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

In the video above, there is a very…unusual Gears of War 2 Easter egg. I was on the fence about this game (not due to it’s quality, more based on money issues) but after seeing this I might have to trade in a bunch of older games to get this. I think I laughed for 20 minutes straight after watching this. When it comes to breakfast, Marcus Fenix doesn’t screw around.

Source: GameTrailers (via: Destructoid.com)

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

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

Many gamers only give games two hours at the most to impress them.  If a game can’t hook a gamer in those first two hours, they’ve lost the majority of gamers.  In that sense, the first two hours are the only ones that matter.

In The First Two Hours we play two similar games for only two hours each and score each game with either a “Ten” if the game thrilled us, or a “RIP” if the game killed us. Then we declare a winner based on which game used its first two hours to captivate us the most.

Today’s fight is the battle of the holiday season.  PS3 vs. Xbox 360.  Resistance 2 vs. Gears of War 2.  Which single player campaign comes out faster, harder and stronger?  And more importantly, which one used its first two hours to hook us the most?

Story: It’s the 1950’s. An alien invasion has swept through Europe annihilating everything. Now the Invasion has hit America.  As the sole survivor of your unit, it’s time to show them why Freedom and Apple Pie deserve capital letters.

Always a New Enemy To Put Holes In
One of the criticisms of the first Resistance was the lack of enemy variety, and Insomniac corrects that right out of the gate in Resistance 2.   Within the first two hours you see enemies that inspire awe like the massive walker in the first level and some that are legitimately creepy like the seemingly invulnerable, swimming chimera as it glides past your feet.  You’re always fighting something new and always getting new weapons to kill it with.

Halo 3 meets Call of Duty 4…
Resistance 2 may have the best pistol in gaming and you get it right away.  It’s a Magnum that has remotely detonated, highly explosive bullets.  You can embed a round into a Chimera’s skull and hit R2 to take out his buddy with the explosion.

You always feel the tension of battle, like you’re in a huge firefight being shot at by 20 enemies, returning fire with human weapons that have a very satisfying Call of Duty 4-like pop to them.  In many ways, Resistance 2 feels like you’re fighting slightly uglier Halo 3 aliens with the slightly modified weapons of COD4.

Scripted Moments That Come To Hurt You
The computer will take over the first person view for certain key moments, guiding you through scripted sequences, usually when all hell’s about to break loose.  If you’re a cutscene skipper, listen up: Resistance 2 uses it as a way to draw your attention to something colossal, which produces those “oh snap!” moments that really make games.

1. How Dead Am I?!
It’s a bit difficult to read Resistance 2’s damage indicator.  You know how Gears’ red skull will get redder and redder, letting you know how close you are to death? Resistance’s damage indicator is more subtle, leading to comments like, “I am a little bit dead, or a lot bit dead?”

2.  Don’t Hate the Aliens
Resistance could have done more right out of the gate to get players emotionally involved in the battle against the Chimera.  Sure, they’re ugly but they’re not hate inspiring like they could have been if some early story elements were implemented.  How about the chimera take out the statue of liberty or Mt. Rushmore?  I would have settled for one flicking off the Liberty Bell.

3.  It Doesn’t Feel Like 1951
Many of the human weapons and the equipment doesn’t look like its from the 1950’s, it looks modern.  There’s just nothing but an occasional radio broadcast that indicates that you’re in the middle of the 20th century.  Insomniac could have deepened the experience with a little more nostalgia in the first two hours.

Resistance’s first two hours have great pacing, big bosses, surprising cinematics and satisfying combat, which all make it an edge of your seat experience, but I wish I was more attached to the story and emotionally involved with the central conflict in the game.

Story: Marcus Fenix and his bunch o’ badasses take the fight to the locusts with new weapons, characters, a new story writer and a new unreal engine.  As the Last Day ad says, “you already know how this will end,” but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun getting there.  Especially in the first two hours.

1.  “Wow I actually care about these people…”
From the first couple lines spoken, It’s obvious that the script is stronger and more character driven than the previous Gears game.  Dom and Marcus seem to have real friendship and respect for each other as they grunt their lines through a really important, character driven tutorial that i would not recommend skipping.  Marcus and Dom seem different from each other this time, Marcus being the war hardened leader, Dom the more human and identifiable one.

New characters, like the spiritual Tai, are unique and instantly likable.  It’s easy to get invested and care about what happens to them and early cutscenes make you feel like you are part of something epic, that you can’t lose or humanity will die with you.

