Ripten Video Game Blog » Epic-Games

Microsoft Game Studios Hiring Epic Liason/Producer For Gears of War & Shadow Complex

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:41:49 +0000

Per a recent job posting, it seems that Microsoft Game Studios is looking for an experienced producer to work closely with Epic Games in order to:

“Lead the publishing side of games made by Epic,” and “drive the success of Gears of War and Shadow Complex.”

This will no doubt kick Gears fans into Locust stomping sequel speculation mode. Is a Gears of War 3 currently under development right now? The Ripten inbox may hold a clue.

My last email exchange with Cliff was about three weeks ago, as an effort to lock down a future interview with the Epic Games Design Director. While he didn’t come out and say “sure, let’s do it on x-date right after we announce Gears 3″, he did extend the following olive branch:

“Don’t have anything to promote right now. Best to try again after we announce something. :)”

If you take his response into consideration, pair it with the recent job posting, and a little cash cow common sense, you’re likely thinking that developement of another Gears sequel is underway. Only time will tell for sure, but the betting man in me says “heck yeah it is!”

Gears 2 Update 5 Fixes Glitches & Security Hole – Plus Halloween Double XP Weekend

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:56:48 +0000

Epic Games has put out the 5th title update for its third person shooter Gears of War 2 resolving a slew of glitches and a security hole that arose in the fourth patch. Plus, just in time for the Halloween Holiday, Epic is also treating gamers to another double XP weekend event Friday, October 30, through Monday, November 2.

Hit the jump for the full list of release notes via the official Gears forum.

Improvements

Title Update 5 makes these new improvements:

Adds the ability to view friendly-planted grenades in Tac/Com.
Removes the cringe caused when a smoke grenade forces a player to drop a meatshield.
Adds bonus points to the winning leader’s score in the Guardian game mode if the leader successfully survives the winning round.
Changes the postmatch Invite button to only invite former teammates, so a player can create parties more easily instead of trying to create a Private Match that includes both teams from the former match.
Returns the roadie-run camera movements to the way they were in Gears of War 1 by decreasing the dampening values.

Exploit Fixes

Title Update 5 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:

A player could modify the game’s behavior due to a security vulnerability introduced in an earlier title update.
A player could use a turbo controller to artificially maximize their rate of fire.
A player could mantle a planted shield in competitive multiplayer to hide inside geometry or to travel outside of the map. The ability to mantle shields was removed in competitive multiplayer but remains in Horde and Campaign.

Title Update 5 also fixes a number of other, lesser-known exploits.

General Fixes

Title Update 5 fixes these other issues as well:

An issue that contributed to the “sticky walk” problem, where a player’s avatar could stutter after the player picks up a weapon.
An issue that could prevent players from hearing the “boom” telegraph from Boomers.
An issue that could cause looping audio to continue playing after the player who triggered that sound is killed.
An issue that could cause multiple names to be highlighted yellow on the scoreboard instead of the name of the player viewing the scoreboard.
An issue that prevented the game from granting the earned experience points from the fiftieth wave of Horde.
An issue that caused players at level 100 to see the “congratulations” message after every match.

Source: gearsofwar.xbox.com

Geeked-Out: Gears of War Snuggie

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:20:14 +0000

If you are anything like me and my girlfriend, you have likely seen the Snuggie commercial on TV half a million times (not to be confused with the WTF Blanket). Well, Epic Games rep Dana Crowley recently told Kotaku on her Twitter feed that the Gears of War themed Snuggie featured above “really does exist…”

Unfortunately, Dana goes on to explain that the Snuggie complete with screen printed armor is only a prototype, and that it won’t be released to the Gears lovin’ cold on the couch sittin’ general public.

Have something you think we should show on Geeked-Out? Email it to us.

Gears of War 2 Dark Corners and All Fronts Collection map packs now on Xbox Live

Rangebar Merani — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:36:45 +0000

Today mark’s the release of the highly anticipated Gears of War 2 Dark Corners and All Fronts Collection DLC. The Dark Corners DLC features seven new multiplayer maps and a bonus deleted single-player chapter, “Road to Ruin,” from the Gears of War 2 campaign. In “Road to Ruin,” Marcus and Dom face the Locust but can either choose stealth or the usual run and gun action to survive. The seven new multiplayer maps include a new War Machine (the classic Gears 1 map), Allfathers Garden, Highway, Memorial, Nowhere, Way Station and Sanctuary (a favorite from Gears for Windows).

The All Fronts Collection DLC is geared towards players who have yet to download any of the previously released DLC map packs. Along with the “Road to Ruin” campaign chapter and the seven new multiplayer maps, the All Fronts Collection DLC will also contain all maps included in the Flashback, Combustible and Snowblind DLC.

The Dark Corners DLC will run you 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), while the All Fronts Collection will run you 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

Celebrate the 4th of July with umm…a Gears of War 2 Double XP weekend

Rangebar Merani — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:27:23 +0000

So after just posting the announcement of a Call of Duty: World at War double XP this weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, I found out that Epic Games is doing the same thing with their own title giving Gears of War 2 it’s own double XP weekend from July 3 to July 6, as well. During ranked matches on the public playlist, everyone will receive double the XP, and the winning team will also walk away with an additional 500 XP.

In addition to the double XP promotion, the latest update for Gears of War 2 will be released sometime before the weekend allowing for some changes to the Horde mode (most notably the addition of experience points). Speaking of the Horde mode, Epic will be celebrating Independence Day with it’s own fireworks by adding Tickers to every wave in Horde, and on the 10th wave of every Horde match, there will only be Tickers.

So, which double XP promotion will you be enjoying this weekend? Call of Duty: World at War or Gears of War 2?

Source: Joystiq

Gears 2 Set for Fourth Title Update

Sal Romano — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:04:33 +0000

Joe Graf, Epic Games’ technical director on the Unreal Engine 3, has confirmed via the official Epic forums that Gears of War 2 will be receiving a fourth title update.

As of now, nothing is known about the newly heard of update, but Graf does confirm that a broken message in the game regarding the map packs will be fixed in the patch. Stay tuned for everything else.

Gears of War 2 “Snowblind” DLC Map Pack Flanks Xbox 360 March 31st

Chad Lakkis — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:42:15 +0000

The boys and girls at Epic Games have been working hard on some new DLC to extend the life of your Gears of War 2 purchase. Gamers will be able to get their grubby mitts on the Snowblind Map Pack, containing four new multiplayer maps (Grindyard, Fuel Depot, Under Hill, and Courtyard), March 31st for 800 MS Points.

Cold gas and hot lead don’t mix. Remember that.

Unreal Tournament 3 patch and Titan pack available now

Sam Naylor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:26:20 +0000

As Shacknews reports, the gigantic Unreal Tournament 3 patch and Titan pack has been released for free for PC and PS3 users today. Steam and PS3 users can simply let the game update itself, and non-Steam users can either register the game to Steam or download the files from Fileshack. The extra content includes 19 new maps, two new game modes, and a myriad of vehicles and items. Hit the jump for the (frankly, titanic) full release notes.

[Update]The game is set to be free this weekend on Steam, and a 40% discount is in place until 15 March.

