Planet Gears of War

Epic commenced on the work, dubbed �Project Warfare.� It would slow the pace down compared to a typical shooter game. The character would partially obscure the player�s view of the scene. CliffyB thought back to the chaos that followed 9/11. He was struck that a surprise attack could bring down something so grand. He thought of the ruins of a cathedral and of the last scene of the film �The Planet of the Apes,� where Charleston Heston discovers the fallen Statue of Liberty. He recalled the hysteria about Anthrax and people going to buy duct tape to protect themselves against terrorist chemical warfare attacks. The theme of �destroyed beauty� occurred to him and it mixed with his demons from �Over Fiend.� CliffyB wanted to call it �Apex War,� after a small suburban town near Raleigh, N.C. He thought of the ruined cities of Europe in World War II, where soldiers had to hide under cover and take pot shots rather than run through the streets with guns blazing.
�What if you had enemies that take cover?� he wondered. �They�re smart and they think about what they�re going to do.�

1:42 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News
TeamXbox, who as I�m sure you have determined from their avid coverage to be some rather enormous GoW fans, have posted their wishlist for Gears of War 2. Of course a sequel hasn�t been announced, or confirmed, or hinted at, but it�s certainly expect. Here�s part of their list:

4 Player Co-op Play

This one's kind of a no-brainer. Since much of Gears of War's action involves four players, wouldn't it be cool to be able to hop online with four of your friends. One could control Marcus, one could play as Dom, a third could be my man Cole, with the final hopping in to open doors as Jack. Errr, maybe they'd rather be Baird. No matter what the final setup is, this would be a blast, especially if there were four branching paths at a given time, as opposed to the two that we saw in Gears.

GoW Ranking Easily Exploited?
1:38 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News
Gamer Andy is reporting that Epic/Microsoft�s ranking system for GoW is easily exploited. The article, which is primarily negative, explains how they believe a group of people could exploit the system to farm points and increase their ranks. While the article isn�t perfectly accurate, as Epic�s Joe Graf points out, there are certainly some potential flaws. Here�s part of Gamer Andy�s story:

I had an interesting experience this morning playing a match against a group of gamers all similarly clan-tagged. The strange part is they weren't that good, but there was something wrong with my team. Spectrumpigg (whom I met during the match -- he was the only one with a headset on my team) and I were playing pretty well, we were covering each other and taking down some of the other team. One of the guys on our team was playing moderately well and one of them was acting... suspciously.

Monday, 13 November, 2006 � Gears of War News

The History of Epic
1:27 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News
With a new franchise, as GoW is, always comes many new fans. As such this is a perfect opportunity for all you new fans to educate yourselves a little bit about the history of Epic. GameDaily has an article entitled An Epic History that does just that. It details Tim Sweeney�s first endeavors into game development and even provides a little info on the early stages of Gears. Here�s a sample:

"Gears has a sordid history," said Sweeney. "Initially, we planned to take the Unreal franchise in a more large-scale combat direction, more like Battlefield 1942. So we began this project called Unreal Warfare and spent a few years developing that. We realized we wanted the real focus to be on a single-player game with realistic combat. Around the same time, we were developing Unreal Tournament 2003 with Digital Extremes. We took the efforts from Unreal Warfare�it had a lot of the early ideas of Gears of War�and merged that into the Unreal 2003 project.

Sunday, 12 November, 2006 � Gears of War News

Emergence Week News Round-Up
6:05 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News
While I've been waiting for my review copy of Gears to arrive, I've been playing my imported Canadian terrorist version of Lumines 2 for the PSP, and I can wholeheartedly say that there may be no better incentive known to man to complete a level in a video game than the threat of infinite loops of "Hollerback Girl" corroding away your very soul as you play.

Bananas aside, we're now right in the middle of Emergence Week, with Gears out everywhere in the US, and coming to Europe and Australia in the next couple of weeks (see the countdown in the top news area for more), so let's reflect on some of the top stories from Gears launch week, as well as taking a look at what we'll have on Planet Gears of War over the next few weeks.

The reviews are in this week and the critics agree - Gears of War is pretty good, scoring near full marks in various reviews. The closest thing to criticism that could be found came from Eurogamer, who awarded Gears 8/10:

"In a sense, Gears of War lives up to expectations in that it's one of the most intensely beautiful-looking games ever made, but is one that plays by the rules in the gameplay stakes. If you want to gorge on a next generation audio-visual feast then Gears of Wars is a king's banquet. But what of the gameplay pudding that Peter Moore so often reminds us that he likes? The proof, he says, is in the eating, and in this case Gears of War sticks to a well-worn recipe."

So lack of originality then... that leads us to one of those classic pot-kettle-black gaming moments, with EA exec Alain Tascan claiming gears has "no storyline" and "zero innovation", before revealing he has in fact yet to play the game.

Stuck on Gears of War? Never fear! GameSpot and IGN come to the rescue with their walkthrough and tips sections respectively.

And for anyone having problems playing Gears online, there'll be a patch released soon to fix a variety of issues that have come up since Emergence Day.

Over the next few weeks we'll have some fantastic new Gears-related features for you to enjoy.

• Gears First Impressions - as soon as my review copy makes it here, we'll have a quick article up on the initial impact of Gears.
  
  
• Gears Fan Reviews - the monkeys on our forums have their say on Gears of War.
  
  
• Epic Post-Release Interview - we'll have someone from Epic answering our post-release Gears of War questions.
  
  
• Gears of War - The Review - the big one - just how good is Gears, and how will the Gears community develop over the coming months and years.
  
  
• Gears of War - The "Other" Review - embittered PGoW writer Myrmidion climbs out from under his rock and sees what this Gears of War thing is all about.

So there you have it. Lots to look forward to.

Saturday, 11 November, 2006 � Gears of War News

CliffyB Blog Musings
23:03 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News
CliffyB has updated his gaming blog with some musings. Cliffy nearly gets a little emotional as he discusses what it�s like to have released GoW and be once again engaging in the community. Here�s an excerpt:

Back in the Unreal Tournament days it was a blast and it remains as fun as ever. Just like shock comboing and dodging around gamers in the early days of UT made one feel like a sensai, teaching the newbs how to do it, blindfire shotgunning three guys who rush in a row teaches the art of firing around corners.

This fun is further endured by playing under a random gamer tag and getting honest gamer opinions about favorite maps and tactics often while their pals or girlfriends yell in the background. It truly feels like community.

Patch On The Way
22:59 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News
A patch is on the way according to GoW�s lead programmer. Few details are available, but it will address multiplayer connection issues. Here�s the forum post for confirmation:

yes, a patch is in the works to address the connection issues as well as several other bugs that have been reported. not sure on an exact eta, but it won't be long...

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