Posts Tagged ‘gears of war’
Epic Games Not Dropping Controllers
With every console manufacturer to soon have their own motion sensing peripheral the question remains as to where the classic controller will be after the dust settles. Some say it’s not going anywhere, while others are more hopeful about the possibilities of motion controlled gaming. While both the Wii and Sony’s offerings involve specific controllers, Microsoft’s Project Natal takes the controllers out of the equation altogether, using cameras to monitor players movement.
As both Bungie and Epic games had been given then chance to play around with the features of Natal well before its announcement, the question has been posed as to whether or not Natal controls will feature into their future titles with both Halo: Reach and Gears of War III on the horizon. Epic’s Cliff Bleszinksi says that though they’re keeping an open mind, he thinks it’s unlikely: ”Y’know, we’ll take a look at Natal–no promises–but it’s likely that the classic control interface is what Epic will be working on in the foreseeable future.”
He did admit as many have that in some ways Natal could be used in conjunction with the existing controller: “ I think there’s ways that you could merge the two interfaces and supplement a classic game with Natal controls to make something compelling.” Thus far the camps seem divided along more or less predictable lines with casual game focused companies more interested in motion devices and the rest looking at them with either mild interest or utter disdain.
Aussies getting sweet Gears of War Xbox 360 bundle
Apparently Australians have yet to embrace Gears of War like the rest of the world, which is why Microsoft is releasing a special Xbox 360 Gears of War bundle, which includes both Gears of War and Gears of War 2, packaged in a sweet box. However, the console itself is of the plain ol’ white Pro variety. It’ll be available on June 4 for $450 AUD, equivalent of $350 USD. Not a bad deal.
The Rock as Marcus Fenix in Gears of War movie?
Screenwriter Chris Morgan, who penned such movies as Fast and Furious and Wanted, comments on the assignment of writing the script for the upcoming Gears of War movie. One of the issues, he says, is to find an actor who can not only be the tough guy in the movie, but showcase emotion and “put some humanity in it”. He pictures The Rock, aka Dwayne Johnson, to play the part of Marcus Fenix. Morgan says of The Rock:
“The Rock is awesome. There’s a genuine actor. Not only can he play the tough guy, but he can also play the nuanced, sensitive funny sad moments as well. But finding that guy is incredibly difficult.”
We don’t know about the last part.
Gears Of War Movie Approaching
The film studios are finally figuring out a fact of making video game movies; choose modern popular titles to draw in the gamer crowd and choose games that allow you to throw together enough explosions and special effects to draw in the rest of the prospective audience.
Talk has been going around regarding a Gears of War movie for quite some time now, but reports now suggest that it’s not as much of a pipe dream as many thought. Chris Morgan, screenwriter for the film as well as Wanted and Fast and Furious has turned in a draft of the script and somewhere in a dimly lit board room the hazy, ill-defined figures who decide what gets to be a film and what ends up as lining in a bird cage are meeting to discuss budgets.
The epic nature of the story (a world being overrun by hostile aliens) means there’s going to be a big price tag attached to the project, which is generally the stumbling block for pitched projects. Morgan says that he’s convinced there’s no way to make the film without addressing its epic nature and that gamers will be happy with it since they put in all the things they want to see and “blow it out a little more, even”.
Only time will tell though, since thus far there haven’t really been any video game to film conversions that made the fans happy.
Fracture Game Review–And The Stupid Idea Trophy Goes To….
And so, the flood of first person shooter video games that attempt to differentiate themselves in the dumbest possible fashion continues with recent release Fracture, now available for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. First, the plot rundown:
In the fairly distant future of 2161, turns out Al Gore was right and a lot sooner than anyone expected—global warming has taken hold and flooded out a lot of the planet, including major chunks of the Midwest for some reason and the coasts. In order to prevent the total destruction of the coastal states, new technologies emerge that can reshape the landscape with the press of a button, forming valleys where there were cliffs and cliffs where there were valleys, allowing threatened areas to easily build bulwarks of land against the oncoming floodwaters.
The United States has been split in two at about the Mississippi River, with the United States operating out of Washington D.C. and the new offshoot, the Republic of Pacifica, functioning out of its new capitol of San Francisco, which probably should’ve been flooded right along with most of California if the Pacific goes up as much as expected. Anyway, Pacifica’s embraced genetic modification as a way of life—those crazy Californians!—and they’re now at odds with what’s left of the United States, who thinks that genetic modification on a grand scale is so immoral that they’ve declared it illegal, choosing instead to focus on the technological prowess of man. And thus, the two republics find themselves at war in the future.
