HEXUS preview Gears Of War

[pegisys]

most of the early shots with the huge amounts of AA was before the game was even running on x360 hardware most of the media that came out after it was running on the 360 have been honest

but the bullshots just look downscaled and not as if they had any post processing on them, or if they did they have met or surpassed the effects

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I used to be very excited about the 360 due to one specific game. And that is Gears of War. However, after seeing the most recent screenshots I have lost most of that excitement. The latest screens and videos do not look nearly as sharp or crisp as what was released a year ago. CliffyB once said, "We don't do bullshots." or something like that, and I fell for it. I thought those older screens were real, but now I realize they were not true in-game screenshots and were probably pre-rendered at least to some degree.

It still looks good in my opinion and will probably be very fun. But after seeing the shots and vids from 2005 and now seeing what's going to be in the final game I'm disapointed. I'm not talking negatively about the game itself, because it does indeed sound fun. But I'm just the kind of gamer that likes strait flat-out honesty from developers, and especially when it comes to the graphics of their games.

So wait, your a person who obviously have no technical knowledge about games (seeing how you cant figure out that anything shown for consoles with more than 4x aa isnt "real"), and this game got to you? Why not Killzone? Why not the amazing Killing Day?

If i had no particular clue about a games, consoles and what they are able to do or not, i would certainly be more exited for Killzone (and just about every other PS3 CGI movie that was shown at E3 05 ) than a game that didnt begin to get any hype before this year.

Im just curious, because it seems so unlikely

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Isn't it funny how the same person can talk a lot about the not so obvious quality increases in another game's PS3 version, but fail to see how Gears has advanced through the year?

 

[Platon]

Yep, those are the images that made me desire to play Gears of War so much in the past. I told all kinds of people about the game and directed them to screenshots like that. I'm talking about telling people in REAL LIFE. Not just forums like this but even people at work. Now, since it seems those pics were pre-rendered, I feel like an idiot and I really don't want to purchase the game as much.

To bad you only saw those (very few) images and not the rest of the 99,9% of the images as well as all the videos released from various events, those would be the best indicator of what the game looks like, trying t say that CliffyB tried to cheat you feels a bit strange to say the least, as they in no occation have tried to hide the looks of the game. You might remember all the complaints on slow downs, how the game was sterle, without dusts and stuff flying around and bad animation. And how can someone be dissapointed when come releaseday this game will look, arguably, better than anything out there...

 

[poopypoo]

FINALYY a game where I can live out my dream of being a balding, scarred space marine!!! i'm buyiong my xstation poop3 RIGHT NOW!

j/k... looks great! it's not for me, but, these games are usually about graphics. Though, will there be mods? without mods, there are no FPS's I would play. Well, there have been some. But this is not one of them. XD Awesome graphics tho!

 

[Rangers]

The new EGM mag preview contains some new information and photos, including an awesome half-bat enemy, the Kryl, that hasn't been seen in any videos yet. It looks quiet eery, sub-human and incredible. Seems to do a lot of leaping at you as well.

They also have photos of the curb stomp, which is also really cool. Basically when people are in that "revivable" state down on the ground, the curb stomp is one way to finish them off for good. It seems more of a nasty mid-air stomp than anything. Cooler than I thought.

Also mentions a level, which we have seen parts of, where you have to continually blow up a series of propane tanks, burning cars etc, to stay in the light and avoid the teeming Kryll.

CliffyB has outdone himself. Yet still managed to ship a game in a reasonable time frame.

Lastly the article also shows the larger, almost Goro-like Locust enemy, and a nice poto that stands out to me for the ragdoll animation (a hand and fingers thrown up in the air) as you gun someone down, something I also noticed for a split second at the very beginning in one of the new videos at gametrailers
________
Web Shows

 

[Rangers]

More EGM preview notes:

There's a tank.

The Kryll wil eat weaker locust enemies as well as you (that's how badass they are).

They describe a moonlit level featuring going through a dilapidated mansion, of which shoe says he sees something out of the corner of his eye that "is still blowing his mind" although he ends there and doesn't divulge what it is. But says something like "Oh yes, this game will definitly pass the mom test" (reffered to below)

Cliffy says the graphics are so good to pass the "Mom test". Aka the visual fidelity leap must be so obvious that Mom will buy timmy a 299 game machine because she can see the difference.

