Gears of War Ships November 12th

Kotaku is reporting that Epic has confirmed a November 12th retail date for Gears of War, the highly anticipated shooter for the Xbox 360. This announcement confirms a date found by individuals participating in a viral marketing campaign via Xbox Live. From the announcement: "'Our vision is to deliver a one-two punch of cinematic action paired with a thrilling and compelling interactive experience,' said Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer at Epic. 'With Gears of War we've created a title that will place gamers directly in the shadows of a ravaged world, surrounded by the beautiful remnants of a destroyed city and the horrific dangers that hide in the rubble.'"

yowza

[Anonymous Coward]

I playtested this game several times and while Im excited to see a full demonstration of the new unreal engine, I will say that GoW itself isnt anything spectacular. Basically it is a checkpoint grind ala halo, but with less story. You start out in some kind of prison whose population have gone amok and you have to fight your way to the evac point. Your enemies are interesting looking, but each one looks the same. Once again, it looks spectacular but if youve every played Unreal, Quake or Halo, the title will bore you quickly. The nonstop firefights can be broken up by your (necessary) use of scenery as cover but it rapidly becomes utilitarian and loses its wow factor. I encourage people to get the game and have a look but if story and drama are your thing, dont expect to be swept off your feet.

Tycho's thoughts on Gears of War

[Quarem]

Tycho, of Penny-Arcade, wrote about Gears of War after he played it at E3. He came away quite impressed, and usually he's fairly spot on. The following quote was taken from this page. [penny-arcade.com] (Note: Mark Rein of Epic was quoted in a recent interview as saying all the E3 stuff, what Tycho experienced, was running on a single-threaded renderer, but the final version of the game is running on their multi-threaded, Gemini, renderer which makes things a lot smoother+prettier.)

Typically, the spectacle of the Electronic Entertainment Expo is such that each sequential event compresses the one before it, leaving me with three compacted days that begin inflating on the plane ride back and leave me a drooling wretch by Monday. This time is different; I have complete access to the entire week just as though I were lazily thumbing through a file drawer. For example, I knew the moment that I gripped the controller for Gears of War that I was in front of the game of the show. Nothing obscures that information. Gears is really at a "Halo" level of platform definition, and when your hands close around the gamepad on "emergence day," please remember I said so.

When we came out of the room where we had been playing it, a kind of illicit zone like an Opium Den, Kiko and I immediately began to discuss how profound the experience was. At the same time, Mike and Gabe (two separate people!) felt like it was pretty good, but bemoaned its rough framerate and constant tearing. It is our theory that perhaps some boxes were set to 1080i and some to 720p possibly creating performance disparities, because Keek and myself experienced no framerate abberations worth discussing. We did briefly experience a vision of a future where we spend every night playing Gears of War online, but I'm not sure that's connected to the vertical resolution.

If I had to say what defines it, I would say that "everything in the game world feels unrelentingly massive." This is a simulated environment that feels very confident, in that it is about huge armored men hiding behind sturdy cover while bursts of machinegun fire savage your solid fortifications. Everything you do is made to "feel" large, and when you throw yourself against a hunk of ruined automobile you are not left to wonder whether or not you are a bad ass. It is clear from the word "go." A kind of brutal platformer, Gears of War is about leaping from safety to safety, and everything reinforces it. It feels classic instantly. Indeed, you could call it Frogger Plus Firearms and not get it wrong.