* Two new game types: Greed, a “tug of war” skull-toting team points battle, and Betrayal, a cutthroat style of play where alliances and teams can shift fluidly through a match.
* The Titan Mutator, where you can become a 30 foot tall behemoth in any game mode.
* Nineteen maps for Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes, including 11 new maps plus eight popular maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version.
* New vehicles and pickups, including the X-Ray field deployable, the link station deployable for vehicle repair, the slow field powerup, the Stealthbender vehicle, the Eradicator artillery piece, and the Stinger rail turret.
* Client-side demo recording.
* Revamped User Interface, including an improved server browser, improved server filtering options, all new advanced options menu, streamlined and polished the whole system.
* Awards: Fifty-seven different awards mark your progress and mastery of UT3. Progress screen in the UI shows which awards you have earned, and your current progress on awards not yet completed.
* Maplists and voting: New maplist system and mid-game voting support for gametypes and mutators as well as maps.

And as for the full patch notes:

Improved Steam integration
o Steam Achievement support for Steam installations of UT3.
o Integrated Steam Authentication support.
o 57 achievements mark your progress and mastery of UT.
o Progress screen shows which awards you have earned, and completion progress on all awards.
o You can activate a non-Steam purchased version with Steam (making it a full Steam version) by:
o Open Steam main window
o In Games menu, select Activate a Product on Steam…
o Type in your CD Key
o Install UT3 via Steam
o Note this make an entire new UT3 installation, so uninstall the previous version (your settings/profile should not be affected)
Server Browser:
o Server Browser updates, expanded query filtering, clientside filters and a new UI option list.
o Added mutator filtering to the server browser (filter by installed mutators, mutator classes and mutator names)
o Now displays each servers IP in the server details box
o Added ‘Join IP’ and ‘Spectate IP’ buttons to the join game menu
o Added an ‘Add IP’ button to the favourites menu
o Modified the main menu to return to the server browser after disconnecting
o Added a new button to the midgame menu ‘Add Favorite’, and a new console command: AddServerToFavorites
o Updated server browser code, so that custom gametypes are properly filtered.
o Added a ‘List All Game Modes’ selection to the server filter menu.
o Added more information to the server browser player list.
o Fixed servers not being added to history, when following a friend to a server
o You can now attempt to directly connect to offline servers in History and Favorites (even during master server downtimes).
o Show “+” for player counts that are populated by bots.
UI:
o Major visual and menu flow overhaul for improved useability.
o Made the instant-action and host-game menus keep their settings.
o Scoreboard double click functionality for kicking, messages to specific players.
o Enabled gamepad stick sensitivity setting in UI.
o Improved gamepad support on PC.
o Added support for a whole mess of options on Advanced video settings page.
o Easier to click buttons by fixing cases where mouse went just past them.
o Max player counts always fit on all scoreboards.
o Modifier cards should take display priority in toasts over character unlocks.
o Improved voice command menu positioning and offsets.
o Fixed showing as teleport destinations on map nodes which could not be teleported to.
o Added tooltip while deployed in stealth vehicles to show drop deployable button.
o Bot count UI changed from “Number of opponents” to “Number of combatants” to be less confusing.
o Added support for showing top weapon user in end of match scoreboard. This shows which player got the most kills with a particular weapon. If a player was the leader with more than one weapon, it picks the weapon he or she got the most kills with.
o Show beacon with name of enemies in DM if they are close enough.
o Fixed ammo number on HUD pulsing on armor pick up instead of ammo pick up.
o Third position for powernode beacon, when just looking at base.
o Added speaking icon to player beacons.
o Portraits shown for player speaking with VOIP.
o Fixed onslaught teleporter tooltip not always displayed correctly.
o fixed toasts that don’t shut down properly popping up later unexpectedly
o More delay before going back to ambient music from action.
o Fixed text being obscured after removing a friend from the friends list
o Fixed showing proper weapon icon on weapon bar for selected weapon when two weapons are in same slot.
o Fixed issue where playercard and friend message screens were disappearing.
o Reduced chat log spam.
o Fixed rules for showing “change team” button.
o Added John Barrett (programming contractor), Michiel Hendriks (programming contractor), and Pancho Eekels (level design contractor) to credits.
o Fixed duel match rules in scoreboard.
o Fixed player information on server browser history page not refreshing correctly.
o Fix a crash caused by some mod UI scenes during the gamne
Vehicles:
o Increased radius/volume of Manta, Raptor, and Viper engines.
o Fixed scavenger legs disappearing in kill volumes.
o Force occupied manta to rise if underwater.
o Added sound effect and recharge bar to SPMA to indicate when the weapon is ready to fire
o Increased water damage taken by vehicles.
o Increased Goliath health.
o Fixed nightshade beam weapon accuracy.
o Fixed spidermines confused about nightshade that switches teams.
o Tank shell is always relevant, so you’ll see it if it kills you from a hidden tank.
o Leviathan shield doesn’t stay around after death.
o Fixed leviathan passenger beacon positioning.
o Fixed hoverboard rooster tail positioning when traveling over shallow water.
o Fixed flag positioning on tracked turrets.
o Fixed flying Manta exploit.
o Fixed boost exploit with Fury vehicle
o Fixed exploit to damage own core/nodes with rocket turret.
Weapons:
o Added burn trail for link gun beam.
o Weapon pickups now disappear for the player who picked it up, until it can be picked up again (now works like weapon lockers).
o Weapon throwing always enabled.
o Improved force feedback for various weapon and pickup actions.
o Simpler crosshair for instagib rifle.
o Third person translocate sound.
o Stinger now higher priority than flak cannon by default.
o Back splatter decals for hits with sniper rifle, stinger, and enforcer.
o Improved spidermine aiming help on console with hitscan weapons (enforcer, stinger, sniper).
o Fixed enforcer anim problems when become dual during initial loading.
o No ammo display for instagib rifle.
o Improved spidermine herding with Avrils.
o Improved redeemer blast screen shake.
o Spidermines work properly in deathmatch.
o Fixed translocator discs being able to get embedded in geometry with zero extent collision on but box collision off.
o Fixed deployable exploit (run over deployable while firing weapon, get in vehicle while still firing, and never switch to deployable).
o Fixed trans discs getting stuck on instigator’s head.
o Fixed redeemer bug where redeemers impacting ceiling sometimes had explosion center imbedded in ceiling, affecting damage dealt.
o Fixed stinger alt-fire stops with 1 ammo.
o Fix for rare stinger shard crash when shard tries to impale two overlapping dead bodies at the same time.
o Fixed fast avril firing exploit.
AI:
o Added Drop Flag/Orb command (accessible through voice menu) to get bot teammates to drop the flag they are carrying.
o Improved bot handling of navigation failures, don’t stay stuck.
o Bots understand ducking under obstacles with the Darkwalker.
o Bots understand getting off hoverboard to use a lift.
o Adjusted bot new enemy acquistion speed.
o Low skill bots don’t slow down if carrying flag.
o Bots understand how to effectively use Orbs in Warfare much better.
o Bots use the hoverboard more effectively.
o Improved bot AI for using Translocator.
o Improved AI for picking best weapon to use.
o Improved AI for Leviathan, including aiming with the leviathan, and navigating the Leviathan.
o Improved AI for using the Hellfire SPMA.
o Improved Scorpion AI for trying to run over enemy foot soldiers and self destruct into big vehicles.
o Improved Manta/Viper AI for trying to run over enemy foot soldiers.
o Improved stealth vehicle deployment AI.
o Improved bots yelling “same team” when player is actually trying to hit nearby enemy.
o Fixed bots not able to get in Darkwalker secondary turret in some cases.
o Fixed bot AI issues in secondary turrets.
o Bots go after countdown nodes if core can’t be attacked.
o Fixed bots grabbing orb without getting all the way to orb spawner.
o Improved AI for bots deciding whether to get out of vehicles and continue on foot.
o Automatic fix for not letting bots in vehicles try to go into areas that are blocked for vehicles by turnaroundvolumes.
o Bots are move aggressive about driving vehicles without slowing down too much for slight turns.
o Bots fully understand kismet disabled nodes.
o Improved bot AI for fighting enemies in Slow Fields.
o Improved bot understanding of targeting occluded powernodes.
Demo Recording:
o Added support for clientside demo recording.
o Demo playback is now delayed until precaching completes.
o Fixed SPMA camera crash during demo playback.
o Fixed demo playback log spam.
o Added DemoFF and DemoSlomo console commands. Can be bound to a key in UTInput.ini. DemoFF toggles between 1x, 3.3x, and 10x fast forward. DemoSlomo takes a float between 0.1 and 10 which adjusts playback speed by that factor.
Networking:
o Fixed localization of certain networking messages received from different language server.
o Improved dynamic netspeed system based on player counts.
o Improved hoverboard smoothness in net games.
o Friend following now attempts to place friends on the same team.
o Added team balancing between matches.
o Fixed reachspecs occasionally keeping level references across seamless travel, causing levels not to be properly unloaded.
o Increased net priority of movers with viewer based on them. Reduces mover popping in large playercount games.
o Networking bandwidth use optimizations.
o Improved prioritization of actor replication.
o Improved network pawn position update smoothing using mesh translation.
o Tweaked finding floors for simulated falling pawns.
o Yaw and pitch change smoothing for other players on clients.
o Fixed character mesh not getting onto hoverboard right away in high player count games.
o Improved turret replication in high player count games.
o Fixed remaining cases where team color skins weren’t being properly set.
o Fixed clients auto-switching to better weapon when they stop firing.
o Don’t dynamically adjust listen server client netspeed above max client has requested (for modem clients).
o Make sure all audio components get cleaned up on seamless travel.
o Fixed various exploits.
o Try multiple STUN servers if first one fails. Fixes users incorrectly getting the “Your network configuration may not be compatible…” warning.
o Fixed spectator choppiness when camera is following a player.
o No spectating bar when spectating in first person.
Server Administration:
o Removed download speed limitations, when hosting LAN servers.
o Implemented auto-reconnect code for Gamespy uplink and advertising. Servers now continuously try to advertise to the master server upon failure.
o Fixed buggy URL parsing function, which was breaking mutator advertising
o Added code to recreate serveractors after seamless travel
o Fixed case insensitivity issue with admin and game passwords
o Added session banning, with the command: AdminSessionBan
o Security fixes.
o Added config variable ‘SpawnProtectionTime’ to UTGame.ini.
o Optimized stats sending bandwidth.
o Support ‘n as n in MOTD.
Engine:
o Collision Octree optimizations
o Particle system optimizations
o Safe handling of inversing nil matrices. Addresses rare ragdoll physics crashes.
o Removed unnecessary profile saves, improved saving progress when player expects it.
o Improved Garbage collection performance.
o Optimized decals.
o Warfare Teleporter portal rendering updates are now disabled by default, even for high end systems (for performance reasons). To enable, add the following to your UTGame.ini file

