Microsoft has confirmed that one of its biggest-selling Xbox 360 games, Gears Of War (GoW), is about to get a second outing this November.
The announcement was made at the main video game developer hoedown, Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2008, and puts an end to confusion over when GoW2 was coming and what it might entail. It's good news for UK gamers who voted Gears of War as their Ultimate Game Of 2007.
There’s not a lot in the trailer above except a gratuitous Locust blood-letting in the art style of comic God, Frank Miller. That’s not a complaint. The story continues the tale of hard-nut Marcus Fenix and Delta squad as they battle the Locust hordes. It’s expected to be a lot bigger than the first. Here’s what the developer said:
“To our team the original game was just a tease, the appetiser to the Gears of War characters and new style of gameplay,” explained Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games. “We were so amped to get to the next chapter, and dig deeper into the universe of this franchise. Gears of War 2 is an even bigger, better, and more badass experience than the first game, and we can't wait to get it in the hands of eager gamers this November.”
IGN spoke with Epic’s tech-head, Tim Sweeney, for some more detail:
“First he spoke about ambient occlusion technology. This allows the geometry of an object and its surroundings be taken into account for shadows. The result is a truer representation of light reflections. We saw this with both environments and characters (using Marcus Fenix no less) and the improvement is drastic to say the least.
The next thing we saw was perhaps more telling - a Gears of War tech demo with hundreds of locust enemies rushing down a street. New Unreal Engine 3 technology makes it possible. This leaves open the possibility for massive battles in Gears of War 2. The first game featured a small group of humans against a few enemies at each encounter, though that hardly seems to be an upper limit with the sequel. There can now be hundreds of enemies storming the screen. Why wouldn't it be included in the game?”
Gears of War sold more than 3 million in its first 10 weeks when launched in November 2006 and New Line Cinema is making a movie. Roll on November.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Comments
I wonder if this one will work when ported to the PC, unlike GoW, which crashes every 30 seconds.
Does anybody know if Microsoft have sorted out the PC problems? I hear the same thing is happening in the ported version of Viva Pinata.
I have Gears of War on PC, and it's never crashed. Not once.