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The Gist of Gears
Gears of War is the first game in a brand new shooter franchise by Epic Games – creators of the popular Unreal series of games. Gears is one of the first games to utilize Epic’s next-generation Unreal Engine 3, and is coming to the Xbox 360 in November 2006, with rumors of a possible PC port sometime in 2007.
Gears of War follows Marcus Fenix, a soldier for the Coalition of Organized Governments (COG) on the post-apocalyptic planet Sera. The game focuses on Marcus and his fellow “gears” battle against the Locust horde, a formidable foe which emerged from deep under the planet’s surface, decimating Sera and leaving most of the planet uninhabitable.
The Beginning of an Epic
Epic Games was founded by programmer Tim Sweeney in 1991 under the name “Potomac Computer Systems”, before changing its name to the slightly catchier “Epic MegaGames” shortly afterwards. Epic created many popular shareware PC games in the early 90’s, including Jill of the Jungle and Jazz Jackrabbit.
However, it was a little shooter called Unreal, released in 1998, which was to catapult Epic to fame amongst mainstream gamers. Graphically and technically superior to Quake 2, its main rival at the time, Unreal gathered a huge following and spawned the popular multiplayer spin-off Unreal Tournament in 1999, the first of many sequels.
Now known as “Epic Games”, the company ventured into the middleware market, selling licenses to their technology to other games developers, while creating more Unreal sequels with companies like Digital Extremes and Legend Entertainment.
Sowing of Seeds of Gears of War
The first public glimpse of Gears of War came in 2004, in the form of renders from Epic’s new Unreal Engine 3. Prior to this, Epic had teased the gaming community with hints about a “next big thing”, a brand new franchise completely separate from Unreal, built on their next-generation Engine. However, the history and pre-production of Gears has its roots deep within Unreal.
The first technology demos from Epic’s second-generation Unreal Engine 2 clearly showed COG soldiers, apparently from the canned title Unreal Warfare.
Activity within Epic in 2004 also suggests that one plan for Gears had the game taking place within the Unreal Universe, with the developer at one point considering a single-player title focused around Unreal’s creepy Necris race.
The release of detailed, beautifully-lit screenshots and model renders without any hint of what this “next big thing” might be only fuelled speculation amongst Epic’s fans.
Emergence
Gears of War as we know it today was announced in 2005, alongside its platform, the Xbox 360. At Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launch event, Gears shone as one of the best-looking 360 titles of the bunch. E3 attendees were dazzled by the game’s unique style of “destroyed beauty”, as well as lighting and pixel shader effects seldom seen in a real game. And it’s clear that Gears’ impressive graphics had just as great an impact on Microsoft as it had on onlookers at that year’s E3 Expo.
Dean Takahashi's book, “Xbox 360 Uncloaked” reveals that Microsoft had originally planned to ship the Xbox 360 with 256MB of main memory. Epic showed Microsoft footage of Gears running on 256MB, and again at 512MB. This effect of this presentation was that Microsoft doubled their console’s memory, at a cost of almost $1 billion, which in turn caused some reduction in the number of 360s available for the November 2005 launch.
Over the following year, more details of Gears of War’s gameplay emerged, together with the news that it would launch in November, pitting it against Sony’s mighty PS3, and making it Microsoft’s key 360 title for the 2006 holiday season.
The Humans of Sera...
The inhabitants of the planet Sera – the world on which Gears is set – haven’t had it easy lately. Their once-beautiful civilization had been devastated by years of war over the power source “Imulsion“, only for it to be ravaged by the arrival of a new enemy from below on the fateful Emergence Day – the Locust horde.
Since then, the humans of Sera have survived in small pockets where the planet’s surface rock is hard enough to repel the subterranean invaders. The Locust horde is the game’s main foe, and they come in many shapes and sizes. From the tiny spores you’ll see erupting from the ground to towering soldiers giant enemy crabs the size of buildings.
Gamers take on the role of Marcus Fenix, a once-disgraced soldier released from jail to bolster the human forces in their last stand against the Locust horde.
Take Cover!
Gears of War is a third-person shooter with a huge emphasis on the use of cover in firefights. This year’s E3 2006 gameplay demonstration showed Marcus and his team dynamically creating, destroying and moving various sorts of cover from enemy fire.
Weapons include the standard shotguns and assault rifles you’d expect in a shooter game, with a few twists. Gears is the first game to combine the firepower of an assault rifle with the flesh-shredding power of a miniature chainsaw.
Unreal Engine 3 allows real-time physics effects to play a huge part in gameplay. Portions of Gears revealed to the public show air strikes reducing watch towers to smithereens, as well as enemies smashing their way through to the surface from below ground.
Gears on PC?
Rumors of a Gears of War release for the PC have been around since the announcement that the game would be an Xbox 360 exclusive. However, these rumors might not be so far from reality.
Microsoft’s J Allard first spilt the beans in an interview in May 2005, saying that Gears was exclusive to “Xbox and PC”. Shortly later, Epic Games’ Mark Rein clarified.
“Gears of War is an Xbox360 exclusive. We're developing it specifically to take advantage of the power and features of the console. All of the work on Gears between now and when we ship is toward creating the ultimate Xbox360 game.
Could we, in the future, adapt Gears for Windows just as Microsoft did with Halo? Sure we could and, as you can see from J Allard's comments, Microsoft is clearly cool with that idea.”
Gears lead designer Cliff Bleszinski has also indicated that he’s open to the possibility of bringing Gears to the PC, possibly with some PC-only bonus content.