[UTOnslaughtNodeTeleporter] bRealtimeCapture=true
o Reduced non-warfare teleporter update range if bRealTimeCapture is false.
o Added a dialog warning users of nvidia driver version that are known to crash UT3, and to upgrade.
o Fixed Engine.* localization files being in the wrong location
Game:
o Option to allow for custom characters to load at all times (no default characters, but may get hitches when new players join).
o CTF flag is hidden for player carrying it.
o Can no longer teleport to node that is under attack.
o Improved victim death messages (precise cause of death).
o In game types using weaponlockers, players spawn with weapons from nearest weapon locker.
o Fixed scoreboard issues during seamless travel.
o Fixed lifts returning if you jump or get shot while on them.
o Play taunts on upper body only for moving players.
o Fixed black boxes on Leviathan shock balls.
o Fixed lighting on first person spidermine death effect
o Improved code for leaning players which are going around turns.
o Reduced foot jittering on stairs.
o No team change penalty for automatic swaps.
o Improved lighting for characters.
o Reduced mesh offsetting on slopes, removing exploit allowing players to hide.
o Fixed winner pawn rotating after round ends.
o Fixed sender not hearing autotaunts.
o Fixed krall missing footstep sound notifies.
o Fixed bots leaving game affecting TDM team score.
o Fixed bad low LOD meshes (spiky when feigning or dead).
o Fixed gamespy rank query results. Now always properly centers the querying player in the returned list.
o Added GameInfo.bForceNoSeamlessTravel config var to completely disable seamless travel
Mod support:
o UTHUD now responsible for drawing player and vehicle beacons, making it easier to support custom beacons for custom game types.
o Added support for stretching IK limbs (see SkelControlLimb.uc).
o Merged PC version script functionality to PS3 to improve mod compatibility for mods on PS3.
o Added spectator notification hooks to Mutator.uc:
o AllowBecomeActivePlayer: Allows mutators to prevent spectators from joining the game
o AllowBecomeSpectator: Allows mutators to block players from spectating (not fully implemented).
o NotifyBecomeActivePlayer: Notifies mutators when a spectator successfully becomes an active player
o NotifyBecomeSpectator: Notifies mutators when a player becomes a spectator (not fully implemented)
o Added two new functions to Object.uc, ‘IsNetScript’ which returns true if the current code was remotely executed, and ‘GetNetFuncName’ which returns the name of the replicated function where script execution began
o Added a new function flag, ‘DemoRecording’, which replicates the function into the demo file when recording demos NOTE: Implicitly flags the function as simulated
o Added the ability for mods to specify custom settings scenes, through new values in UTUIDataProvider_GameModeInfo.uc:
o ‘ModGameSettingsScene’, allows mods to specify a custom settings scene which is accessible through a ‘Mod Settings’ button in the Instant Action and Host Game menus
o ‘ModClientSettingsScene’, allows mods to specify a custom settings scene which is accessible through the main menu settings page, and the mid game menu settings
o Added ClearConfig and StaticClearConfig functions to Object.uc
o Added team change notification hooks to Mutator.uc
o AllowChangeTeam: Allows mutators to prevent players from changing team
o NotifySetTeam: Notifies mutators when a player successfully changes team
o Added bCanRagdoll flag to UTPawn for mod authors.
o Added slight player glow support for darkmatch (maps with DARKMATCH at start of worldinfo name
o Made UIObject ‘ResolveStyles’ function accessible to script.
o Added support for loading a Splash.bmp in a mod directory.
o Fixed server browser not being able to filter custom gametypes; in the gametype data provider, set ‘GameSearchClass’ to: UTGameSearchCustom
o Added code to reinitialize ServerActors after seamless travel
o Added editable ‘MouseBounds’ property to UIScene, which allows you to configure mouse boundaries for the current scene
o ‘MouseBounds.BoundaryObject’ is set through the ‘Set Mouse Boundary’ submenu in the UIEditor context menu
o Also added a selection to the UIEditor View menu, ‘Mouse Boundaries Outline’, for viewing the current mouse boundaries
o Mouse boundaries can be changed during runtime using ‘UIScene::SetMouseBounds’ and ‘UIScene::ResetMouseBounds’
o Now writes mod config files to mod directory, and auto-find config files in moddirconfig or moddir.
o Now autofinds localization files in moddirlocalization.
o Now finds splash image in moddirsplash.
o Supports compiling script code with -mod
o Supports publishing with -mod
o Fixed not being able to publish default (startup) map
o No longer copies RefShaderCache files when publishing
o Supports Bink movies in -mod dir (ModDirMovies)
o Fixed problem with completely overriding UTCustomChar.ini in the mod config directory
o Added -solomod option to restrict game looking in non-loaded .ini files for maps/gametypes/etc
o When using -mod, LocalShaderCache is ignored, instead it uses ModShad

Gears Ten-Year Plan: Lancer Next Lightsaber

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:43:36 +0000

Guys and commitment do not usually go hand in hand. Most of us cringe at the idea of a five yea car loan — so how would we feel about a ten year long ride involving the mass murder of Locust? I’m pretty sure we could deal with that.

