• Xbox 360 ››
• Action ››
• Gears of War 2

Cliff Bleszinski dishes on Gears and games

• By Sid Shuman
• November 03, 2008 14:41 PM PST
• Print
• Email this!
• Share
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz!
  • FaceBook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us

What about taking enemies hostage as "meat shields"?
It's basically a get-out-of-jail-free card from a grenade or even a mortar. The hostage will blow up and you'll be fine. It will even protect again chainsaw attacks and Torque bow sticks. Of course, in multiplayer matches, if you're taken hostage you're immediately placed in the spawn queue -- you won't have to wait as your body gets dragged around.

I didn't see any Berserkers in the game.
There are no Berserkers in Gears of War 2. There are no Krill, either. One of the criticisms that people love to say about sequels is that "Oh, Gears 2 is just Gears 1.5." Well, [our response was], we won't put Krill and Berserkers in. If you rounded a corner in Gears of War 2, and a Berserker burst through the wall and chased you down again, you'd be bored. If you had to do those light and dark puzzles again, with the Krill...it would be boring.

We have lots of new monsters: Blood Mounts, Grinders, Reavers that land this time, Tickers, and tons of new boss monsters. We're letting those guys have their moment in the sun. Who knows? Maybe [Berserkers and Krill] will return sometime in a new and interesting way. We have plenty of monsters to fill in those gaps. We have new levels with different environmental hazards that aren't Krill. We're using something else this time, but you'll have to wait and see for that.

What was your biggest challenge in developing Gears of War 2?
Balancing narrative with gameplay objectives. We did good with objectives in the first game, but we didn't get too far into the narrative. We would've loved to have delved deeper into the character of Marcus...but we didn't even have an opening cinematic! We just went straight into the game. We do have a cinema that sets up the story for Gears of War 2, and the later cinematics are all three to five minutes long. Which is by design, I assure you.

There are lots of GamePro readers screaming about Cole. Will he return in Gears of War 2? Absolutely. But if Cole was in the beginning of the game, there wouldn't be any room for our new guys like Tai and Dizzy! I assure you, there will be plenty of Cole.

The overall tone of Gears of War 2 seems somewhat darker. Even Marcus's over-the-top comments seem to be reigned in. Am I imagining things?
We dialed that back a little on a couple of lines. You've got to know when to use those [over-the-top] lines and when not to. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek, and it's a summer blockbuster, but we're taking things a little more seriously this time. You can see that with Dom. Instead of running from explosions, you've got Dom telling Marcus to keep searching for his wife in case he dies. That's serious sh*t. And it still feels like Gears of War.

You'll also notice there's a bit more color saturation to the game. We're not going to go all Mirror's Edge on you, but we did add a slightly warmer look to the game. Some people don't notice the improvements right away, but if you go back and replay the first game you'll see that the shadows look flat, the lighting looks greyer and more pixely.

Speaking of visuals, the game looks great. Are you starting to push up against the DVD limits? Will you have to go to two discs?
We did pre-render two or three cinematics in the game due to memory issues, but the rest are all generated in-engine, which saves space. It's a one-disc game, though there is a second disc with behind-the-scenes videos.

Click for more Gears of War 2 screens

Do you think you'll ever need to go multi-disc on a future game?
I don't know. I like pointing to the Super Nintendo, back in the day. The developers would figure out ways to get smarter with that one cartridge, using procedural textures and the like to save space. There's always a way to squeeze more water from that stone, man. And this console's going to be around for a while, so we'll figure it out.

Weapon balance has always been a big focus for Epic, going back to Unreal Tournament. What are the tweaks that made the biggest changes in Gears of War 2?
The smoke grenades having a concussive effect is huge -- it prevents these cover standoffs and stalemates from the first game. The concept of "stopping power" is huge in multiplayer. If you try to roadie run at me, and I shoot you, you lose the majority of your forward momentum. It's like, "talk to the hand." It keeps people from doing that shotgun rush bullsh*t from the first game. You have to learn how to flank enemies, chainsaw from behind, or tag a grenade into the wall now instead. Crawling [after getting killed] is a huge addition, too, as is the ability to take hostages.

What does the shield bring to the gameplay?
It's kind of a heavy weapon, but you can do a little bit of a roadie run while carrying it. It's defensive in nature, and you can plant it in the ground by aiming and pressing A.

Flamethrowers are sort of the Holy Grail of shooter game design -- nobody can quite get them right. What's the secret to designing a good flamethrower?
Fire, water, and hair are the hardest things to do -- anything organic, really. That's why you see so many crates in video games! We've made a really beautiful flamethrower, but I'm not going to lie and say you can set the environment on fire. We're not that kind of game -- we don't want players burning down the levels! It's a fun weapon because it's powerful, and messes up your enemy's view. It's also great for blind-firing, one of our core mechanics, because you can totally burn enemies while staying safe.

Why no demo or beta for Gears 2?
A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, "yeah, I f*cked her." I know that sounds crude, but it's the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list -- you can say, "yeah, I played it." Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game.

Honestly, we could make a demo, but Gears of War 2 wouldn't be out until February of 2009 [if we did]. That stuff takes times to put together.

Granted, we may need to tweak a few things in multiplayer after release through an update. People are going to find exploits we didn't anticipate. That's the reality of making a game -- look at MMOs. We're prepared for that, but we think we're shipping a pretty great game out of the box here.

What games are you looking forward to?
Fable II looks cool. And Resident Evil 5 is next year, right? I'm dying for that, I loved RE4. Street Fighter IV looks sick, and Dead Space also looks solid. I'm a fan of horror games -- I loved Event Horizon and all of those movies, so they're making Dead Space for guys like me. That's my genre, and it looks great. I think Mirror's Edge will be great, too, but they're showing me too much parkour, I want to see the gunplay. I hope it's not all just running and jumping. As long as there's something chasing me...even Mario had Goombas, you know?

• Previous Page Prev
• Next Page Next
• 1
• 2

• Print
• Email this!
• Share
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz!
  • FaceBook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us