When I said that it was going to try and differentiate itself using some pretty weak methods, I meant it. First, it’s not a hundred percent accurate to call Fracture a first person shooter, because you are not merely behind the gun—you are behind the entire CHARACTER. As far as I’m concerned this is a toe-MAY-toe / toe-MAH-toe sort of difference, but that’s just me, and really does little overall to separate this from the slew of first person shooters already out on the market.
Second, there’s been a lot of fuss about the “entrencher” gun, quite possibly the single unique feature about this game. With it, you can raise and lower portions of ground, probably based on the same technology that I described in the plot synopsis above. It’s nice to be able to make cover wherever you go, but would I play an entire game because it exists? No, not a chance. It’s a nifty feature, a sweet addition to the list of bells and whistles, but frankly, I wouldn’t ever play this game again.
Why? Because it’s almost EXACTLY the same game as Too Human and Gears of War and Gears of War 2 and all those other games that we’ve been playing over and over and over again with virtually no distinguishing features except those in character and story and bells and whistles.
And while I’m at it, whose brain-damaged idea was it to name the game’s lead character “Jet Brody”? I mean, come on—did you have a CONTEST and bring in some fourth graders, get them loaded on Pixy Stix and Red Bull and tell them to come up with the coolest action hero name EVER? Did you pass on “Max Power” just because The Simpsons already did it? Even Matt Hazard made a little more sense and that was a DELIBERATE parody. Please stop insulting my intelligence by coming up with this crap. Seriously.
Basically, there’s no real reason to play this game unless you’re absolutely desperate to start reshaping landscapes in video games to suit your own desires because you’ve already played this game about a dozen times over. Fracture is yet another in a long string of miserable retreads that aren’t even worth a rental unless you can’t get enough first person shooter action.
Epic has ‘Ten-year-plan’ for Gears of War
CliffyB wasn’t lying when he said they had a long vision for the Gears of War franchise. But just how long would that be? According to Gears of War 2 writer Josh Ortega, Epic has a ‘ten-year-plan’ for their cash cow.
“Gears is long-term. The lancer is the new lightsaber,” he added. This was in response to a question about a potential sequel.
The series has so far seen two blockbuster games, a comic book and a forthcoming live-action film, which the team hopes will be the first in a trilogy.
Ortega also talked about potential DLC for the game, noting that we “won’t be disappointed” when it comes to single-player DLC. Keep your fingers crossed!
Y2K9 Strikes Gears of War
Those who bought the PC version of Gears of War are in for a treat, as the game has been entirely disabled since Wednesday when the game’s digital certificate expired.
The expiration date on the certificate was apparently set for January 28, and when the date switched over, the game became completely unplayable.
Epic knows of the problem, with programmer Joe Graf expressing his surprise on the company’s official forum. He writes that they are currently working with Microsoft to resolve the issue.
Other games have faced similar issues, most notably Lord of the Rings Online. Interestingly, there’s a simple solution to the problem that users found: set the system clock back to a date prior to the expiration to activate the game.
Gears Director Wants Trilogy
Everyone’s into making trilogies these days, and director Len Wiseman is no exception. He is planning on helming a trilogy of films based on Gears of War – Epic’s popular action shooter franchise – according to an interview.
“The hope is that we’re wanting to do three movies and really cover the bases on everything,” said Wiseman. “Basically a harder edged Lord Of The Rings.”
Wiseman and Chris Morgan are currently working on the script; the former is known for Live Free and Die Hard and the latter for Wanted. The project is being financed by Legendary Pictures and New Line Cinema. It has no release date at the moment.
Gears of War 2 Flashback Map Pack gets re-released
While this really only applies to those who bought Gears of War 2 preowned, I’m sure theres at least one honest gamer out their who managed to lose their Flashback Map Pack card that came bundled with the game.
Anyways, included in the Gears of War 2 Flashback Map Pack are 5 retextured and remastered Gears of War multiplayer levels that had already been available to those who purchased the game new.
Currently going for 400 Micrsoft Points (or $5) the Flashback Map Pack is available now, for those who don’t already have it, via the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Read (Joystiq)