In a recent discussion durring the New York Comic-Con Gears of War Panel, Gears scribe Joshua Ortega had the following to say about the franchise:

“You will not be disappointed in the next ten years … It’s a ten-year plan. Gears is long-term. The lancer is the new lightsaber.”

Interesting. A ten year plan. I’m not sure where the guys at Epic are thinking of taking the game next. I mean, lets be honest here, one can only dig so far beneath the earths surface before ending up in China. What do you think? Will another seven years or so of “Gears Badassness” be more Roadie Run than we can handle?

Source: IGN

Gears of War PC lives!

Sam Naylor — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:22:38 +0000

A few weeks ago, Gears of War for the PC died. Well, good news- Destructoid reports that the game is back up and running by way of a patch. Now you can set your system clock to the right time again, GoW PC fans! Is everyone excited?

Gears of War PC digital certificate expires, kills the game

Sam Naylor — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:27:03 +0000

Users on the Gears of War official forums are reporting that the digital certificates for the game have expired, as of 28th January 2009. This means that the game will not launch at a system date post-28th Jan. Obviously, this is awful news for those people who enjoy playing the game on the PC, since unless they keep their system date before the 28th, they cannot play the game.

This is what all the fuss about DRM (Digital Rights Management) is about; people who bought this game are essentially not allowed to play it. Ironically, the people who pirated the game, who the DRM is supposedly trying to stop, won’t be affected by this. The more that stuff like this happens due to DRM, the more the games are going to be pirated- only the customers are being punished. Anyway- bad show on Epic’s part; this needs to be fixed.

Gears 2 Bug and Exploit Update Patch Incoming

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:53:54 +0000

Epic Games’ Gears forum received a post from company VP Mark Rein a few minutes before 1AM today. In that post Mark makes mention of a title update for the Gears sequel that they hope to release in January. The laundry list of issues being addressed include the ability to wield an invisible shield, infinite lancer ammo, melee through walls, and more.

Hit the jump for Mark’s post in its entirety.

A brief status report on the next Gears2 title update

First of all I hope all of you had a safe and happy holiday season.

As I mentioned before the break we’ve been working on a major title update for Gears of War 2. This update will address bugs and exploits as well as add some new achievements related to downloadable content. We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January. If that changes we’ll let you know.

We’re fixing a whole bunch of online exploits. For example we’ve fixed the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through some walls, gain infinite Lancer ammo and equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously plus many more.

We’re also making several small changes to improve the overall online gameplay experience. A few of the ones that might interest you are; increased penalties for quitting matches early, adding additional spawn protection against planted grenades and chainsaw attacks, and adding the ability to see the Submission flag carrier destination by using Tac/Com.

We know you folks love achievements so on the achievement side we’re adding achievement progress numbers to the War Journal, increasing the frequency of in-game Achievement progression notifications and adding some new Achievements for DLC.

This is just a very small list of some of the things that will be in the next title update but one more item which has been talked about a lot in our forums deserves a special call out…

About that shotgun…

We fixed the client side hit detection on the shotgun so that in a high-latency (i.e. “laggy”) match, the shotgun will be more reliable. We’ve also fixed another bug whereby shotgun and boomshot rounds could strike the ground when firing from the hip.

So there’s a brief status report on the next title update. At some point I expect we’ll post a more detailed list but I assure you we’re working hard to get this out the door and once it’s done we’ll start working on the next update. We’ll try to do a better job keeping you informed of our progress on future updates and we’ll try to be a little more active in the forums once this update is released.

Source: gearsforums.epicgames.com

OMG He’s Glitching: Gears 2 Glitch Collection

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:21:47 +0000

If you’ve ever played Gears multiplayer with me, you probably heard me scream “he’s freaking glitching!” on more than one occasion. Well the Gears of War sequel was in attendance at Glitch Fest 2000. Check out the full list of glitches features in the video above.

I can’t decide if the maker(s) of this video loved the game or hated it. I personally loved it and wasn’t bothered by (nor do I remember) any of these glitches features. I will admit that after the first minute, I tabbed into another application and listened to the audio from the clip. Enjoy.

Source: Kotaku

Gears of War 2 Review

Chad Lakkis — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:30:24 +0000

Some of you may already be familiar with the fact that I didn’t play through the campaign mode of the original Gears of War the first time around, and instead spent countless hours lost in the game’s multiplayer mode. Well, being that I was going to review Gears of War 2, I felt the need to go back and complete Gears of War 1 first.

With the assistance of Dan Landis, I cleared through the Gears 1 campaign in co-op mode, and then played through the Gears 2 campaign in single player mode over the course of two nights. In terms of multiplayer, I ran through a few of the classic formats and tested out Horde Mode with Dan, Zung, Dlyan, and some 14 year old kid I’ll refer to as “Superman” because he almost always decided to run off and save the world from Locust on his own.

Alright, enough small talk, let’s “dig in baby”.

Level Design & Gameplay Variety

Gears 2 looks great. That said, I’m not one to scrutinize textures or lines of resolution. I tend to focus on the overall impact of an environment’s design as a whole. In doing so, I’d have to say that Gears 2 features some of the best map designs you’ll see in a video game today. The combination of lighting, color, structure, and interactive elements is well thought out and does its part to engross you in the fictional world.

Without giving too much away, you will be treated to a mix of different level types. Some will focus more on enemy interaction, while others will pit you against the level itself, combining aspects of puzzle solving and timed movement. I found that the change of pace was enough to keeps things moving along. The variety helped to battle any boredom that may have otherwise set in without the addition of a campaign co-op partner.

Weapon Selection

The weapons in Gears 2 feature a few new additions, but I usually found myself clinging to a sniper rifle and a lancer throughout most of the game. In the name of experimentation however, I did from time to time pick up items like the flamethrower, toasting tickers for shits and giggles. It was fun, but not something I’d let supplant my trusty longshot — not by a long shot (see what I did there?).

Other, non replacement items (won’t force you to drop a main weapon), such as the mulcher, mortar, and boomshield were definitely worth picking up when given the chance.

The mulcher is a no brainer, as its slow walking human turret capability easily plows through pretty much anything that gets in your way. The boomshield is great for situational cover on the go, and the mortar can do some serious damage with a little practice. Think of it as an alternative to the hammer of dawn that can be used indoors.

Character Development, Storyline, Enemies, and Boss Fights

Having played both the original and the sequel back to back, I felt like I was in a pretty good position to compare any advances made in the overall plot and character development.

The original Gears was pretty straight forward but it did a great job of introducing you to the various COG personalities. Gears 2 builds on that foundation, adding depth and additional insight into each character’s background. Some attempts are better illustrated than others, but considering the pace at which things move, I felt the team at Epic did a great job here.