2.  Bigger, Better, More Brumaked
Epic’s mission statement for Gears 2 was “bigger, better and more badassed.”  In the first Gears of War you ran away from Brumacks.  In the first two hours of Gears of War 2, I destroyed 3.

The new Locust semi-auto rifle is fun, kind of like a split between the Lancer and the Sniper rifle, and the grenades are way more relevant this time around, more powerful, more situations where they seem like the right choice and more satisfying when you see those locust chunks fly.

3.  Polish
Polish shows you how much a developer cares about their project, and Gears 2 is polished up like a classic muscle car.  It’s just little things like the fact that Marcus turns his head in the direction of the person he’s addressing and the notifications you get as you progress towards an achievement.  It’s like 15 mini achievements on your way to the big one.  Slick, Cliffy B, Slick.

Unreally Slow
The new Unreal engine still loads textures slowly.  Moving Marcus around felt somewhat slow and clunky sometimes compared to my time in Resistance 2.

Are you Scrapbooking, Marcus?
I like the emphasis on collecting cogs and documents to put into your war journal, but I felt like the searching for these items messed with the pace and intensity of the game.  I wish they could have been implemented a little more with the game rather than feeling tangential from it.

A Glitch as Ugly as Locusts
I found a glitch right before the two hour mark.  I was tasked with killing a group of mortar wielding locusts, which did, but the game did not register it.  Therefore the horde kept coming and I wasn’t let out of the loop until my welcomed death came.  Uncharacteristic of Gears, i know, but it happened.

Gears of War 2’s first two hours are better than Gears of War 1’s.  More engrossing, more streamlined, more intense.

Gears of War 2

If this was a UFC fight, Gears of War 2 would win The First Two Hour fight by split decision. They’re both wonderful games, and I think that Resistance’s gameplay may be tighter and overall more visceral, but  Gears of War 2’s engrossing story, captivating characters and its ability to make you feel vital, that you can’t lose to the locusts, is what makes its first two hours more successful and gives it the win by a narrow margin.

This just in from the world of “things that make you go hmmm” news. In an interview with Irish radio station RedFM, Cliff Bleszinski jokingly (we hope) shared his thoughts on the popularity that comes with being one of the most well known game devs on the planet.

His comment (shown below) gives the impression that young boys voluntarily shed their underoos in his presence.

“This would be a great job if I wanted to sleep with 15 year-old boys,”

The King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, is transforming Neverland Ranch into a giant game development studio as we speak. Video games and amusement park rides?!? I’m well over 15 and even my pants are about to come off.

Yes, I totally wrote about this just so I could make the Michael Jackson reference. Sue me.

Source: VG247

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.

Leave it to CliffyB to raise the bar. Some of us here at Ripten certainly see Gears of War’s world as more than a mere backdrop for chainsaw duels and Mountain Dew-fueled testosterone fests.

But would we go as far as this? That photo pictured above – of Dom, Marcus Fenix’ right hand bro, and his girl – the subject of much melancholy in the ad campaign and supposedly the focal point of Dom’s story in Gears 2? You can own it for yourself – it comes with the Limited Edition of the game. CliffyB has his own, and he keeps it close at all times, more so than you’d imagine.:

“I keep it in my wallet,” Bleszinski told EDGE to their surprise. It’s good to know he’s that invested in his characters’ stories…

Personally I really don’t give a hoot about Dom’s sob story, but I know that game developers, no matter the game, must obviously take the worlds they create very seriously. Few of them, I imagine, carry them in their wallets.

As if you all weren’t all excited for Gears of War 2’s launch tomorrow/tonight, here’s something to whet your appetite (and your pants) before the launch: Microsoft has plans to put out a Limited Edition Gears of War 2 Zune, in a similar vein of the Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune from September of last year. You’ll be excited to know that even though it’s a limited edition, these will be in production for a bit longer than the Halo Zunes, meaning that you’ve got a bit more time to grab one of these babies before they run out. Hit the jump for more details.

The Gears of War 2 Zune is also pre-loaded with 244 images of high-res concept art and gameplay screenshots, 9 Gears of Wars 2 videos such as trailers and behind-the-scenes work at Epic, and the entire Gears of War 2 soundtrack, all fit into 120GB with space to spare. If you want to get your grubby paws on one of these, you’ll be spending $279.99 starting tomorrow, when GOW2 launches. Check the gallery bellow for screenshots of the coveted Zune.

