Mixed Impressions For Gears of War

jayintune writes "One of the writers from 2old2play had a chance to sit down with the multiplayer section of Gears Of War for a hands on review after a public screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The game comes off as a little less then stellar as the author sites controller issues and game mechanics as having some disappointing flaws." Richard at Aeropause, on the other hand, just loved the game when he played the title in Chicago. "The best thing about Gears though had to be that fact that it was a breeze to pick up and play. The controls were perfect and felt as if they needed no tweaking whatsoever. Moving from cover point to cover point was easy and a lot of fun." At least, if things go badly, the game was 'cheap' to make. Mark Rein of Epic Games is quoted as saying Gears 'only' cost $10 Million to make. While that's still a lot, it's much lower than the $30 Million some companies are claiming is required for next-gen gamemaking.

Re:From the still-tweaking-the-english-language de

[gEvil (beta)]

Are you sure you didn't mean FTFC? : p

What a surprise...

[Psychotext]

In other shock news reported today it has become apparent that people can have different opinions, and that you cannot please everyone all of the time.

Is gears of war suddenly so important that Slashdot is publishing links to pre-previews as some sort of scoop?

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[Osty]

Is gears of war suddenly so important that Slashdot is publishing links to pre-previews as some sort of scoop?

Well, Gears of War is supposed to be this year's Halo. While it has a competent team behind it (CliffyB!), I'm starting to think maybe it's been overhyped and will never live up to expectations.

Does anybody remember Brute Force [gamerankings.com]? It was supposed to be 2003's Halo, got overhyped, and ended up as yet another mediocre third-person shooter that nobody remembers. To me, Gears of War looks like it'

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[bigman2003]

Brute Force is EXACTLY what I think of everytime I see the Gears of War hype machine.

That game was hyped beyond all hype...at least for the time. (Now it would look like a soft launch) But the game blew.

I was sucked in...won't let that happen again.

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[im_thatoneguy]

I don't even remember any marketing for it. I rented the game when I saw it in Blockbuster because it looked interesting, but I hadn't read a single preview, review or news article.

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[RexRhino]

Slashdot is taking payments to hype products and push opinion on the site. It is called guerilla advertising. Take what stories slashdot selects to post with a grain of salt.

$10million

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Yeah, that doesn't include the hundreds of millions they have spent developing their tech over the past 10 years...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[KDR_11k]

Not only that, the whole reason they talk about the budget is to advertise their engine as the way to cheaply make games without suffering any loss of quality.

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[KDR_11k]

A good game is good primarily because the gameplay is good, that doesn't get harder to implement as the console's complexity rises. Graphics and such get more difficult to make up to par but gameplay does not depend on the tech much. Graphical quality also gets more expensive as it gets better whereas better gameplay isn't that expensive to improve. Sure, fine balancing requires a lot of testing and polishing but a game can be good even without a lot of that simply by making sure the core rules of the gamep

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[MBraynard]

Disagree.

Taking a game like Oblivion to the next level, with much more advanced AI does require much more technology. And while better graphics require more artist time, more and better story lines and quests require more writer time.

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[MBraynard]

Haven't noticed the problem so much, though I kind of agree that wrapping the Arena by level 7 or 8 is maybe problematic.

But if you can't take down a peasant easily later in the game, it is a little surprising and you may have botched your character design.

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[blahplusplus]

"A good game is good primarily because the gameplay is good,"

Correct, but good game not always equal what sells, See: Planescape torment, Freespace 2, and many other excellent games that flopped.

"better gameplay isn't that expensive to improve."

This is where we'll have to part ways, in my humble opinion gameplay *is* expensive to improve, especially when you're dealing with adding layers of complexity.

And graphics *is* a part of gameplay, because it directly influences how a game *feels*, how the world is r

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[fimbulvetr]

Yeah, you're right. I'd much rather be fighting giant crabs than this thing. Screw multiplayer, where are the CRABS!

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[KDR_11k]

I'd rather be fighting giant ants with rocket launchers and friggin' lasers but that aside, where did he say anything about the PS3?

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[tygerstripes]

I gather they're introducing Crabs in the new Sims2 expansion pack: Nasty Rash

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[DrXym]

What struck me from the demos at X06 was how it was described as a stop-and-pop kind of game, and boy did the demo drive that home. The main character (seen from over the should so it's not a FPS) spent most of their time running from one piece of cover to another and it wasn't clear where the fun was meant to be. The demo was pretty limited so it probably has a lot more to offer.

Another game that it is frequently compared to is Resistance: Fall of Man. That goes completely over the top with action and ex

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[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Even if Resistance is script heavy the makers claim it can support up to 40 players in multi-player which might be interesting to see. Not even many PC games have that many players, and frequently suffer from impasse when they do (i.e. neither side making any headway).

Can I buy some of your drugs?

