CliffBleszinski
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Gears of War previewed
Planet Xbox 360 has put together a small preview of Gears of War's single-player/co-op mode. Details about Microsoft's self-proclaimed killer app are surprisingly slim -- the E3 showing was limited to CliffyB's demo at the keynote, followed by 'backstage' multiplayer sessions -- so the Planet Xbox 360 piece likely contains some tidbits you've never read about.The preview covers the basics, including plot, gameplay, and weapons. You'll learn about planet Sara, the Pendulum Wars, the Locust Horde, and the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG). You'll begin to conceptualize how CliffyB and the Epic team have laid out the controls and designed the AI. And, you'll start to imagine the ass-kickings you're gonna dish out with toys like the Hammer of Dawn, the Torque Bow, Bolo Grenades, and the chainsaw-equipped Lancer Rifle.[Thanks, Matt]
MTV hosts game designers roundtable
MTV News' Stephen Totilo somehow managed the Herculean task of getting four major game designers -- Harvey Smith (aka Witchboy; Deus Ex), Will Wright (The Sims), David Jaffe (God of War), and Cliff Bleszinski (aka CliffyB; Gears of War) -- to sit down and talk to each other ... during the week of E3. The roundtable took place at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight amidst the backdrop of their currently running I AM 8-BIT art show. Though it begins with more input from host Gideon Yago, it quickly evolves into a conversation between the four designers, running the gaming gamut from design to violence in games to the art question, all with a healthy sprinkling of (the outspoken) David Jaffe's trademark pottymouth.While MTV only ran an edited version, MTV's online-only Overdrive channel is hosting the whole shebang. It's unfortunate that MTV decided this didn't deserve to be aired on television even though they've managed to make room for another half-dozen airings of the Gears of War promotional special. But seriously, if MTV's doing this, what does G4 do nowadays?[Warning: Ever attuned to the pulse of the younger generation, MTV had the foresight to recognize that nobody under the age of 34 uses Mac OS and, accordingly, they've made their Overdrive site only compatible with Internet Explorer running on Windows.]
Joystiq Interview: Epic's Cliff Bleszinski
To help promote the MTV2 special on Gears of War airing tonight, Microsoft was facilitating some quick phone interviews with the game's lead designer, Cliff Bleszinski (aka CliffyB). We got his thoughts on the game's reception at E3, the ongoing console wars, his application of the "mom test," and thoughts on episodic content (hint: he digs it). I wanted to congratulate you on the success of Gears of War at E3. In a year without a lot of standout titles, Gears of War was the talk of the show. That said, why wasn't it playable on the show floor?We wanted it to be playable with the versus multiplayer. Thing is, the show floor -- to me -- is a clusterfuck. It is an absolute trainwreck of noise, and boobs, and sweat, and swag, and there is no worse venue to pick up a game and start to play than the show floor of E3. Taking people away from the show floor and putting them into the little theater is a much better experience and that's what we wanted to do with the versus multiplayer. Our gift and our curse with Gears is we're doing something slightly different: you're not out there looking out the barrel of the gun the entire time; shooting enemies that die in two shots; running and gunning like every other game. You have to take cover. You have enemies that take more than two shots to take out, and they're smart, and they take cover, and flank you. Learning that in E3 is not the proper venue to do that, which is why we chose to go with hands-on versus multiplayer because it was a bit more accessible. Now when a person buys the game and sits down in their living room and they go through the tutorial and go through the proper steps to learn how to play the game, they'll dig it. We're really feeling they'll get what we're going for. But presenting that at E3 would have been a mistake.
GDC: A game worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize
What kind of game concept would be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize? That's the question GameLab CEO Eric Zimmerman posed to the group of developers competing at the third-annual Game Design Challenge.The winning concept (as judged by audience response), Peace Bomb, developed by Deus Ex lead designer Harvey Smith, would be a multiplayer game for the DS. Players would join together and trade resources, eventually leading to real world flash mobs — a crowd that assembles suddenly in a public space, performs a notable act, and then quickly disperses. It's Smith's hope that the Peace Bomb flash mobs would erupt around socially constructive movements, encouraging players to transform an entertaining game into an effective social project.
