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Gears Bonus Content Released Two brand new maps, a video and a game update are now available for Gears of War - just press X at the main menu screen! Why not read our thoughts on the update and bonus content too. More >
Interview & Weapon Guide Don't forget to check out our Gears weapon guide, as well as our interview with Mark & Cliff of Epic. More >
WoW Patch 2.0.10 Featuring many new World of Warcraft changes!
January Mailbag Here it is - the January edition of the award-winning Planet Gears mailbag.
Voices of Gears of War In this article, we deliver the finest morsels of Xbox Live stupidity directly to your Internet machine by means of an article on a website. Behold, the voices of Gears of War!
Monday, 5 March, 2007 � Gears of War News
Gears Awarded at Q Awards 22:39 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News Over at Team Xbox is word that GameFly has announced the winners of their 4th Annual Q Awards. Most game of the year rewards have long since concluded, often favoring Gears, and to continue with that trend both of the Q Awards' game of the year and Xbox 360 game of the year awards went to Gears. Visit Team Xbox for details.
Sunday, 4 March, 2007 � Gears of War News
WCG 2007 Plays Gears 22:48 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News Evil Avatar is reporting that the World Cyber Games has announced the official games of their "World Cultural Festival," which is to be held in Seattle. All of their usual games make the list, but new to it is a 3vs3 Gears of War tournament. Not only is this the first Gears tournament for WCG, but it is also likely one of the biggest that will be held this year. Check out the WCG site if you�re looking for more info.
Mark And CliffyB Video Interview 0:04 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News GameTrailer is hosting a video interview that was conducted with CliffyB and Mark Rein. The interview is nearly 12 minutes long and covers a bunch of relevant topics, including downloadable content, the success of Gears, Unreal Engine 3, and UT3. Do check it out!
Monday, 26 February, 2007 � Gears of War News
Americans Still Buying Gears 15:15 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News Even after almost four months on the shelves, Gears of War continues to sell like hotcakes. NPD's video game report for January 2007 shows Gears in third place overall for sales in North America, behind Lost Planet (360) and Guitar Hero 2 (PS2).
"Gears 2" Will Squeeze More out of 360 15:08 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News Xboxic points out a few interesting comments in a recent EGM interview with CliffyB. Cliff comments on how a possible sequel to Gears might look, saying that he believes that there's still more power to be sequeezed from the Xbox 360.
EGM: Graphically speaking, is there room to improve?
CB: I think there�s more that we could squeeze out of the 360. You get used to the limitations and potential that this console has, and then you can really start exploring. I guarantee that, in the future, the technology of what we do here will squeeze every bit of coolness out of [the 360]. If there�s a follow-up, it�ll definitely look better than the first.
Q: What did you learn about how people played it?
A: We learned that grenade tagging was entirely too playable online. We dialed that back in a patch. That�s one of those things we tested with a couple of hundred people.
Q: What was that?
A: Sticking grenades on people�s heads. That wound up being entirely too useful. We addressed that in a patch. We never knew how popular it would be online. In keeping with the ongoing Darwinian experience of keeping our fans happy, that was one thing we tweaked. There are little things like that.
Play Gears with Epic 8:40 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News European gamers will have the chance to frag Epic staffers such as Cliff Bleszinski and Mark Rein at an upcoming "Developer Showdown" event next Saturday, February 24th, from 1900-2200 GMT. Here's the scoop:
On Saturday 24th February at 19.00 GMT until 22:00 GMT, Xbox Live members from across Europe will have the chance to chat and play with the Developers of Gear of War, including Lead Designer Cliffy B, Vice President Mark Rein, Pete Hayes (Artist), Rob McLaughlin (Programmer), Joe Graf (Programmer), Ray Davis (Lead Designer), Rod Fergusson (Producer), Lee Perry (Lead Level Designer), Jim Brown (Level Designer), Dave Nash (Level Designer) plus other members of the the Epic staff! How do I get the chance to play in the Developer Showdown? All Xbox Live members need to do is:
* 1. Sign into Xbox Live
* 2. If you are playing on Gears of War add any of the following Gamertags to your friends list for your chance to play:
EPICEMEAMR EPICEMEACB EPICEMEARF EPICEMEALP EPICEMEAJB EPICEMEADN EPICEMEARD EPICEMEAJG EPICEMEARM EPICEMEAPH EPICEMEA01 EPICEMEA02 EPICEMEA03 EPICEMEA04 EPICEMEA05
* 3. The battles will take place on the Old Bones and Raven Down maps, both available now for free download on Xbox Live Marketplace, so please make sure that you have downloaded these before you logon. After that, gamers just need to go onto Xbox Live on 24th February 2007 from 19.00 GMT until 22:00 GMT to check if they have been invited to join in a game and if they have then�
* 4. Get in the game and chat with the Developers!
