Gears of War 3

[GamerMan316]

Cliffy: Gears hype "backfired in my face"

Cliff Bleszinski has revealed his regret in hyping Gears of War 2 with the infamous words "bigger, better and more badass" - arguing that the phrase "ultimately backfired in my face".

Epic's design director insists his team is now focused on making the "most polished Gears game we've ever produced" while "trying not to be as catchy with it this time".

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3 on what he described as his "love-hate" relationship with the press, Bleszinski admitted that games PR had "gotten completely out of hand, where you have to have a Twitter to tease in a teaser trailer to tease in the launch trailer to tease in the announcement press release."

But he added it was "sad" but "necessary" to "announce things multiple times to make things stick", with so many distractions competing for consumers' attention.

On the media, he reiterated his recent attack on sections of the games press, relayed via Twitter, criticising a culture "where certain websites like to grab any sort of quote that they can and put it up in a very, very large font and let the flame war ensue in the comments."

Acknowledging that games marketing and PR performed a similar function, he clarified: "I'm just pushing back against the complete misquotes and the fabrications."

Refraining from sloganeering this time, he said Gears 3 "is going to be the best looking, most fun, most feature rich - and, most importantly - most polished Gears game we've ever produced. With Gears 2 we raised the bar but everyone caught up and we're like, okay, we've got to hit back twice as hard."

Despite releasing to widespread acclaim and success, Bleszinski said he thought the team "got a little bit drunk on the whole idea of set-pieces" in Gears 2, promising a more balanced offering that enhances replayability.

"[Set-pieces are] wonderful, they have their own place - buildings collapsing, monsters bursting out," he said. "And we will absolutely have plenty of that. But one thing that got a little lost in the shuffle in Gears 2 is the idea of nice combat bowls.

"I hope it's a love letter to what everybody loved about the first game while taking the spirit of the story and the cinematic moments of the second and putting it together with a really crazy feature set."

Gears of War 3 is the final part in a trilogy of games. But, given the series' incredible success, a further franchise title from the studio seems likely. "If Gears of War 3 comes out and does extremely well we would most certainly consider another game," he said. "But what that would be would remain to be seen.

"Is it DLC? Its own thing? What happens with the next generation of consoles? It's hard to predict even a couple of years into the future right now."

[GamerMan316]

E3 2010: Gears of War 3 - Beast Mode
Play as the Locust. Even as a Ticker. Eff yeah!

Gears of War 3  has a very exciting new online mode, revealed for the first time at E3 2010. Building on the success of Horde mode, Beast mode is an arena-style battle where you try and kill off waves of enemies. The catch? You play as the Locust, killing COGs. Epic is going all out with this--it's not just you playing as wretches. You're going to be playing as a lot of different Locust, from Tickers to Kantus Priest's to Berserkers. It's going to be insane.

Beast Mode offers the mirror side of Horde mode. You and up to three friends play as Locusts, wiping out the entrenched Gears on the various multiplayer maps. The map layout can greatly change your strategy, since the Gears will have a strong advantage if they start with the high ground or, say, a bunker to take sniper shots.

Unlike Horde mode, you have more than one life. After all, playing as a Ticker, your goal is to get close to a Gear and explode. Wouldn't be very fun if that was the end of the round for you. Killing COGs earns you tokens, which can be spent to respawn into different characters. This rewards you for your successes in a match, but avoids punishing you for dying at the hands of a Gear. After all, that's what Locusts do, right?

When you pick up a copy of Gears of War 3 in April 2011, you won't be playing as a Berserker in Beast mode right off the bat. The different playable locusts are earned through a leveling up system. Epic Games promises that this won't be too prohibitive. You'll be able to unlock the Locusts you want quickly enough, but you'll appreciate the Berserker a touch more if you've earned it with superior Beast mode play.

The different Locusts are essentially like multiplayer classes. The Berserkers are your brute class, the Kantus are your healer class, etc. Playing as the different Locust looks like an absolutely blast.

The Ticker is kind of like a little bumper car, steering around the environment, bumping into walls and such in search of a some Gear. And when the Ticker finds victims? Hit the B button to explode. The Kantus is the healer and can even raise the dead. Of course, he also is a fine long-ranged combatant, so don't think of him as some kind of wuss who hangs in the back of the battlefield looking for Locust to heal. The Berserker is a hulk. She has myopic vision, meaning you'll see a little bit less of the field. She's a tank, basically, slowly turning and then plowing forward. She has a charge move that is devastating as well as a powerful ground slam. I saw a Berserker crush a Gear in an exo-suit. It's something else.

We'll have a chance to dive full on into Beast mode later this week. From the looks of it, this will be even better than Horde mode.

[GamerMan316]

E3 2010: Gears Of War 3 won't have Kinect support
Cliffy B rules out connectivity (Kinect-ivity?) for launch

Gears Of War 3 won't be compatible with Kinect when it's released for Xbox 360 in April next year.