The story itself, continues where Gears 1 left off, as you must once again team up with your fellow COG soldiers to foil the plans of the Locust horde and their demanding Queen. New enemies are introduced — both big and small — requiring you to think on your feet and employ different strategies to take them down.

I found the boss fights to be creative and climactic for the most part. The high speed chase sequences kept me on the edge of my seat, and the the environmental interaction required during certain battles forced me to stay on my toes and be aware of my surroundings.

As the game nears completion, I felt that one of the final battles (though multilayered and exciting) could have been executed better on the tail end. Something as simple as an additional camera shot clearly reestablishing the villain would have been enough to do the trick in my opinion. Instead I was left asking myself “Was he on that? Did I just kill him?”

Character Design, Animation, & Controls

The character design in Gears 2 fits the world, and subtle animation/interactions between characters add a layer of believability to their dialogue. New enemies and new allies alike are well designed and act/move as you would expect them to.

In terms of control, the game responded well, and the scheme was in line with the previous Gears setup — a simple one button mentality which makes most movements second nature and easy to perform. The result is that I rarely thought about controls, which left me free to focus on the actual gameplay.

Multiplayer and Horde Mode

Multiplayer offers up several modes and is more fun than ever, but if you want to thoroughly enjoy it against others, you will need to dedicate yourself to the art. Exploits are still there to be had, and it’s better to know them than it is to die by them. The introduction of environmental interaction during levels like Avalanche (self explanatory) make a nice addition.

Guardian, Wingman, and Submission modes are all fun in their own right. Guardian asks one player to designate themselves leader of the group, tying respawn ability to that individual. Once downed, a team will no longer be able to respawn. Wingman is a point based battle broken into multiple rounds consisting of up to five two man teams, and Submission is the meat shield version of capture the flag.

Wrapping up the multiplayer discussion is the addition of Horde Mode. A battle of up to five players against wave after wave of progressively more challenging groups of locust. If you buy this game and have internet access, Horde Mode is something you have to try. Fun times.

Closing Thoughts

Gears 2 combines practically everything I loved about being a kid into a video game. It’s G.I. Joes riding Tonka Trucks through the mud while fighting a massive army of beefed up albino Skeletor clones. It more than borrows from our pop culture past, and I don’t mind it one bit.

You will often be reminded of moments from Star Wars, and some may even see the influence of Disney’s Pinocchio — crazy, I know, but it works.

One thing you won’t be able to deny is that Gears of War 2 is a roller coaster ride of variety that keeps things fresh and fun. The action is fast paced, and the story/dialogue offers just enough depth to make you care about your cast of COGs, and motivate you to kill anything that gets in their way. If you own a 360, Gears of War 2 is a must buy.

Keane’s Take

9.5

I was never the biggest fan of the first Gears of War. The actual gameplay always appealed to me hugely. Gears gets all the little things right in a big way – the way every gun feels heavy and powerful, the satisfying crunch of slamming into cover. But I was never sold on the near-broken multiplayer, much less the campaign’s seemingly boneheaded tale of aliens vs. jocks.

It was a huge surprise, then, that I found myself head over heels in love with Gears of War 2. Chad’s already broken it down in the text above: it’s perfectly paced, the visuals are splendid, and the levels varied and action-packed. Most of all, there’s just something so fundamentally fun about it that I’d say that any gamer, regardless of prejudices, will find something to love at the core of this game. Even the story won me over.

My main issue with the game is that it manages to keep up such a perfect flow of action for most of the game that when it hits an occasional snag, it’s really freaking annoying. A handful of vehicular sections and other objectives that require you to do some serious trial-and-error to get past them drag the whole thing down.

But that’s really a flaw that only manifests itself because the rest of the game sets a higher standard. Overall, Gears of War 2’s one of the best action games in recent memory, and an example of gaming (on any platform) at its finest: ceaselessly entertaining, visceral and satisfying, a blast to play from start to finish.

Gears of War 2 Image Gallery – Click Here To View

Epic Gears of War 2 Patch Wishlist

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:28:48 +0000

The Gear loving crew over at G4TV spent their weekend “working” very hard in the name of better gameplay. Yes, this means they played lots and lots of Gears of War 2. The list after the jump outlines the issues they came across while playing single/co-op campaign, straight up multiplayer, and horde mode.

Bugs:

Weapon Sliding – Weapon sliding (picking up weapons while moving) appears to be back and definitely ruins the map balance. The game is designed in a way that makes picking up a power weapon immediately usually results in a quick death as the pickup animation plays. Being able to grab the Boomshot while moving into cover hurts the multiplayer, especially since this was a bug in the first Gears of War…

Voice Chat With Dead Players Between Rounds – This is a minor bug that we think will be definitely be fixed, but between rounds dead players cannot converse with players that survived the round. Again, this is a Gears of War 1 launch bug and we’re sad to see it crop up again. We’re not suggesting dead players should talk with the living while the game is being played, but they shouldn’t be restricted from chatting between rounds.

Annex / King of the Hill Framerate – Games of Annex and King of the Hill tend to suffer from framerate drops and lag as the pile of body parts surrounding the capture point grows and grows. To us, this seems like there should just be a hard limit on the amount of gibs allowed at any one time.

Invite All In What’s Up? - Hitting the Back Button in the What’s Up? Menu (which we love, by the way) sends game invites to everybody on your friend list whether they be online in Gears, online in any other game, and even offline… we’re assuming it’s only meant to invite friends currently playing Gears of War 2.

Removed Gears of War Features

Matchmaking is a very welcome addition to Gears, but we noticed some dropped features from the original that we’d like back.

Map Rotation / Cycle – In the first game, private multiplayer games followed the classic map cycle format with a lobby before the game started. While Epic has made it easier to change up options without having to re-host a game it currently knocks everyone back to the pre-map lobby after each game. This drastically slows the action down as everyone is forced to reconnect to the host. Most of the time the host just hits start right away to choose the next map. Why not give the host the power to “Return To Lobby After This Game” or “Return To Lobby Now”, but bring map cycles back?

“Ready” Icon – With 10 people in a private game (or even a party of 5 for Horde) it’s tough to tell who’s ready and who has stepped away to grab a drink or go to the bathroom.

Game Balance

This is a very subjective section, but we definitely stand by our initial impressions of the new game balance so far:

Super Powered Chainsaw - We aren’t sure if its the new netcode or if Epic just really wants the Lancer and chainsaw to be the new shotgun, but it’s staggering how hard it is to shoot someone out of the chainsaw before they hit you right now. In our tests, it’s really only reliable to counter a chainsaw charge with a chainsaw of your own. We’ve started dropping our shotguns for power weapons now instead of the Lancer. Chainsaw charging is the new shotgun charging.

Shotgun – The shotgun seems drastically underpowered at close range and is unreliable. Blind-firing it is inaccurate, but that isn’t our problem. At a few steps away, the shotgun sometimes takes 3 hits to down somebody. This is a big change from the original and we want our trusty shotty back. Epic already threw in stopping power to stop somebody from roadie running right up to you and one-shotting you, but was it really necessary to tone the shotgun down at the same time?

Mortar – The mortar fires way to quickly and can be fired from cover. By the time the shells are falling, the mortar operator can be lining up his next shot while his targets scramble to a nearby building. We’re not saying that it should be removed, but the risk of use needs to be increased beyond a slow move speed, especially on maps like Day One where the mortar spawns on a catwalk with ample cover overlooking a giant open map… it’s placed well on Jacinto and Avalanche. Actually, just move it on Day One. Thanks.