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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!

If you’re anything like me, you love to watch behind-the-scenes footage of pretty much anything. The making of a Snickers bar? Sign me up! Alright, that might be a bit much, but this Monday’s X-Play at 8pm EST promises an all access pass inside Epic Studios with insight into the making of Gears of War 2 plus tons of exclusives, interviews, and the first look at the game’s two minute cinematic intro. Mark and Cliff share an office — who knew?

Hit the jump for the G4TV video preview.

G4TV’s Adam Sessler shares his words of wisdom with us once again in the latest edition of Sessler’s Soapbox. The gloves come off as Adam delves into the often shady reality of exclusive content and washes it down with a tall glass of New Yorker/Gears of War kick-ass. Sessler in COG armor is enough to scare even the biggest locust back underground.

Hit the jump and prepare to be rant-ified.

If a mob of Locust rushed you while playing Gears of War 2, chances are you’d know exactly what to do, but what if a similar creature kicked in the door to your bedroom interrupting your dream right as Jessica Alba was about to say “I do”? My guess is you’d shit your pants, and I’d be right there with you. Not literally, although a Jessica Alba dream does sound nice.

What’s this all about you ask? Well, I noticed an advert on our site for something called “The Last Stand” sponsored by Gears of War 2. Eventually curiosity kicked in. What the hell, I hit “unmute” and started to watch the documentary which polls various experts (and a Gears 2 scribe for good measure) on future threats to the human race such as a biological warfare and extraterrestrial invasions.

If the guys over at Epic were looking to scare us up a bit in time for Halloween — mission accomplished. My lancers on order and my can of Lysol is well within reach. Check out the first part of the documentary after the jump and let me know what you think.

It’s an “Epic” article worthy of its subject. On the following page, we’ve placed a few choice examples of New Yorker’s hoity-toity descriptions of the life of Cliff Bleszinski, a designer known by nearly every Xbox owner.

On Cliffy B’s Lamborghini:

Bleszinski suggested that we go to a local diner. He professes an aversion to mornings, and to Monday mornings especially, but he seemed dauntingly alert. “This car’s like a wakeup call,” he said. “By the time I get to work, my heart’s pumping and I’m ready to crank.” Before we were even out of the parking lot, we were traveling at forty-five miles an hour. At a stoplight, Bleszinski exchanged waves with the driver of an adjacent red Ferrari—another Epic employee. When we hit a hundred miles per hour on a highway entrance ramp, Bleszinski announced, “Never got one ticket!” On the highway, he slowed to seventy-five. “One of my jobs in life,” Bleszinski said, cutting over to an exit, “is to make this look a little cooler.” By “this,” he meant his job.

Nice to know those sixty-dollar game markups are going directly to Epic’s hotrod fund.

On the surreal Super Mario Bros. experience:

Issued in 1985, Super Mario Brothers was a game of summer-vacation-consuming scope and unprecedented inventiveness. It was among the first video games to suggest that it might contain a world. It was also hallucinogenically strange. Why did mushrooms make Mario grow larger? Why did flowers give Mario the ability to spit fire? Why did bashing Mario’s head against bricks sometimes produce coins? And why was Mario’s enemy, Bowser, a saurian, spiky-shelled turtle?

Keep in mind, the average New Yorker reader is 108 years old and still thinks Nintendo makes playing cards.

From the mini-review of Gears of War contained in the profile:

The story line and the narrative dilemmas of Gears are not very sophisticated. What is sophisticated about Gears is its mood. The world in which the action takes place is a kind of destroyed utopia; its architecture, weapons, and characters are chunky and oversized but, somehow, never cartoonish. Most video-game worlds, however well conceived, are essenceless. Gears felt dirty and inhabited, and everything from the mechanics of its gameplay to its elliptical backstory was forcefully conceived, giving it an experiential depth rare in the genre.

Hey, New Yorker! 2006 called, they want their review back.