That's according to Cliff 'Cliffy B' Bleszinski, who confirmed to us this afternoon at E3 that the device wouldn't feature in Gears "at launch".

That, of course, doesn't rule out Kinect-supportive DLC down the line - but we doubt it.

Both Gears and Kinect (previously named Project Natal) were major features of Microsoft's E3 press conference, which kicked off on Monday evening.

The motion device was given its own special 'experiential' E3 launch the day before.

[GamerMan316]

Gears of War 3, now with Ice-T



That rumor about Ice-T playing a role in Gears of War 3? Totally true. The man himself took the stage at tonight's Gears of War 3 shindig in downtown LA, as indicated by Major Nelson on Twitter (and seen in the picture above, also care of Major's tweet). Apparently, he'll voice a character named Griffin, with Gears  creator Cliff Bleszinski mentioning  Ice "won't stop telling everyone about his role as Griffin in Gears 3."

[Failed]

Ice-T's a big gamer, i bet he's stoked about being in Gears 3 .... probably why he can't shut up about it

[GamerMan316]

Eurogamer Hands-on

[GamerMan316]

Interview: Cliff Bleszinski on Gears of War 3

During E3, we managed to distract Cliff Bleszinski, design director for Epic Games and the face of Gears of War, long enough for an interview. Despite our intense interrogation, he remained a good sport throughout and offered us candid answers. The full interview follows.

Joystiq: Most of the things we want to ask, you probably can't talk about yet -- like Gears 3 multiplayer ...

Cliff Bleszinski: Can't talk about that yet.

Okay, let's try it this way: in Gears 1, a lot of people complained about opponents being able to roadie run into them, stun them with a punch and then shoot them -- and you guys fixed that with updates. Are you concerned that the new spearing ability, with the retro Lancer, is going to lead to similar complaints in Gears 3 multiplayer?

You know, we try our best that before we ship, we balance these things as much as possible. But when you release into the wild, you never know what the gamers are going to come up with.

So in regards to the Lancer charge, we're going to try our best to, you know, play with it as much as we can and you never know. We did six title updates to Gears 2 and we continue to refine that experience. Matchmaking wasn't the best at the start, but we stand behind our products and continue to support them.

You guys implemented major improvements from Gears 1 to Gears 2 in terms of multiplayer -- adding Matchmaking, ranks, etc. Now with Modern Warfare and "perks" reshaping the way multiplayer is done, are you guys looking at any of these things for Gears of War 3?

We won't be doing perks -- we're not that game. When talking about the Versus mode, I've never really felt like perks are a good fit for Gears. They're okay for their different Call of Duty games and things.

That said, if you're making a multiplayer shooter right now, you very much need to have a ranking system, experience points and things to unlock to keep players invested in your games for months on end.

What about character customization in Gears 3? You've got characters to choose from in the old Gears multiplayer, but will there be any way to make them more unique in the new game?

Can't talk about it yet. It'd be a good idea!

By including the Flashback map codes in retail copies of the game, players were encouraged to buy Gears 2 new. Do you have plans for a similar incentive to tie to Gears of War 3?

We're in a very transitional time in the industry. You see what's happening with the sports games --

Right -- EA Sports Online Pass, "Project Ten Dollar," and stuff like that ...

Yeah, and we're watching it closely -- and that's not to say we're committing to anything like that. We want to find ways to positively incentivize first-time buyers to pick up the game new. Penalizing is not the best way to deal with things like that. You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Sure.

But the industry is nervous, right? It's very scared about used game sales -- and another thing is the type of genre you make, you know? I wouldn't want to make a horror game right now -- that's only single-player -- because a lot of players are like, "I rented it." You want to make a game that has a great single-player experience, but continues online, continues to breath.

The Flashback Map Pack did play for us, but I personally -- if I thought about it really, I would've pushed back. Because whenever I buy a game and there's some 15-digit code to type in, I'm like, "Yeah, screw that," and I put the game in and just ignore the code. It could be like free beer for life and I'd be like "whatever." So there's got to be other ways to do it. We'll see.

So in that same vein, people want an experience they can come back to. People who played a lot of Gears 2, they are very proud of their ranks. Will there be a way to transition what you've earned in that game to Gears 3?

That's a great question and like I said, that's Versus and I can't really talk about Versus, but I'll continue to dodge it because I'm a gentleman.

*Laughs*

I can't commit to anything about ranking carrying forward, but it's one of those things that we're looking into. It'd be very nice that if you're Level 80 to have a transfer -- at least, to something, you know? And to have it mean something.

Everybody in the industry needs to figure out a way to keep gamers playing their game and keep the disc in the tray. But I think everybody's going to look to World of Warcraft for inspiration in the near future.

