Gears of War 3

[GamerMan316]

September 20th Worldwide release date confirmed today, i'm on my mobile now so i'll post more details later.

[GamerMan316]

Final Gears of War 3 release date

Gears of War 3 has a new and final global release date: 20th September 2011.

Microsoft community man Graeme Boyd tweeted the date moments ago. Japan, incidentally, will get Gears of War 3 two days later on 22nd September.

Gears of War 3 suffered a delay from April to autumn 2011 back in October 2010. This happened to coincide wonderfully with the Eurogamer Expo 2010, where the inventive Gears of War 3 Beast multiplayer mode was playable.

Epic insisted at the time the delay wasn't because of quality concerns, which suggests Microsoft held Gears of War 3 back to headline its autumn Xbox 360 schedule. And with features like dedicated multiplayer servers on Xbox 360, four-player campaign co-op and a set-piece-loaded story with more action than you can shake a Lancer at - Gears of War 3 can handle the billing.

Gears of War 1, released 12th November 2006, scored 8/10 on Eurogamer. Gears of War 2, released 7th November 2008, scored 9/10 on Eurogamer.

The only question remaining is whether Gears of War 3, over two years on, can raise the roof and score 10/10?


Rod tweeted this earlier:

The release date is just the beginning. Tomorrow there will be lots more info...

[Handshakes]

Beta announced to start some time in mid-April.

[GamerMan316]

Gears of War 3 beta maps revealed

At a hands-on event in San Francisco yesterday Epic Games revealed and detailed the maps you'll be playing in the Gears of War 3 beta, set to launch this spring.

Checkout is, according to Eurogamer's man in San Fran Christian Donlan, is "cruel, claustrophobic, and daringly small: a tight collection of aisles and corridors surrounded by ruptured shelving and tills, and lit by shafts of light pouring in from the glass ceiling."

Thrashball is "a bit bigger, and not quite as open-plan as the whole sports stadium gig suggests". "Rising up out of battered team locker rooms, you'll find yourself on a pitch criss-crossed with plenty of low cover, while a lopsided Jumbotron hangs overhead."

The multiplayer beta will contain two further maps, but Epic is yet to decide which ones they'll be. It's whittled the number down to four and left it open for a public vote on the game's Facebook page.

The vote, which kicks off today, closes on Monday. Hurry!

The four to choose from are Mercy, "a large open-air map that should remind veterans of a heavily-tweaked and re-themed Gridlock"; Old Town, "a weird medieval village set-up filled with chickens and wooden barrels to hunker down behind"; Overpass, a "nicely balanced map with a fancy - and largely cosmetic - gimmick that sees it flooding and falling apart as the battle progresses"; and Trenches, which "throws players out into the dusty Locust badlands in a kind of mining-settlement-meets-construction-site".

The beta also brings with it three of Gears of War 3's six match types. In the new Team Deathmatch, both sides gets 15 respawns to work through each round, after which the game reverts to the classic last man standing set-up. King of the Hill tweaks Annex from Gears 2 so that you can control areas without having to then stay within the glowing radius. And Capture the Leader, a new CTF re-imagining which tasks you with tracking down the enemy side's captain and holding them as a meat-shield for a set amount of time.

The beta also includes unlockables, awarded for experience gain. Two items, Cole in his Thrashball outfit and a golden Retro Lancer, can only be unlocked in the full-game by first collecting them in the beta.

Epic and Microsoft are yet to pin a release date for the beta. You can get a headstart, though, with the Epic Edition of Epic's over-the-top first-person shooter Bulletstorm, out in the UK at midnight.

[GamerMan316]

Eurogamer beta hands-on

[dfusioness]

september is now clear in my diary cant wait

[GamerMan316]

[GamerMan316]

[dfusioness]

wish i could watch that link

[Handshakes]

The ending to that video is awesome.

[citatscEellE]

fucking finally.

sheesh idc about MP beta and blah blah BLAH

JUST GIMMIE THE FREAKING GAME ALREADY!
urgh.

[GamerMan316]

From the Epic Gears 3 forums

(How To) earn Gears of War 3 unlockables now and in the beta....

Gears of War - Unlocked by having finished the campaign.

Gears of War 2 - One unlocked by having finished the campaign. Also an unlockable for having earned Lv100 (Legit) Which means the game checks if you earned the Lv50 and Lv100 achievements on the same day or if you earned Lv100 when not signed into xbox live.

Gears of War (PC) - Unlocked by having ANY Achievement on this game.

Also Joe confirmed that gears 3 will check for these once a day so you will be able to earn them even after the game comes out.

Unlockables in the beta.....

- Also been said that you may unlock something for getting max rank in the beta.

- Play 90 Matches in the beta and unlock the gold retro lancer, if you get 100 kills with the weapon you get to keep in in the retail game. (You must get 100 kills with it for it to go over to your full game).

- Unlock Thrash Ball Cole by playing 70 matches and playing as Cole for 13 games.

[Dankinia]

Well it looks like I will be picking up Gears 1 and spending a lot of time playing the beta when it comes out. 

[GamerMan316]

OXM Beta Preview

[GamerMan316]

Epic VP would "love" annual Gears of War

Epic Games would love to release a Gears of War title every year, a la Call of Duty, according to the developer's vice president Mark Rein.

"I think if we felt we could and do justice to it, who wouldn't want to have a yearly [Gears of War]?" he told Eurogamer at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, before explaining how much he admired Activision's FPS business model.

"I really envy what they have with Call of Duty. Every year they put out something really great and they sell crazy stupid amounts. Anybody who says they wouldn't want to emulate that shouldn't be in business.

The main thing preventing Epic from following suit, Rein suggested, was limited resources.

"We're not that big a studio, so if we were going to do that it would be because we thought we could deliver something that was of real additive value. They have two teams so they can go back and forth.

"I would never rule it out. I would love to do it. If we could come up with an experience that a year later was worthy of the Gears name, why wouldn't we want to do that?

"We're about as far as we want to be away from Gears. The further you get away, people start forgetting you. We've been pretty fortunate – people play our games for a long time.

When asked whether over-saturation might then weaken the appeal of the franchise, Rein explained that as long as the quality stayed high that wasn't an issue.

"Well, I've been pretty happy with each Call of Duty game," he responded.

"I buy NHL Hockey every year and I've never felt like this isn't enough over last year's. I just buy it and enjoy it each time. I don't really have any philosophical thing against that. As long as it's good value and a good customer experience, why wouldn't you? I envy what they're doing, it's just brilliant."

While on the topic of Call of Duty, Rein went on to stick up for the man gamers love to hate – rabble rousing Activision top dog Bobby Kotick.

"I've talked to him once or twice – I don't know him that well - but he seems like a really nice guy. The times I've spoken to him I was very impressed. He seemed very smart to me.

"Y'know, he's like me," he continued. "He likes to talk and sometimes we get ourselves in trouble. Sometimes you get in trouble for telling people what you really think – they don't always want to hear it."

The latest entry in the Gears of War saga - the first since November 2008 - hits Xbox 360 on 20th September.