On the design of Epic’s offices:

If one were to commission a very bright and unusually tasteful adolescent to design his ideal workplace, Epic’s headquarters would probably be the result. Its many blacks, grays, and corrugated-metal surfaces might best be labelled Bachelor Futurist, even though, by now, most of Epic’s male employees wear wedding rings. The office furnishings come in three styles: Neo-Living Room (easy-rocking, lever-activated recliners), Casual Satanist (black leather couches), and Romper Room Gothic (beanbag chairs). The aroma of lingering adolescence carries over into the mementos, knickknacks, and emblems that Epic’s employees use to decorate their offices. Tim Sweeney, with the earnestness of a teen-age boy, has a prominent Ferrari flag hanging in his office—though Sweeney, unlike most teen-age boys, actually owns a Ferrari. Chris Perna, the art director of Gears 2, displays on one of the shelves in his office a foot-high silver-cast Darth Vader Pez dispenser. Bleszinski’s office resembles a toy-store yard sale. These are boyish affectations, certainly, but boyishness is the realm in which these men seek inspiration, not a code by which they live.

This is an extremely polite way of calling the entire Epic staff “man-children”.

And finally, a look at Gears 2 through a developer discussion on balancing weapons:

Discussion at Epic is collegial and to the point; modern game design is too complex and collaborative for any individual to feel proprietary about his own ideas. At one meeting I attended, a disagreement about weaponry was swiftly resolved. “There’s no direct counter to the flamethrower,” Ray Davis, the game’s lead programmer, pointed out, with exasperation. A colleague, who had obviously heard this before, sighed. “I don’t know. I think it’s a superweapon,” he said. Then someone else observed that the boomshot, another devastatingly fatal weapon, had no direct counter, either, and Davis recognized with a grin that his argument had been destroyed. Bleszinski took the opportunity to raise a singular annoyance of the boomshot, familiar to anyone with experience of the multiplayer version of Gears: the impossibility of knowing whether someone you are charging toward happens to be carrying it. “The boomshot needs something to warn you your opponent’s got it,” Bleszinski said. He suggested adding small glowing lights around its four barrels, which everyone agreed was a fine solution. Davis, who works most directly with the programmers and was therefore most familiar with what remained janky, brought up the “inconsistent, unfun lethality” of a certain kind of grenade. This segued into Gears 2’s inclusion of ink grenades, which create a highly damaging toxic cloud—the proper gameplay use of which no one, so far, had been able to decide.

Wow! Reading this sure feels like a step above Game Informer, doesn’t it? We hope this isn’t the last of New Yorker’s in-depth dissertations on gaming culture and business. Can we expect the same fancy treatment for Fallout 3, Resistance 2, or Shaun White Snowboarding?

It’s doubtful, but if you want to read only the finest in gaming journalism on a regular basis, bookmark Ripten and check us daily (if not hourly). Unlike the New Yorker, we’re always on the gaming beat.

Source: New Yorker

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

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.

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

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.

SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT. If you’re super-sensitive about Gears of War 2 spoilers, do not click the jump. You’ll feel horrible about what you’ve done afterward. Trust me.

If you’re curious about what lies next for the Gears saga, and have maybe snuck a peek at the leaked footage of the Gears 2 ending, well, then come on in. Don’t say we didn’t warn you though.

You know how after every Metal Gear Solid game, the credits roll and then the logo pops up, and there’s a little conversation after that, usually with Ocelot? Well Cliffy’s stealing one from Hideo’s book.

After the Gears of War 2 credits roll, the logo hits the screen. Suddenly a voice message starts playing. It’s static-y as hell, and the person on the other side of the line sounds like he’s in some serious shit.

This is Adam Fenix. Is anyone out there? Can you hear me? This is Adam Fenix. Can you hear me? What have you done?

Adam Fenix was Marcus Fenix’ pa, and he was a military scientist who discovered a complete mapping of the underground Locust tunnels where the “bad guys” of the Gears universe have been shacking up. What does he mean by “what have you done”? Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it?

Source: Gears of War 2 Fans

Mere days after Gears of War 2 began popping up on various torrent sites there has been an arrest made in the case.

Rodney Gray, 43, is a security guard employed by Technicolor, the Memphis Tennessee company that packages and distributes games and DVD’s in the U.S.

According to a Memphis Police Department affidavit, Gray stole hundreds of copies of Gears of War 2, as well as Fable II, and was selling them on the black market. He and another unidentified person of interest are currently under investigation for stealing and selling the games from the plant, but neither have been formally charged as of yet.

Detectives followed Gray from a Memphis apartment and pulled him over for driving related offenses. After doing so, they performed a cursory search of the vehicle and discovered 31 games in a red bag.

Memphis P.D. estimates the net worth of the theft to be more than $60,000.

Source: commercialappeal.com