Grenades – Grenades seem much more powerful, which is fine, but we have an issue. Shooting wall-planted grenades takes too long and is often difficult from a safe distance. The explosion from a planted ‘nade is so quick that it’s nearly impossible to avoid if you get caught by one. We’d like to be able to clear them safely for having the foresight to check for them.

I’ve been playing campaign and horde mode for the most part, but from what I have seen, the G4TV list seems to be pretty accurate. If you’ve seen anything not mentioned on this list, feel free to share it in our comment section below.

Source: G4TV

N4G Being Bombarded with Gears 2 Spoiler Articles Posing as News

Dylan Duarte — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:01:22 +0000

If you’ve been anticipating the release of Epic’s Gears of War 2, you may want to avoid gaming news site N4G for the time being. People (likely PS3 fanboys) intent on ruining fans’ Gears 2 experience – we’ll call them “assholes” – have been spamming N4G with phony news articles containing Gears 2 spoilers.

I clicked on a pending article with the title “CNN: Microsoft Xbox had a 95% Failure Rate” because it sounded interesting. Much to my displeasure, once I got to the article page, I was met with a paragraph outlining what I assume is the ending of Gears of War 2.

My second run-in was when I spotted an article in the “incoming news” section. This asshole was bolder than the first, putting spoilers in the actual title. He also seemed to be smarter, as he had worded it in an odd way, I assume to get around some sort of keyword blocker.

I was talking to our editor-in-chief Chad Lakkis about the ordeal. And by talking, I mean that I was yelling at him because the internet has pissed me off. He brought up a good point and one that ultimately depresses me. N4G has a pretty rigorous process that one must go through to become able to submit news. That means that these people put in the time and effort to reach this status, just to post this bullshit.

Chad also brought up another great point. Remember this whole MetaCritic user ratings debacle that happened over Little Big Planet and Gears 2? In response to the incident, MetaCritic is planning to institute an approval process for fans that want to rank games. Well, that obviously isn’t stopping the bullshit on N4G, so how much is it going to do for MetaCritic?

Both spoiler stories that I encountered have since been deleted off of the site, but you can be sure that more will pop up, so be careful.

UPDATE: People have been getting PMs on N4G containing spoilers as well, so be cautious when opening anonymous PMs. People have also been leaving spoilers in the comments section of the N4G post regarding this story, as was expected, so I wouldn’t read that either.

Gears of War 2 Cinematic Intro, Humanity at Fault

Chad Lakkis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:51:50 +0000

The two minute Gears of War 2 cinematic intro paints a picture of human ignorance fueled by a “hunger for power” — soldiers marching without hesitation into a war that the narrative suggests they brought upon themselves. Pretty darn deep for a game centered around albino skinned monsters who live underground.

Hit the jump for face full of Locust and things that go BOOM!

Gears of Acquirement: Legendary Pictures in Talks to Buy Epic Games?

Wade Larson — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:17:48 +0000

The word on the Locust infested streets of Sera is that Legendary Pictures is looking to purchase Epic Games. No clue as to whether or not the companies would change their name, but they might as well go for “Uber,” I can’t really think of any thing else that tops Epic or Legendary (Artifact perhaps?)

The two studios have been working closely with each other on the film adaptation of Gears of War, and apparently have bonded over a love of Chainsaw Bayonets, leading to speculation that the purchase is at the very least being discussed seriously.

Legendary Pictures’ chairman Thomas Tull has shown interest in video games before, as he was co-founder of publisher Brass Entertainment, but subsequently left, as the company was focused on Hollywood licensed productions, and we all know how those tend to go.

So perhaps Tull has gotten a taste for gaming and is looking for a real company to get involved with. He could certainly do much worse than Epic, which owns the Gears of War franchise and the Unreal Engine.

Legendary offered no comment but Epic had some nice things to say about Legendary, which at least indicates they play well together, so getting hitched isn’t totally out of the question.

“We have publicly announced that Epic and Legendary are partnering on the “Gears of War” movie. We’re very excited about that project and have the highest regard for Thomas Tull and his organization,” said a spokesperson for Epic.

The pairing would provide Epic with whole helluva lotta money, and Legendary would get an epic game studio (sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Stay tuned for more info as it comes.

Source: Variety

PS3 Fanboys Strike Back: Gears 2 Metacritic User Score Lowered to 4.1

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:06:27 +0000

I recently interviewed Metacrtic founder, Marc Doyle, about what many were calling a suspiciously low LittleBigPlanet user score of 6.3 on his site. Those unfamiliar with Metacritic need only to know that it aggregates the scores given by critics on various websites around the web into one “metascore” and also allows users to submit their own scores which are aggregated into a separate user score.

The total amount of users who had submitted a score for LBP at the time of my article was upwards of 2,200 and the result apparently motivated a group PlayStation 3 fanboys to retaliate. The current user score for the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive, Gears of War 2, is a laughable 4.1 comprised of roughly 375 submissions.

Marc’s comment regarding the LBP controversy is applicable once again:

“Over the years, people have, by and large, not exploited the fact that you can vote early. Only recently have people started voting en masse for (and against) games like they’ve done with LBP.”

It seems that fanboys on both sides will continue to disregard the negative effect they have on individuals who actually depend on the user scores given by those they deem to be their peers. Marc spoke breify about the future of Metacritic, stating that they plan to include a more thorough registration process in hopes of reducing the fanboy effect. In the mean time, I think we could all benefit from a little more self restraint.

Gears of War 2 “Last Day” Trailer Combines Anger, Perspective, & Remorse Into One Powerful Minute

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:15:26 +0000

Where to begin. I had originally assumed that the “Rendezvous with Death” trailer was going to be commercial that introduced the world to Gears 2, but I was wrong. As Keane pointed out earlier, the “Last Day” spot is without a doubt Epic’s sequel to “Mad World”.

As an enormous fan of the commercial that started it all, I wasn’t initially as impressed by Last Day, but after watching it over a few times and realizing the level of depth the creative team was able to portray in such a short period of time, I quickly changed my tune. Speaking of tune, the Last Day trailer features a song titled “How It Ends” which follows the trend set by Mad World and cranks it up a notch.

Last Day is hands-down, the best Gears of War trailer yet. It’s one minute of pure emotion from start to finish. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share my impressions as well as a brief run down of the events that take place in it. Here goes.

The camera slowly fixes in on Marcus, his back pressed up against a tree as he gazes into the sky. What appears to be an eagle soars high above him, and you get the sense that he is searching for hope, yet full of anger, as he pans his head from side to side seemingly in disapproval of the lack of intervention from above.

Not deep enough yet? Alright. Focus then switches to a reddish-orange flower surrounded on both sides by two others who have long been stripped of their life. The camera shifts again, this time to Cole as he lifts his head away from the scope of his sniper rifle. He lays prone, thinking about the flower he just saw, and you get the feeling that a greater sense of perspective has set in.

Perhaps the most gut-wrenching moment is the final shot before they head underground. This involves Dom grasping a photo of he and his wife, looking it over with remorse, possibly sensing that he may never see her again. They all then get together, enter into a giant capsule like drill, and forcefully break through the earths surface. Marcus shoots one last stare in the direction of Dom as if to say “are you ready?” He then reaches down for the handle and pries the door open. The screen fades to black and reveals the Gears 2 logo.

Considering all of the factors outlined above, I can say that without a doubt, this commercial has supplanted Mad World as number one on my list. It should be illegal or a commercial to provoke the level of emotion this bad boy does.

Watch both the Mad World and Last Day below. I will likely be checking this page multiple times over the course of the day to watch them again and again so please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.

