Gears of War

Publisher: Microsoft

Developer: Epic

Release Date: Fall 2006

In a sea of indifferent Xbox 360 software, sci-fi shooter Gears of War stands apart from the pack. We went to Lead Designer Cliff Bleszinski—known as CliffyB to his Internet friends—to take a class upon how to make a pure next-gen game.

Lesson 1:

Go big, or go on home

Gears of War’s heroes and villains are a firm lot. “I don’t want to make a game that perceive s like it has little small, spindly-type characters that direct the eye like they’d break if you dropp them,” says Bleszinski.

Lesson 2:

Make mellay attacks dramatic

Keep the action intense. “You have these sum of two units guys that are engaging in this dance of death where it’s almost like the prom date where the swing melts away and it’s just the sum of two units of them focusing on each other,” says Bleszinski. “Except instead of trying to have a nice intimate trice of romance, they’re trying to kill each other.”

Lesson 3:

Make the world realistic

The Xbox 360 hardware outvies at creating complex, believable environmental physics, and a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of Gears’ gameplay will wheel around using your surroundings to survive—knocking above a pillar can solve a bewilder take out an enemy, or create overspread “We want you to know you’re safe in overspread for a very short period of time,” says Bleszinski, “then one time you’re in cover, you must make your decision as far as in what manner you’re moving from point A to point B and start engaging in that lethal game of Whack-a-Mole.”

Lesson 4:

Keep things “in your face”

Despite more [i]or[/i] less early comparisons to tactical shooter like spirit Recon, Gears of War is really all about combat intensity. “This isn’t a game about shooting random dots upon the horizon,” explains Bleszinski. “It’s a game about up-close in your face urban combat.”

Copyright ?© 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserv Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly