X08: Cliff Bleszinski talks Gears of War 2
During the X08 event in Toronto last night, Joystiq was able to sit down with Epic Games lead designer Cliff Bleszinski and talk chop about Gears of War 2. Cliff discussed the pacing and intensity of Horde Mode, the trouble with too many players in co-op and his quick impressions of Too Human.
X08 Toronto allowed invited gamers in the Greater Toronto Area (yes, the GTA) to participate in a showcase of upcoming Xbox 360 retail and Arcade releases. Gears of War 2 was a surprise showing with a multiplayer build from E3 2008. Everyone was on the edge of their seat. Jump in for a few choice comments from Cliff Bleszinski, perfect for those of your reading this in a library and unable to listen to the actual interview!
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Cliff on co-op
"The thing about a campaign is, when you start getting over two players - it's cool to have that, but - the narrative quality decreases exponentially with more players. Once you get a third or a fourth player in there then you're in the middle of fighting a bad guy and somebody's triggering a cutscene and people are flapping their gums and nobody knows what's going on with the story. Whereas if you keep it two-players, keep it focused, grab a buddy and go through the blockbuster experience and then grab five players and fight against the Locust. That's how we're doing it."
Cliff on achievements
"You can chip away at achievements (in Gears of War 2) essentially in every, single mode. So, if you're playing by yourself you can start chipping away at the Seriously 2.0 achievement. If you're playing in co-op, if you're playing in ranked or private matches ... all of it. Everything counts towards achievements this time around. We wanted to be a lot more forgiving with it. The nicest thing is we have a little achievement tracker that pops up in the bottom right occasionally so it's our way of just letting you know, "Hey, we're paying attention!" If you curb-stomp a guy we say, "Oh, you know if you do 10 more of those you might start getting towards an achievement. Kind of adds that kind of, psuedo-RPG grind element in the background."
Cliff on Too Human
"I have [played Too Human]. I think it's a solid game."
