I attended a twenty minute closed doors session of Gears of War 3 with some folks from Epic. It was primarily Q&A, but we did get a five minute demo of a part of the game. My first impressions were ‘wow — this looks far, far better than the previous Gears,’ which already look very good.
Updates to the Unreal3 Engine are what make the new graphical changes possible. We were told the shadow and lighting system in general got a major overhaul allowing for more diversity and complicated lighting. From an art direction standpoint, the game is also more colorful and vibrant than the drab browns and grays from the previous games.
Of course it’s not all about the graphics. Lots of gameplay changes are included as well, including four player co-op. Local play is still limited to two player splitscreen, but the ability to do four player co-op should be a blast. Anya and Sam, two female Gears, are amongst the new characters that players can use during multiplayer. They’re also a big part of the campaign. It was revealed that Epic decided to not only add female Gears, but make them equally as capable as the male Gears after seeing how many females showed support for the game at various conventions.
The Horde mode has undergone changes too, but those were not shown to us or discussed. During the demonstration, we did see the new bayonet charge attack that the Gears can use on the Locust and the other bad guys (their name eludes me now). A new grenade attack is available too, allowing the Gears to stick a grenade into their enemy and then kick them away, ideally towards other enemies.
This was confirmed to be the end of this Gears trilogy as well, although I’m sure we’ll see much more of Marcus and the gang after the 2011 release date set for Gears 3.
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