Gears of War Preview

System: Xbox 360
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Epic Games

The date was May 9, 2006. Press hacks from the world over were exiting the Microsoft E306 Media Briefing at Grauman’s Chinese Theater and heading for the reception at the Roosevelt Hotel. Arriving onto the scene, a couple journo buddies and I headed towards the Gears of War lounge. Looking around, I noticed there were a number of beanie chairs surrounding a large LCD and Xbox 360 unit. Damn. It wouldn’t be playable. Since the event was just starting, Gears of War’s designer Cliff Bleszinski (or more affectionately known as CliffyB) was leaving the area and tossed us a nod. All I could think about was how much I hated the guy.

There we were, just moments after seeing CliffyB play Gears of War at the Microsoft Media Briefing surrounded by all sorts of cool playable titles like Splinter Cell: Double Agent and we were going to have to sit around and watch someone demo Gears of War for us yet again? We’ve been watching people demo the biggest title to be released this year for the past year. Needless to say, this was a big disappointment. As he walked by smiling with his ‘what’s up’ gesture, I couldn’t help but flash him the mean mug as I thought to myself that this guy gets to play Gears of War whenever he wants to. Extremely jealous, I grabbed a cold drink and went to check out an early look at Blue Dragon before my scheduled closed session on it the next day.

Gears of War producer Rod Fergusson of Epic Games fills us in on what seperates it from the rest.

Download:
• higher-res version (13MB)
• for Video iPod
• for Sony PSP

As the morning of May 10th came around, I headed to the proper location for my Gears of War closed session. With the previous day’s activities behind me, I was just expecting more of the same. Someone else sitting in front of us all and walking us through a demo of the title. Imagine my surprise when the doors opened and I saw two tables with a number of Xbox 360s, LCDs and headsets situated in the room just begging for some multi-player affection. After the initial shock wore off, I knew it was time. It was finally time to see if Gears of War could meet our over-hyped expectations.

I’m happy to report that it does and then some. Gears of War is a third person shooter that plays like a first person shooter. It places players in the role of Marcus Fenix, a has-been military hero released from prison only to help humanity stem back a swarm of creatures emerging from the planet’s crust. A few things make Gears of War unique. The game uses co-op throughout the game-play experience. When playing with someone over Xbox Live, they’ll control Dominic, Marcus’ friend and squad-mate. When playing alone, the computer will tag along with you filling in the shoes of Dominic. You’ll be able to give different commands and actions to your side kick to add a layer of strategy to the game. Don’t let this fool you into thinking it’s the same type of squad dummies you’ve seen in other games. Rod Fergusson, the game’s producer assured us that the AI knows how to take care of himself, when and what to shoot, when to reload and all those sorts of things. When you give him a command of what you want him to do, it’s more like an override. These tactics will also carry over into the multi-player environment as well.

The game is all about using cover to survive. You won’t find the mindless shooting with reckless abandon that forms the core of most first person shooters out there. Instead, you’ll be forced to stay on your toes and think quickly. The only way you will survive is to use your surroundings as cover and take shots where you can as you move into a better position to take out your enemy.

Just because you can take cover, don’t let that fool you into thinking that Gears of War is a softie or easy. The pacing is hectic and the feel is gritty. Epic has done a really good job of making you feel like you’re in an environment where your life is in danger. Every animation and all the game-play elements back this point up. When you take cover, it’s not like Sam Fisher or Solid Snake where they smoothly and calmly ‘place’ themselves alongside a wall. Marcus runs and forcefully slams his full weight against whatever he’s taking cover under. Everything he does from firing blindly while moving behind cover, to vaulting over low cover or diving from one cover position to another is done with a sense of urgency not seen in many games out there now. What’s worse is that the cover you’re taking is constantly deteriorating which forces you to find or make cover to move to next.

With all the things you can do, it’s refreshing to know that the controls are simple in Gears of War. Most of the actions I’ve explained above are achieved by using one button press. If you’re between cover points and want to get somewhere faster, just hold down the ‘A’ button and Marcus will drop down low and run much faster to his location. The camera itself drops as well and gives a real front-line type of immersion to the game. Once you reach your destination, you just press the ‘A’ button to take cover against it. If, for example, you’re taking cover behind a sofa laying on the sidewalk that’s being torn to shreds and you want to take position behind a car that’s nearby, you just hit the same ‘A’ button after aiming towards that direction to dive and roll to it. This is all achieved due to the game being fully context sensitive as far as what actions you need to perform depending on your position, cover, actions being performed and other factors. It’ll be nice to play a more complete version to see what other things are available with this intuitive control scheme.

Gears of War is a title that many have been watching for some time. Even before the big unveil at last year’s E3, we were still getting glimpses of it for the two years prior as Epic demonstrated Unreal Engine 3.0 using assets from the title. When a game gets as much attention and hype over graphics as Gears has, it’s hard not to be skeptical. Luckily it plays even better than it looks. While I don’t hate CliffyB anymore, I have to admit he’s one lucky bastard. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one as it nears launch this Fall on Emergence Day, November 12.