Much like our Fable 3 session with Peter Molyneux, our time with Gears of War 3 wasn’t spent playing or watching a demo reel, but rather talking with members of Epic Games. Rod Strickland was happy to answer an onslaught of questions from an assortment of different outlets.
A question I had been dying to ask revolved around Gear’s narrative, or, to put it blatantly, whether the team was interested in taking it seriously. Gears 2 was rather bipolar toward its plot; on one hand you had some of the worst melodrama I’ve ever seen regarding the fate of Dom’s wife, but on the other you had the hilariously self aware sequence regarding the ridiculous circumstance of being trapped inside a giant worm. Carnage filled chainsaw screaming juxtaposed with lost love made for a fairly inconsistent package, and I needed to know of Epic was going favor one side or the other for Gears 3. Strickland’s response incited a similar split. While he understood our dissatisfaction with melodrama, he reasoned that that specific scene had thousands of YouTube views and countless comments talking about how touching that part of the game was for some people. Gears 3 will continue to have something for everyone (he hinted at events surrounding Marcus’ father for dramatic tension), striking a balance between drama and levity.
Another writer asked why Gears 3 was suddenly the right time for a female member. Strickland indicated Anya existed as a way for female fans to finally have someone to identify with, rather than the thick necked roidheads currently populating the playable characters. He also stressed that she will never default to being a damsel in distress and will remain a strong character; she’s not about weakness.
When asked what their greatest challenge was, Strickland stressed the difficulty in creating four player co-op. He spoke of the desire to make certain environments less linear and more akin to those found in Gears 1. Branching pathways navigable by separated party members would be in greater frequency, as would character switching (even playing as solo, you won’t control Marcus exclusively).
Another humorous story came with the trials and tribulations of the graphical jumps in the iterations of Gears’ Unreal 3 engine. Strickland stated the jump between 2 and 3 would be comparable to 1 from 2, which he felt was greatly underestimated. In fact, he said he fought tooth and nail for a Gears 1 setup at the Gears 2 review event to demonstrate how far the team had come with cranking better visuals out of the Unreal 3 engine. While we only say Gears 3 demo’d in real time for five minutes, the tropical landscape, lush with vibrant color, did will to suggest another significant jump was a valid assertion.
Speaking of the gameplay, we did see a few of the new bells and whistles. The most physically jarring thing I saw was a Locust pin a COG down and literally rip the guy’s arm out of his socket, creating as much gore as you’d expect. A new mechanic arrived with the new kick melee attack, which was put to good use with self destruction enemies; chainsaw them, kick them away into a hoard, and watch as meat splatters everywhere. The meat shield grenade plant, which had Marcus taking a Locust hostage and then jamming a frag grenade into his skull before sending him on his way, was also fairly impressive. Lastly we got to see a new type of enemy. Killing it apparently wasn’t enough, as the head would slither away and setup shop as a completely different fire breathing turret.
April 2011 is a long time to wait, but check back with us then for a full review!