Gears of War is the first game in a brand new shooter franchise by Epic Games – creators of the popular Unreal series of games. Gears is one of the first games to utilize Epic’s next-generation Unreal Engine 3, and is coming to the Xbox 360 in November 2006, with rumors of a possible PC port sometime in 2007.
Gears of War follows Marcus Fenix, a soldier for the Coalition of Organized Governments (COG) on the post-apocalyptic planet Sera. The game focuses on Marcus and his fellow “gears” battle against the Locust horde, a formidable foe which emerged from deep under the planet’s surface, decimating Sera and leaving most of the planet uninhabitable.
The Beginning of an Epic
Epic Games was founded by programmer Tim Sweeney in 1991 under the name “Potomac Computer Systems”, before changing its name to the slightly catchier “Epic MegaGames” shortly afterwards. Epic created many popular shareware PC games in the early 90’s, including Jill of the Jungle and Jazz Jackrabbit.
However, it was a little shooter called Unreal, released in 1998, which was to catapult Epic to fame amongst mainstream gamers. Graphically and technically superior to Quake 2, its main rival at the time, Unreal gathered a huge following and spawned the popular multiplayer spin-off Unreal Tournament in 1999, the first of many sequels.
Now known as “Epic Games”, the company ventured into the middleware market, selling licenses to their technology to other games developers, while creating more Unreal sequels with companies like Digital Extremes and Legend Entertainment.
Sowing of Seeds of Gears of War
The first public glimpse of Gears of War came in 2004, in the form of renders from Epic’s new Unreal Engine 3. Prior to this, Epic had teased the gaming community with hints about a “next big thing”, a brand new franchise completely separate from Unreal, built on their next-generation Engine. However, the history and pre-production of Gears has its roots deep within Unreal.
The first technology demos from Epic’s second-generation Unreal Engine 2 clearly showed COG soldiers, apparently from the canned title Unreal Warfare.
Activity within Epic in 2004 also suggests that one plan for Gears had the game taking place within the Unreal Universe, with the developer at one point considering a single-player title focused around Unreal’s creepy Necris race.
The release of detailed, beautifully-lit screenshots and model renders without any hint of what this “next big thing” might be only fuelled speculation amongst Epic’s fans.
Emergence
Gears of War as we know it today was announced in 2005, alongside its platform, the Xbox 360. At Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launch event, Gears shone as one of the best-looking 360 titles of the bunch. E3 attendees were dazzled by the game’s unique style of “destroyed beauty”, as well as lighting and pixel shader effects seldom seen in a real game. And it’s clear that Gears’ impressive graphics had just as great an impact on Microsoft as it had on onlookers at that year’s E3 Expo.
Dean Takahashi's book, “Xbox 360 Uncloaked” reveals that Microsoft had originally planned to ship the Xbox 360 with 256MB of main memory. Epic showed Microsoft footage of Gears running on 256MB, and again at 512MB. This effect of this presentation was that Microsoft doubled their console’s memory, at a cost of almost $1 billion, which in turn caused some reduction in the number of 360s available for the November 2005 launch.
Over the following year, more details of Gears of War’s gameplay emerged, together with the news that it would launch in November, pitting it against Sony’s mighty PS3, and making it Microsoft’s key 360 title for the 2006 holiday season.
The Humans of Sera...
The inhabitants of the planet Sera – the world on which Gears is set – haven’t had it easy lately. Their once-beautiful civilization had been devastated by years of war over the power source “Imulsion“, only for it to be ravaged by the arrival of a new enemy from below on the fateful Emergence Day – the Locust horde.
Since then, the humans of Sera have survived in small pockets where the planet’s surface rock is hard enough to repel the subterranean invaders. The Locust horde is the game’s main foe, and they come in many shapes and sizes. From the tiny spores you’ll see erupting from the ground to towering soldiers giant enemy crabs the size of buildings.
Gamers take on the role of Marcus Fenix, a once-disgraced soldier released from jail to bolster the human forces in their last stand against the Locust horde.
Take Cover!
Gears of War is a third-person shooter with a huge emphasis on the use of cover in firefights. This year’s E3 2006 gameplay demonstration showed Marcus and his team dynamically creating, destroying and moving various sorts of cover from enemy fire.
Weapons include the standard shotguns and assault rifles you’d expect in a shooter game, with a few twists. Gears is the first game to combine the firepower of an assault rifle with the flesh-shredding power of a miniature chainsaw.
Unreal Engine 3 allows real-time physics effects to play a huge part in gameplay. Portions of Gears revealed to the public show air strikes reducing watch towers to smithereens, as well as enemies smashing their way through to the surface from below ground.
Gears on PC?
Rumors of a Gears of War release for the PC have been around since the announcement that the game would be an Xbox 360 exclusive. However, these rumors might not be so far from reality.
Microsoft’s J Allard first spilt the beans in an interview in May 2005, saying that Gears was exclusive to “Xbox and PC”. Shortly later, Epic Games’ Mark Rein clarified.
“Gears of War is an Xbox360 exclusive. We're developing it specifically to take advantage of the power and features of the console. All of the work on Gears between now and when we ship is toward creating the ultimate Xbox360 game.
Could we, in the future, adapt Gears for Windows just as Microsoft did with Halo? Sure we could and, as you can see from J Allard's comments, Microsoft is clearly cool with that idea.”
Gears lead designer Cliff Bleszinski has also indicated that he’s open to the possibility of bringing Gears to the PC, possibly with some PC-only bonus content.