In all seriousness, I'm wondering what about this title makes you think that 40 players means that it won't have impasses? I honestly don't think the player count determines whether or not impasses are met.

Also,

Hmmm...

[realmolo]

Sounds like it's one of those super-realistic FPSs, where you have to really aim and work with your team and stuff.

I could never get into those, personally. I just want to kill things. Isn't the full "simulation"-type FPS more of a PC thing? Isn't the console market more about "fast action", like Halo (which isn't that fast, but you know what I mean)? I'm curious how 360 owners will respond.

So far, the 360 really seems like a cheap(er) way to play high-end PC games. It doesn't have many traditional console-y games, in my opinion.

It's not "technically" an FPS, although it's close

[jchenx]

It's not technically a First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, since the view is in the 3rd-person, over-the-shoulder. It's got a lot of the same elements otherwise, though, where aiming is important and it is team-based. So technically not an FPS, but it sure acts like one. And it is a "fast action" game, not a "simulation" type.

Lost Planet is another similar title. I just recently checked out the demo on Live Marketplace, and it has similar control-scheme. I remember reading somewhere that it was Capcom's attemp

Re:It's not "technically" an FPS, although it's cl

[Aladrin]

A friend is looking forward to this and I said 'Ah, I'll have to try the demo' and he told me there wouldn't be one. My response? 'Oh, it'll suck then.'

There's only 1 reason not to provide a demo of such a hyped game: They think they'll get more sales if people have to buy it blind.

Sad, but true.

People used to say it was a size problem blah blah blah... There's demos over a GB on XBLA. Size is no excuse.

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[hollismb]

You may be right. It may suck. I'm taking the wait and see approach myself. But, to the team's credit, they said they didn't have time to come up with a solid demo and finish the game on time.

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[DigitalDisplacement]

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is still one of the top selling and most popular Xbox 360 games, and its predecessors were very popular on the Xbox. While not as "simulation"-y as the Ghost Recon titles on the PC, it's a pretty hardcore shooter. So, no question, this type of shooter is very popular on consoles these days...or at least on the Xboxes.

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[AcidLacedPenguiN]

I reacted the same way. . . I can often let some mistakes go by but this one just makes me cringe every time I see it.

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[gknoy]

Glad I'm not the only one. I hadn't intended to troll, it's just that using the glaringly wrong word hertz my eyes. Er, hurts.

Skeptics and Hype...

[ExcalHM]

I always expected Gears of War to cause mixed impressions... its one of those games that looks good but doesn't play as well as you would hope. I'm sure it will be a decent game, but all this hype is starting to make me sick. I have some doubts about GoW... although I'll probably buy it anyway. And the cost of 10 million doesn't include all the time and money they spent on developing the Unreal 3 Engine... so it's safe to say it only took 70% of a traditional FPS development team to make Gears of War.

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[aspect21]

Geez... people with simple minds... you can't do the math of adding how much the U3E cost to produce. What's next, are you going to add the education of the employees that made the game to the total cost too? I mean, without that education they couldn't have made Gears.

Um, both reviews are very positive

[Deliveranc3]

Slashvertisement much?

I've got to say I'm definitely aching to try this game out, it's coming out for pc too right?

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[ExcalHM]

Yes, but not for some time after the 360 version is released.

$10 Million

[atomicstrawberry]

Is that $10 million total, or $10 million just for Gears of War? It's been built using Unreal Engine 3, which Epic have also been working on simultaneously, and I believe using Gears to demo the tech. Separating the cost of developing that engine from Gears' cost is fair enough, but it's also pretty deceptive.

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[El_Muerte_TDS]

Epic is also working on UT2007 simultaneously. There are people at Epic that only work on GoW, people that only work on UT2007 and people than only work on UnrealEngine3. Some people might work on GoW+UE3 and some on UT2007+UE3.
So it's $10M in total

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[KDR_11k]

Of course not, they're advertising the engine with that number. "License our engine and even you can make graphically impressive games for cheap!"

So this means it'll be cheap at retail, right?

[nick_davison]

Gears 'only' cost $10 Million to make. While that's still a lot, it's much lower than the $30 Million some companies are claiming is required for next-gen gamemaking.

The justification for needing to charge $60/game rather than the more normal ~$40 for the last generation was that games had got so much more expensive to make.

If this game only costs a third as much as these allegedly super-expensive next gen games, will that be passed on to the consumer at one third the price, too? At $20/copy, the increased

Kill Switch Revisited?

[fuerstma]

I was actually invited to take part in the TCM / Gears of War preview through my website jackass critics [jackasscritics.com] but didn't take part.

From viewing the many and trailers / previews.. I will say that Gears of War looks like an updated Kill.Switch. Painful "on the rails" gameplay, with nice looking graphics.

I'll be interested in seeing how it works out. XBL Marketplace Demo will be very telling, when it's released.