Gears of War 2: Last Day Trailer

Gears of War: Mad World Trailer

New Gears of War 2 “Last Day” Trailer’s A Winner, But Does It Pass The Girlfriend Test?

Keane Ng — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:31:48 +0000

There’s a new Gears 2 TV spot/trailer that hit today – it’s another minute-long meditative piece in the vein of Gears 1’s “Mad World” spot that captured the hearts of so many. It’s got the same somber but pretty soundtrack, Marcus looking glum, minimal exposition, the works. Personally I think it’s a much better piece of advertisement than its predecessor, but the jury’s out on the larger consensus among gamers.

Now, the Gears of War franchise being something that’s very male, I wondered if maybe this ad would have enough artistic sway to win someone over who’s not exactly into big dudes with soul patches and chainsaw bayonets. Someone like my girlfriend. After all that’s what these ads are designed to do – make the game seem like something more sophisticated than dudes killin other dudes.

Hit the jump to watch the clip, and to hear what my better half has to say.

So here’s the ad:

My initial thought was “this isn’t going to work like ‘Mad World’ did for people who don’t know anything about the game” because people aren’t going to get that these guys are riding drills underground to go fight aliens. I thought it assumed a little too much and failed for that, even though I thought it was artistically and emotionally more powerful than “Mad World”.

So I showed it to my girlfriend. Her name is changed for anonymity’s sake:

(4:27:58 PM) Mary Beth: i found it quite appealing
(4:28:02 PM) Mary Beth: it was mysterious
(4:28:17 PM) Mary Beth: and i liked the intro
(4:28:25 PM) Mary Beth: personal touches and stuff
(4:28:56 PM) Mary Beth: the big guns weren’t as deterring as they could have been
(4:29:02 PM) Mary Beth: cause i really felt the sense of mission

Sounds like it worked the way it was made to. The personal and emotional qualities shone through and pulled her in even though she hates guns. But what about the aforementioned confusion about the drills and such?

(4:29:32 PM) Me: people were saying “nobody’s going to get this ad because they have no idea that they’re going underground to fight aliens”
(4:29:40 PM) Mary Beth: i figured that out
(4:29:46 PM) Me: uhh
(4:29:55 PM) Mary Beth: i mean, i saw the other things going underground
(4:29:58 PM) Mary Beth: and then they got in one
(4:30:07 PM) Me: but how did you figure there’d be aliens
(4:30:08 PM) Mary Beth: and they always fight aliens, don’t they?
(4:30:19 PM) Mary Beth: it looked weird down there
(4:30:23 PM) Mary Beth: aliens would make sense

Microsoft has a hell of an advertising team. They’re smart enough to know that maybe holding off on some exposition works, too. Because it’s always aliens. You can count on people to assume that.

Gears 2 COG Tag Mystery Lost Me At Hello

Chad Lakkis — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:55:32 +0000

I’m sorry to say that while I consider myself a fairly loyal Gears of War fan, it’s my opinion that the gang at Epic overcomplicated their most recent attempt to market Gears 2.

I have tried to focus long enough to figure out what the hell the mystery COG tags point to, but despite the multitude of posts around the web claiming to have all the answers, I simply can’t bring myself to give a fuck any longer.

Seriously, unless cracking the code grants me a few hours alone in the Playboy Mansion grotto with two handfuls (you read that right) of Playboy Bunnies, it’s just too much work.

What do you think? Are you interested in complex marketing attempts, or would you prefer that companies “keep it simple stupid.”

CliffyB Promotes Gears of War 2 By Being Too Sexy For His Shirt

Chelsea Thompson — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:48:28 +0000

In a previous interview with DasGamer.com, Cliff Bleszinski mentioned in passing that he thought the Dom and Maria act along with pace of gameplay was what might attract a female audience for the Gears games. He said his “gut feeling” was that women love Gears, judging this of course by the number of friend requests on his MySpace.

Cliffy B has pushed the campaign further and launched into the world of nude male modeling in an effort to win over the ladies. He also made sure to tag the photo with “sexy” and “awesome” for clarification.

The above “photo” was spotted on Cliff’s twitter a couple hours ago. What’s even better is that it appears after several tweets about how poor Cliffy’s pick-up lines aren’t being received well by the ladies:

Going to the club later tonight. The ladies are gonna be on me like ports on the Wii. 06:17 PM October 10, 2008 from web

Note to self: “Emergence Hole” pick-up line does NOT work. 09:30 PM October 10, 2008 from web

Neither does the “Hammer of Dawn” line. 10:07 PM October 10, 2008 from web

Since all of his updates were from the web, I have to question if the pick up lines were really to blame. Who goes to a club and then proceeds to sit on a computer? Cliff, do you have some sort of MMO addiction that we should be worried about?

I’m not sure if this has made my life better or worse. On the one hand, every time I play a Gears of War game I won’t be able to get this image out of my mind. On the other hand… do I want to?

Gears of War Roadie Run Retrospective

Chad Lakkis — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:20:17 +0000

With the release of Gears 2 quickly approaching, I decided that it might be a good time for me to take a quick roadie run down Sera Lane — one that involves a three-hour “I refuse to accept no as an answer” road trip. Those who know me won’t be surprised, but looking back, even I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

When the first Gears was announced, I was probably one of the few people that hadn’t been aware of the game’s hype. Epic’s new IP was brought to my attention by a friend I had spent countless hours playing Call of Duty 2 with on Xbox LIVE.

He kept telling me about this “Mad World” commercial that I just had to see. I repeatedly brushed it off with responses like, “Yeah OK, let’s go play some more COD2.” Then one day while channel surfing, I stumbled on the commercial he had been harping about.

There haven’t been many gaming-related “oh shit” moments for me that took place prior to actually playing a game, but this commercial was certainly one of them. The Gears of War “Mad World” trailer combined a soothing melody with harsh visuals to create what I found to be a near-perfect balance of inner peace and outer chaos.

No less than ten minutes later, I was on YouTube replaying it over and over, and the next few weeks of XBL buddy chat consisted of me singing the Mad World theme song into the ears of my extremely patient online friends. The TV spot piqued my interest in the game, and it wasn’t long before I found myself reserving it at my local GameStop. Reservation? Check! Everything under control? Not so much.

I woke one morning (it was probably more like noon) to the sound of my cell phone alerting me of a new voicemail message. After playing the excited message from my friend, who had just got his copy, I realized that some GameStop locations were selling their pre-orders before others. A quick call to the one I had reserved my copy at opened my eyes to two things: 1) my GameStop had yet to get the games, and 2) GameStop reservations are not transferable to other locations.

My reservation was made at a location just outside of Boston, and while the location actually in Boston got the game, they wouldn’t honor the reservation I made at the other location. I was told, “Sorry, there’s no way you can play the game today.” Wrong answer.

I got on the horn and started calling every GameStop that I could find until I found one that was willing to help me out. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was about three hours away in Connecticut. So I gathered up some food and drink, hopped into my car, drove from Massachusetts to Connecticut, purchased the game, shared my story with a few Gears fans in-store, exchanged gamertags, got back in my car, and drove back with the following scene from Road Trip looping through my head.

Tell me not to play? I think not! After all of that, you would think I got home and played the hell out of the game, right? Wrong. I powered up my 360 and didn’t even make it through the intro tutorial before a sense of disappointment set in. It might have been the fact that I was exhausted, but I wasn’t really feeling the controls (which is funny looking back on it now), and so I powered my system down and didn’t play the game again for days.

