expect Gears 2 to present a much more in-your-face portrayal of war, too. Capps says he told the designers, "I want D-Day," and less the spying and infiltration feel he felt the previous installment had.

For Ortega, this presents an interesting opportunity to look at the smaller dramas that often go on during the larger conflict of humans at war. Dom's wife Maria will apparently play a significant role; while Capps joked that this was because the Gears franchise didn't have enough hot chicks, Ortega pointed out the added significance that human emotional relationships can take on in wartime.

Even the Locust horde may see a somewhat more complex treatment this time, possibly even a sympathetic one. The original Gears of War ended with a surprisingly erudite female voice — the Locust Queen, promising her forces would fight on. Why, an audience member asked, give her that elegant British accent? "Because British accents mean you're smart," Capps teased. But more sincerely, the team confirmed that adding a shade of complexity, some facets of humanity to the series' villains, as Halo 3 did with the Covenant, was part of their strategy to give Gears 2's story more depth. "A bad guy can't just be 'roooar, destroy world, evil,'" said Capps.

I like that.

What's in store for fan favorite Cole Train? An audience member wanted to make sure that Cole would be back for the second game. Capps promised that he would. "You can't get rid of Cole Train!" He explained, and then added — jokingly? "At least not until halfway through." Capps did like to joke a lot during the presentation, but perhaps ominously, Ortega added, "No one's safe in Gears."

"We've got a nice arc for Marcus. Dom has a great arc in this one, too. It's going to really be fun to see people's reaction to Dom and this expansion on his story. I think that he and Marcus will be on a very equal plain by the end, where you know a lot about both of them. And we've got a lot of really fun twists in store — and there's gonna be some pretty heavy, emotional stuff."

What themes and conflicts can we expect? "Certainly the big thing is going with the last stand of humanity, and looking at [this] example of a totally collapsed society... a war over limited energy sources, and now [humanity is] at the brink of extinction, fighting their greatest enemy ever. The whole beginning of the game is like the D-Day invasion; it's their last chance."

Continued Ortega, "We wanted it to be really emotionally resonant, and part of the reason for bringing Maria, Dom's wife, into the story is that I think it's really powerful in an epic when you also have a micro-level, personal connection. So you get the big story, but then you have this emotional center to connect back to so it's not just all big stuff, nameless people. When you have someone who's actually been affected, they have a name, they're a character... I think that's big. So I'd say we're really going for strong storytelling, and definitely with surprises. We'll never be able to talk about them until after the game's out, but I think people are really going to be pleasantly — or frighteningly — surprised!"

[Flawless]

Re: Gears of War 2

Gears 2 Gameplay Footage Hits May 9

For a few weeks I’ve been hinting about a major GTTV announcement. Well the time has come to share it with you. On Friday May 9th we will be globally unveiling the gameplay of a little game called Gears of War 2. This is the first time anyone in the world will see Gears 2 in motion. Of course we’re doing it in high-definition and only on Spike!

Epic and Microsoft Game Studios have kept a tight lid on what is easily one of 2008’s most anticipate games, so we’re beyond thrilled to be working with them for this exclusive reveal. Believe me when I say that this will be a very substantive look at Gears 2 in action. Cliff Bleszinski will be personally introducing the footage and I know you are going to be blown away by what you see!

Geoff

[RoyalBoyle78]

Re: Gears of War 2

As I am a only a PS3 owner and have been for quite some time now, I will say this will be the only game I miss..

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Gears of War 2

^^ lol what happened? Gave up on the falcon?



<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="267" data="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=926034&amp;server=www.vimeo. com&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byl ine=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color="> <param name="quality" value="best" /> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="scale" value="showAll" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=926034&amp;server=www.vimeo. com&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byl ine=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=" /></object><br /><a href="http://www.vimeo.com/926034/l:embed_926034">Gears of War 2 panel at New York Comic Con</a> from <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/user376435/l:embed_926034">Andrew Yoon</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/l:embed_926034">Vimeo</a>.

[jmood88]

Re: Gears of War 2

As I am a only a PS3 owner and have been for quite some time now, I will say this will be the only game I miss..

Why do you keep trading consoles in? It would be alot easier if you would just keep them both and play them whenever you get bored with one. Next month you'll be in love with the 360 again and talking about how you can't believe you ever got rid of it lol.

[Cyros]

Re: Gears of War 2

Why do you keep trading consoles in? It would be alot easier if you would just keep them both and play them whenever you get bored with one. Next month you'll be in love with the 360 again and talking about how you can't believe you ever got rid of it lol.

That's crazy talk and you know it.