Gears of War 3 Officially Confirmed For April 2011 76
A few days after an untimely leak on Xbox Live, Epic Games has now officially announced Gears of War 3 for next April. Details are scant (though Edge speculates on possible new gameplay features), but it will contain 4-player co-op and be an Xbox 360 exclusive. A trailer was released for the game, and designer Cliff Bleszinski had this to say:
"When we released Gears of War more than three years ago, we set out to tell the world an unforgettable story of bravery and sacrifice in the face of insurmountable odds, and a year from now, players will get the chance to experience the final chapter in the story of Marcus Fenix and his companions in Delta Squad. This is definitely the biggest and most dramatic chapter yet in the Gears of War saga, and we can't wait to deliver it."
It's going to take them a year (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, the industry would be better off if it would get rid of "rock star" devs like Bleszinski and get more originality into games.
If you're game cant survive 3 years without one sequel, let alone two it wasn't that good.
Re:I propose a rename. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is decidedly harsh (and probably just a troll, as has already been reflected in the initial moderation). I'm not necessarily sure that having a new tech engine is required to make a sequel. I also disagree with the implied assertion that anything which isn't a PC run and gun fps is inferior.
I quite like the Gears of War games. I'm not a massive fan; I don't like the online competitive multiplayer much (but I don't like the online competitive multiplayer in pretty much any action game these days), but I've played them both through in single-player and co-op and had plenty of fun with them. They're third person shooters (not fpses, like you say) and they make good use of the mechanics of the genre. If you want fast, free movement, then you probably want an fps, and there are plenty of good titles on both consoles and PC. Third person shooters generally lose some of the pace and precision of an fps. However, what they bring to the party (when done well) is a sense of physical presence. In the Gears of War game, you are controlling large guys wearing heavy armour - and it feels like it. They have inertia. Actions - even turning around - take a bit longer than they might in an fps. You need to think a littke bit more about your immediate surroundings, and be aware of your character's whole body. This can make for a very fun experience (when it's done well - and the GoW games do it well), but it's not comparable to a Quake-style fps.
I actually find third person shooters substantially more intuitive to play on a console than on the PC (with the reverse applying for fpses). We have an expectation that mouse controls will translate into very rapid changes of direction - with a quick flick being enough for an instant 180 degree turn. This is disconcerting when controlling a "heavy" character, who is actually designed to turn relatively slowly.
Re:I propose a rename. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, maybe you weren't trolling. However, I think that the lack of ability to run (or rather, sprint) and shoot comes back to the same point - the presence of a "physical body" in the game. GoW's "sprint" is just that - heads down, arms tucked in, running hell for leather over a short distance. Your chances of hitting anything at all with a gun in that kind of posture is almost zero. People occasionally do it in movies; but generally only in silly action movies aimed at the "box of popcorn and no brain" crowd. Gears doesn't aim for realism (far from it), but it does aim for verisimilitude - something that has the outward appearance of being realistic. The traditional PC fps ignores this (though a few more recent examples have moved in this direction) and allows you to bounce around hell for leather at full speed while shooting. That's one way to play and some people like it. However, it's also valid to have a style of play that restricts the player and forces them to make choices within a tightly defined rule-set.
I remember a clique back when I was at university that held the Quake games up as the absolute paragon of gaming because they basically applied almost no restrictions to the player's movement. This always seemed to me to be missing the point. It was like saying that Chess would be better if any of the pieces could move in the same manner as a Queen, without all of those pesky restrictions.
And the cover system? Well... again, it comes back to verisimilitude. Since the invention of the repeating rifle and the fragmentation shell, real-world combat has invovled a hell of a lot of use of cover. Most action games, including GoW, are actually ludicrous in the sheer amount and pace of movement they encourage from players. I'm not saying this is a bad thing (it makes for a more interesting game in some cases). But as games that look like they're realistic become more popular, it's inevitable that cover mechanics will become more important. That said, I do agree that Mass Effect 2 went a bit too far. I felt that a lot of the level design in that game felt quite aritificial and "overly convenient". GoW has generally been more subtle, I think.
Re:A story.. (Score:3, Insightful)
They do have a weird look for these games, don't they? If you've seen the artbook that comes with the collector's edition of the first game, you'll have seen how they witter on about "destroyed beauty" and all that gumpf, and how they wanted to create haunting environments and stuff. In fairness, if you look at some of the location art in the game, they do a fairly good job of this. Many of the locations do feel like a plausible interpretation of the ruins of a culturally advanced civilisation.
And then they go and populate the world with men the size of small trucks wearing huge armoured suits and carrying machineguns the size of a cow with a huge chainsaw bayonet, whose primary methods of communication are grunting and fist-pounding. I did wonder at times whether the environment and character art teams had ever even met each other, let alone actively collaborated.
I guess if they were aiming for anything, it was probably "Warhammer 40k without all of the religious symbolism". That's not necessarily a bad thing; there are elements of the WH40k aesthetic (from what I've seen in the video games) that are appealing, but they just go ludicrously overboard on everything. GoW also goes overboard... just to a slightly lesser degree.