Shoe says you wont want to touch your original Xbox again after playing this game because it looks so good.

Shoe says though Epic was apparantly concerned about bugs during their session, he felt the game was already polished and basically ready to go, good framerate etc.

Cliffy says multiplayer wont be like deathmatch. "You must have fear of dying, otherwise you just end up running at each other and it devolves into Qauke, that's great but it's not our game"
________
PRETEEN NONUDE

 

[babcat]

CliffyB said they didn't do bullshots, and I believed him. Quite frankly, those shots I now know to be bullshots do indeed look better than what we have right now at least when it comes to the character models. To me, it's obvious that those bullshots had enhanced character models in addition to the extra antialiasing. The truth is he misled others and myself.

Let me also say that I have not spoken about Killzone because except for what we saw at E3 of 2005 we have seen NOTHING. If they downgrade Killzone you can be CERTAIN I will complain. I'm not loyal to any one console or company. I'm loyal to graphics.

 

[zRifle1z]

CliffyB said they didn't do bullshots, and I believed him. Quite frankly, those shots I now know to be bullshots do indeed look better than what we have right now at least when it comes to the character models. To me, it's obvious that those bullshots had enhanced character models in addition to the extra antialiasing. The truth is he misled others and myself.

Let me also say that I have not spoken about Killzone because except for what we saw at E3 of 2005 we have seen NOTHING. If they downgrade Killzone you can be CERTAIN I will complain. I'm not loyal to any one console or company. I'm loyal to graphics.

Then I suggest you try "playing" this game first before you judge the graphics. I can understand your doubt, trust me, but the game looks very good when played.

 

[valioso]

Yep, those are the images that made me desire to play Gears of War so much in the past. I told all kinds of people about the game and directed them to screenshots like that. I'm talking about telling people in REAL LIFE. Not just forums like this but even people at work. Now, since it seems those pics were pre-rendered, I feel like an idiot and I really don't want to purchase the game as much.

you cant possibly be serious.. and if you're I guess you havent bought a game in 10 yrs.

 

[palamede]

Well, the "bullshots" might not be ingame graphics, but they still can be extracted from cuscenes. Besides, some of those shots remind me of the UE3 demo.
Honestly, I was amazed at how cool gears looked at E3 2005, remember, the shaky andcam video which shown a game with a really poor framerate. And now, I'm totally stunned by the latest gameplay video.

 

[3roxor]

I wouldn't say GOW looks less right now. In that 2005 video the textures looked a little sharper with no visible jaggies. The final version has improved art and jaggies aren't that visible from everything I seen. Only many of those IGN pictures were deceiving, because many people used them to 'pimp' this game back then. Game right now looks great so..that's all that matters.

 

[assen]

j/k... looks great! it's not for me, but, these games are usually about graphics. Though, will there be mods? without mods, there are no FPS's I would play. Well, there have been some. But this is not one of them. XD Awesome graphics tho!

Let me rephrase this for you. You are saying that professional developers toiling away for years have no chance of making something that would interest you more that what a bunch of hobbyists can do over their evenings and weekends in a couple of months?

You must be one of those people who watch reality TV, then?

 

[palamede]

Babcat, I respect your opinion, though mine is the exact opposite.
Ingame is not as good as trailers, but we both know that one must never trust a trailer, even if it's done with the game engine.
If you look at the gameplay vids on the ign link, Gears looked great, but i feel like it looks even better now. The main caracter animations were not as good as they are now. Thanks for posting the link, it was a great pleasure for me to watch those videos again.

 

[Rangers]

More from EGM (some of this may be well known, I dont keep up)

Multiplayer modes are War Zone: 4 on 4 elimination where when you die you go chat with other dead in the "dead channel" to watch your teammates finish up. Assassination, where your team must kill the designated enemy leader, and Execution, where you have to do one of the execution moves (curb stomp, etc) to finish your opponent. The modes even have cool names. Cliffy specifically says he did not want your standard deathmatch and capture the flag modes in the game. Which I think is another great Cliffy touch.

I think this has already been mentioned but they actually got legal permission from Ted Nugent to name an achievement for killing people with the torque bow as "The Nuge".

I'm totally psyched on this game by now. CliffyB must be a games genius.

AThey show another enemy called the locust wretch, and a big tank thing that shoots a thick laser light beam, which is basically to fry Kryll in mid air like a spot light. There will definitly be decapitations as well (I had read that before). And the description of the Mansion multi-player level sounds impressive "like a big budget haunted house movie but you feel like you're actually there".