Eventually, I got a call to take the game online and experience Gears multiplayer with some buddies. I never looked back. From that point forward, I became “Cole Train”, belting out “woot woot baby” after every kill. The controls, which where admittedly different, grew on me and became second nature. Anything that got in my way was greeted by a roadie run/diving roll combo, topped off with a shotgun blast to the face!

To put things into perspective, my friends and I spent an ungodly amount of time playing COD2 online, but even that paled in comparison to the amount of time we invested into Gears multiplayer. Innovative weapons like the Torque Bow, Hammer of Dawn, and Chainsaw Bayonet kept us coming back for more.

New maps were eventually released, and updates were made to fix some issues gamers ran into as gameplay evolved (i.e. sticky bomb abuse, roadie run exploits, etc.), but like any game, over time people moved on to newer titles.

Bethesda began their marketing campaign for FallOut 3, and I found myself comparing their initial commercial to the Gears “Mad World” TV spot, even going as far as asking readers which cinematic presentation they preferred. Around that same time, rumors began to circulate about a sequel to Gears (imagine that) and interests started to perk again. Nothing could be confirmed, and speculation set in that an announcement would be made at the upcoming Game Developers Conference.

It wasn’t long before I found myself in the front row of the Microsoft GDC Keynote, and as expected, the Gears sequel talk cut through the crowd like a chainsaw tearing open a Locust’s chest. I overheard a crew member for another site confirm that the game would be announced as he directed his camera man to “make sure he got the shot of Cliffy coming on stage at the end.” So, like any good blogger, I called the tip in to the home team and “Gears 2 Confirmed” hit the front page of our site.

Since then, a lot has happened. The dueling chainsaw feature we predicted from GDC was confirmed, and a slew of new features were revealed. Five-man team support, meat shields, revamped executions, new weapons, achievements, and an in-game achievement tracker have got the Gears community buzzing at an all time high.

With the original Gears of War “Mad World” trailer deemed an instant classic by many, including myself, Epic was tasked with introducing the world to Gears 2 with the same level of quality and cinematic flair. While different in its approach, the “Rendezvous with Death” trailer is both well-executed and multi-purposed as it prominently highlights one of the game’s new features: the meat shield.

In addition to the TV spot, Epic went all out with online and offline marketing as well. Unleashing splash page mystery images, developer diaries, and most recently sending various media outlets their own brand of giant decoder rings in the form of metal COG tags. With everything from Gears of War shoes, to books, to user-designed case mods, it’s obvious that Marcus and the boys are in high demand.

The game that was once referred to as “bigger, better, and more badass” by the lead designer himself may no longer be officially represented as such, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t be all of those things. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am extremely excited about the Gears of War 2 release and will make sure that I’m fully prepared to terminate Locust come November 7th. See you online beeshes!!!

Title: Gears of War 2
Publisher: Microsoft
Rating: Mature
Content: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
Platforms: Xbox 360

The gears of war continue to turn as Marcus Fenix and his squad of Cogs go back into action in the sequel to Microsoft and developer Epic Games’ blockbuster action title.

Gears 2 Goes Gold, Forum User Boasts Broken Release Date Hours Later

Chad Lakkis — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:20:38 +0000

Today in WTF! news, Gears of War 2 is announced as having gone gold (which means the game has been finalized), and just a few hours after that, the game surfaces in the hand of a mysterious figure on the popular Neogaf gaming forum.

Coincidence? Bullshit? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that every time something like this happens the collective butt-cheeks of software executives clench in unison.

Eventually, games will come with remote detonators that sense a premature case ejection. Removing a game from its container before the specified release date will cause it to explode violently, and affected individual will have a hard time convincing anyone that they didn’t deserve every piece of gaming shrapnel they end up having to dislodge from their face.

Hey, I love reporting news and rumors as much as the next guy, but if continuously pushed, it’s not far fetched to think that developers will find better ways to protect themselves and the media they create at the expense of time and resources that could have been spent developing better content. Everything comes with a price.

New Gears of War 2 Developer Diary Video: Epic Talks Multiplayer Enhancements

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:00:41 +0000

The latest installment of the Gears of War 2 Developer Diaries, titled “Never Fight Alone”, gives us an inside look at some of the changes made by Epic to improve the mulitplayer aspect of Gears 2.

Highlights include the addition of stopping power when firing at advancing targets, crawling when you’re down, new multiplayer modes, maps, and a candid discussion regarding the influence of psychological warfare.

Have at the video after the jump.

Geeked-Out: Gears Branded “Shoes of War”

Justin Arnold — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:43:50 +0000

First there was the Lancer Assault Rifle replica. Now, for your consideration, the brain trust at Globe skate footwear bring you the Gears of War Special Edition Co-op shoe. Chainsaw bayonet not included.

The website declares that:

“Globe has teamed up with EPIC and their Gears of War video game, one of the best selling combat video games of all-time, to bring you a Special Edition Co-op shoe based on Globe’s Fusion Model. This one comes with a big pop of the Gears of War icon inside and out.”

What exactly is a “shoe of war” made of? It features spandex, breathable mesh, and kinetic EVA cushioning for flinging oneself behind strategic cover whilst taking fire.

The shoe is planned to be priced $70 – $80 and comes in sizes men’s sizes 5 through 14. Must have for the fashionable shod gamer – or 15-year-olds who have too bilked too much money from their parents.

No work yet on whether or not Gears commando Marcus Fenix has endorsed the shoe, but early word from his publicist is that “the triple stitching aids in the crushing of Locust trachea quite nicely.”

Have something you think we should show on Geeked-Out? Email it to us.

Source: globe.tv

Gears 2 Multiplayer Gameplay Footage Leaked

Chad Lakkis — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:24:02 +0000

Two off-screen videos featuring Gears of War 2 multiplayer gameplay footage have made their way onto the web. Imagine that.

From memory, it appears that the scope design when zooming in for a sniper shot has been redone, but that may just be the lack of any recent Gears 1 gameplay speaking.

The sequel packs a decent amount of new features, and for that reason, I am really excited about the upcoming release of the game — but to be completely honest, these two videos did very little for me. The meat shield is utilized early on in the first clip and the second features some snazzy arcade machines, but other than that the gameplay looks a lot like the original.

Hit the jump to see for yourself.

Source: scrawlfx.com

Gears 2 Instruction Manual Surfaces Online

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:47:58 +0000

Honestly, if you want to see the design of the booklet (like me) then this may amuse you, but beyond that I am not sure it has much use — unless you want to practice the button combos to prepare yourself for the upcoming challenge. If so, you may want to throw on some Eye of the Tiger and do a few laps around your living room to build up a sweat before you dig in like a mad man.

Of course, there is the slim chance these are not real, so bear that in mind as you drool. Scans available after the jump.

Source: gowfans.com

New Gears of War 2 Footage Reveals In-Game Achievement Tracker & More (Spoilers)

Chad Lakkis — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:26:23 +0000

A new Gears of War 2 game footage video has made its way onto the web, further confirming in my opinion that the sequel will be better than the original and revealing a few new features as well.

In addition to the meat shield ability which lets you use your enemy’s body to absorb bullets fired in your direction, the video highlights what appears to be a new feature allowing you to reposition in game items and create cover on the fly. Specifically, Marcus flips a table onto its side during a fire fight with the Locust. Pretty cool.

Another new addition in Gears 2 is what looks like in-game achievement status update system. You can see an example of this at the 42 second mark in the clip.

If you don’t mind seeing a few spoilers in the way of cut scenes, have at the video after the jump.