So, Fable 3 is coming to PC -- and you've said in the past that Gears 2 won't come to PC. Is that still not a possibility?

It's not. Ever. I have a feeling though -- and this is nothing to say of Gears 3 on PC -- I have a feeling in the next few years, you're going to see PC gaming come to rise in the next few years. But then the market's more fractured than ever, between the iPad, the iPhone, the Nintendo 3DS and Kinect -- everything, it's like completely splintered. That's very scary for the industry.

Now about Beast mode: What's the genesis behind that?

The first thing is that everybody's assuming, like on my Twitter and stuff, that we're not going to have Horde. Horde will be back, we're just not talking about that right now. So Beast mode is one of those things where we were like: "Wouldn't it be great if ... ?" -- and a lot of great things came out of that, like, "Wouldn't it be great if you could control a lot of these Locust creatures?"

Lee Perry, who is our senior gameplay designer, just did a possess for different characters -- "What happens if I take over a Ticker?" -- and a lot of them just worked. So from there, the real work set out: How do we give this creature two or three unique things? So, like, the Kantus can revive, then he can do this; and the Berserker can smash, but she can't see very well. So it's a class-based, beast-based mode that's not just like Horde flipped, because every character has their own unique attributes.

And speaking of Horde mode, it was very much a revelation for multiplayer gaming -- now it's in Halo. How do you feel about that? Are you flattered?

I'm flattered -- absolutely I'll take it. Seeing a lot of games coming out now that are cover-based shooters -- there's some Japanese ones that we were talking about --

Like Vanquish?

Yeah, and what's the other one? Quantum Theory, right?

Yeah.

And that's cool -- I'm like, "Bring it!" Every time I see a title that takes an element or does something that was in Gears, I feel a little more justified because there were some haters with Gears 1 and 2 that said those games weren't innovative. And I'm like, "Well, it's kinda funny that people say they weren't innovative, yet all of these games started adding similar features." There's still plenty of room for innovation in the shooters genre.

So the four-player co-op, that'll be drop-in, drop-out, no problem?

Absolutely.

Even mid-game?

Yup.

So you don't have to load a chapter, then have everybody hook up before starting?

Absolutely not. And it's also story-based, so it's not just Marcus with a purple do-rag -- I always say that, but it's true, right? The cool thing is that Players 3 and 4 sometimes cycle between characters, right? So in the first act, you're Marcus and Dom and other characters, but in the second act, you wake up as Cole and Baird, Sam and somebody else we haven't announced. And then you go back to Marcus, but the characters keep changing, so you have this really cool element where the only way to experience playing as Anya in the campaign is to be Player 3, which is cool.

So you don't have this thing where it's, "Oh hey, I'm Marcus ... and here's three random dudes!"?

Oh no, not at all. Other games do that, and it's fine, but we commit to a story-based co-op. So when you're in the game and you're on Level 5 or whatever, and you're like, "Anya, I need this!" and she's like, "I'm right over here!" When you play as Player 3, your player says, "I'm right over here!" and that's cool to see from a different perspective.

Some of the B-roll actually had that, where you could see Sam's perspective in the E3 demo -- it's all about the viewpoints I guess, right?

Definitely.

[GamerMan316]

Cliff likes this guy & this guy loves Gears.   

[Failed]

I think either Rank should carry over or some colour system where if you were over level 25 in Gears 2 you have a bronze number, over 50 is silver, over 75 gold and 100 for Platinum.

Beast mode sounds good, like Horde but reversed with abilities. Left 4 Dead Vs meets Horde.

I think they should add a score game too, like CoD4 Arcade and Halo 3 Meta.

Also him saying 'ranking system, experience points and things to unlock to'. Things to unlock is good, but what? Customization and maybe some Tag/Icon system like MW2 and SF4. Just being able to change the shade of the armour parts like Halo wouldn't go amiss tbh.

[Astrex]

Gears of War 3, now with Ice-T

Check the cans out on the one in Yellow! phwoar!!!

[NeuroticSarge]

That's Ice-T's wife.Coco I think.They where on celebrity Mr & Mrs. Bimbo!

[Astrex]

Lol hopefully i won't get banned, but this is what i wanna do  





[Neato edit:  Don't do that anymore.]

[GamerMan316]

One of the members on the Epic Forums has made some cool new wallpapers, check 'em out.   

Brothers To The End Wallpapers

[Astrex]

Lol hopefully i won't get banned, but this is what i wanna do  





[Neato edit:  Don't do that anymore.]

ha ha haha lolz 

she's pretty hot 

[nCogNeato]

One of the members on the Epic Forums has made some cool new wallpapers, check 'em out.   

Brothers To The End Wallpapers

Very nice.

I like the Strouse and Dom solo images.  There's something about that Marcus pic that just looks weird.  I don't know why, maybe it's because he's not wearing his armor?