Apparantly this little EGM trip will be on a upcoming episode of the 1up show, I dont know when, hopefully tomorrow. Hopefully they will have some of this new footage as well.

Here is a little something bad: Apparantly by Shoe the "Boom shot" a grenade launcher/rocket launcher hybrid, is pretty unbalanced on one of the multi-player levels, it devolves it "run for the Boom Shot first". But it's not bad on another level apparantly due to the design.

Overall Shoe loved it though.
________
LollyDolly live

 

[poopypoo]

Let me rephrase this for you. You are saying that professional developers toiling away for years have no chance of making something that would interest you more that what a bunch of hobbyists can do over their evenings and weekends in a couple of months?

You must be one of those people who watch reality TV, then?

Heh, nice try... you're understanding correctly about the first part and mistaken about the second. To paraphrase, the professional developers at Epic have never designed a game I really liked. They are damn good at graphics, though. Have fun with this title, I'm not saying I'm disappointed. But it's not my style; I'm not into the arcade game gameplay very often. The mod community, yes, is, in fact at least two or three times better at creating games I want to play (from modkits, of course -- can't live entriely without engine designers and most of the artists).

 

[groper]

First look from 360Monster

The Locusts are like any bad guys, their only desire is to create mayhem and destroy the whole of humanity and they do this with rather amazing ease at first, well that’s until they meet Marcus Fenix. Now the difference with this new enemy is that for the most part you will find that they won’t use any firepower against you, but by no means underestimate them because of it. You will see them use the darkness with unbelievable ease, they will use stealth to surround and swarm on you and your comrades. They also use that lovable thing known as numbers; you will find yourself watching hundreds of these locusts coming out of the ground whose sole purpose is to take you down. You will actually find yourself fearing for poor Mr.Fenix’s life when you find yourself completely surrounded, low on ammo and your entire team dead in pools of their own blood a few feet away from you.

Their main weakness is in fact light and that’s not surprising considering they’ve been festering away underground in pitch black for god knows how long. Then again, watching them operate when they see light is another sign of just how good this game is, they will smash lights and even run the battery of your torch down before they swarm in on you and rip you apart. You will find that your main concern throughout the game won’t be your ammo or health, but instead trying to create light because once the lights go out, they won’t be coming back on.

...As for gameplay it has aspects from games here, there and everywhere. It has an element of Halo 2 in the fact that this isn’t a game where one shot will kill, you will have to, as they say, spray and pray through the thousands of weird and wonderful enemies that you will end up facing. You will also find that cover plays a massive role in the game. If you don’t use cover you might as well say goodbye to your family and order a hearse as you will be dead before you can load your gun and look through the sight. You can use anything from cars and debris to walls and dead locusts as cover from the enemy. That’s not all, while roaming around the vast levels you will find things like overturned wardrobes and tables all of which can be flipped and turned into cover to protect you against the invading hordes. The final thing about cover that you need to know is the fact that your cover can be worn down by the enemies, in example if you stood behind a wall you could safely sit their for a few hours without worrying about the cover deteriorating, but if you use a desk you will find that it will only last a few second before bullets start ripping through the wood.

[ ]

Now graphically this game is truly next-gen with unbelievable graphics from the over the top blood, the nasty enemies, the brutal weapons, the highly detailed maps, Marcus and his team all look absolutely mind-blowing. I mean just comparing real time screenies you can see just how more advanced Gears of War is compared to titles like Kameo, CoD2 and the good ol’ Halo 2. What you also have to think about is the currently developers have only managed to unlock around forty percent of the 360’s power and if this is what they can come up with it’s just amazing to think what they could do with ninety or the full one hundred percent.

[ / ]

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Oh, hey, Gears of War only uses 40% of the 360's.... er, wait a minute.... Here's a knife. Somebody, I beg you, stab me in the face. Right Now. What's that? Oh, they still haven't put that invention into manufacturing, so you can't stab people through the internet yet? How unfortunate, perhaps I'll just bang my head on something jagged for a few minutes instead.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh, hey, Gears of War only uses 40% of the 360's...

I find this kinda ironic. How come they're only using 40% of 360's power when MS said they've made it really easy to develop for?



BTW - Game sounds very good, and a richer experience then at first it seemed to me.