Rein On Match Making 12:19 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News Mark Rein has made a forum post that provides an explanation (or perhaps part of one) for why Gears does not have a matchmaking feature for online play. The post is almost more of a recruitment notice (Epic is hiring), but it�s still quite interesting. Here�s part of the post:
agree with Phil Spencer that all 360 games should have these matchmaking features. The way to make that happen is to implement these as base features of Xbox Live. That would add value to a lot of Xbox 360 games and make the system more uniform.
We would love to have done what Bungie did and we would gladly put it in Gears if we had the people to do it. This is not about money. This is about not having enough of the most valuable resources of all - people.
TeamXbox Interviews Mark and Cliff 5:10 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News TeamXbox has posted an interview with Epic's Mark Rein, along with the second part of their CliffyB Interview. Mark touches on future bonus content for Gears, as well as topics relating to the Unreal Engine.
Are you thinking within a couple of months for [more bonus content]?
Mark Rein: Definitely within a couple of months. We want to have as regular a stream of new stuff coming for the title. There�ll be some new stuff soon. It�s not months away�it�s maybe a month? When it�s done.
We�re creating new stuff for it, and so you�ll be able to download that. It was great to have the Discovery Channel, through their FutureWeapons, sponsor the last pack, so it was free.
The second part of the CliffyB interview is also on-hand, offering a retrospective look at Gears of War.
Is there anything that, look back on, you really regretted, that you weren�t able to pull off or weren�t able to add in to the game? You don�t want to have feature creep, where it delays the game, but at the same time, you look back and say, �I wish we could have done this��
Cliff Bleszinski: Any time you build a game, there�s always eight billion different ideas at the beginning. We were talking about, like, you know...I don�t even know where to start. A kitchen-sink game design appears, and what it was going to be. We actually found in development that, by focusing it on cinematic presentation, cover, co-op, things like accurate reload, we actually had a better game.
Sometimes less is more. I mean, I played the last Grand Theft Auto, and I�m like, I don�t want to be eating a f***ing sandwich in the middle of my carjacking. Where did that come from? That whole trend of eating a few years ago�it got into Metal Gear also.
Gears Grosses $110 Million in North America 14:29 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News An article on Next-Gen (thanks BU) features a list of the top-selling games of 2006, which includes Gears of War. The game apparently grossed $110 million in North America alone. Not bad considering it reportedly cost only $10 million to develop.
Voices of Gears of War 14:12 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News The Xbox Live headset has a lot to answer for. Perhaps its best achievement and greatest crime has been to let the voices of the gaming community, the very voices of Internet gaming itself into your right ear via a small wire from your controller.
In our latest article, the voices of Gears of War are dissected for your amusement. Proceed with caution dear reader, for ahead lies prepubescent profanity, general idiocy and singing that may very well cause you great physical discomfort.
TXB Interviews CliffyB 19:24 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Mail News TeamXbox has posted the first part of its interview of interview of Epic's birthday boy Cliff Bleszinski, taken after Gears cleaned up at the recent DICE awards.
How does that make you feel as a developer to be recognized by your peers like that?
Cliff Bleszinski: It�s absolutely amazing and it�s an incredible amount of validation. I didn�t honestly�going into it last night�I didn�t take it as seriously as I did coming out, and I know that easy to say now winning that many awards. What happened was the game had a tremendous amount of hype and then the review scores were hitting�the average score is about 94% right now, which is freakin� great. And then the sales come in, and it�s sold over three million copies. Then at the same time, you�re kind of like�well, you want street cred, man. [chuckles] For lack of a better term, you want respect and you want your peers to believe that what you did was make a great product.
More here. Keep a look out for the second part of the interview tomorrow, along with a few words from Mark Rein.
Sunday, 11 February, 2007 � Gears of War News
EGM Interviews CliffyB 17:50 PST | redef | Print News | Mail News The CliffyB interviews continue, this time with one at 1Up. This interview is taken from the February edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly, and covers all sorts of Gears topics over four pages. Here�s an excerpt:
EGM: Graphically speaking, is there room to improve?
CB: I think there's more that we could squeeze out of the 360. You get used to the limitations and potential that this console has, and then you can really start exploring. I guarantee that, in the future, the technology of what we do here will squeeze every bit of coolness out of [the 360]. If there's a follow-up, it'll definitely look better than the first.
