Videos
(130)Screenshots
(88)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(130)Screenshots
(88)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(30)Screenshots
Cheats and Walkthroughs
(95)
Videos
(23)Screenshots
Cheats and Walkthroughs
(16)
Videos
(124)Screenshots
(14)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(233)
Videos
(116)Screenshots
(14)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(87)
Videos
(39)Screenshots
(25)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(20)Screenshots
Cheats and Walkthroughs
(34)
Videos
(21)Screenshots
Cheats and Walkthroughs
(4)
Videos
(215)Screenshots
(206)Cheats and Walkthroughs
Videos
(122)Screenshots
(192)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(105)
Videos
(71)Screenshots
(130)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(186)
Videos
(71)Screenshots
(130)Cheats and Walkthroughs
(180)
With the announcement of Gears of War 3’s release date earlier this year, the recently concluded (and popular) multiplayer beta, and with E3 just around the corner; many gamers have chainsaws on the brain. So as the trilogy draws to a close and Cliff Bleszinski finds something else to attach to a machine gun (perhaps a corndog mmm…) it seems like a good time to reflect back on what Gears has done in the last few years to change the way that the gaming industry develops games.
Take a look below at the gaming systems that Gears help bring to the masses. Epic may not have invented these, but they found a way to make the integral to their the series. Now, every third title seems to be using one of these perfected gameplay mechanics. But imitation is a form of flattery, right? Read on to find out how Gears did it.
The Cover System
The concept of cover goes back almost as far as video games. Just think about hiding from Eggman under a platform or from Bowser behind a stone. This carried, naturally into almost every action game that involved projectiles. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was one first games to use a modern cover system in which the character could take cover behind walls and crates and peek out to shoot enemies. Similar systems were implemented in Winback and the Time Crisis arcade series, but it was Kill Switch, Namco’s surprisingly mediocre third person shooter that changed how shooters were designed from that point forward. Kill Switch was the first game to use cover as a main gameplay mechanic. You could vault over walls, blind fire, and use one button to slide into cover. It was fun and fast paced, if a bit too heavy on the cover aspect and too light on everything else. But Epic Games took notice.
Lee Petty at Epic showed Kill Switch to Cliff Bleszinski, and they both thought it was perfect for Gears. Indeed, only a short time after Kill Switch was released, its lead designer, Chris Esaki became a design director for the original Gears of War. With his help, the team at Epic spun the raw potential of a cover-based shooter into pure video game gold. Gears managed to improve on the mistakes of Kill Switch by creating a multifaceted game that still used a cover system at its core. After proving that it could be done and done well, myriad games began to incorporate cover systems; either on a small scale like in GTA IV or on a larger scale similar to Gears; like in Army of Two. Even Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to offer up a cover for their Smuggler class. But no matter what game presents a new cover system, the question always remains – how does it stand up to Gears of War? In this sense, Gears has become the gold standard for cover systems.
Revive To Survive
As an uninhibited lover of co-op gaming, Gears of War holds a special place in my heart for bringing the revive feature into prominence. Before 2006, most co-op games used a respawn system when a player died, such as Halo: CE. This created a dynamic not far removed from simply playing single-player; all one needed to do to regain a partner was wait in cover for a few moments. By requiring gamers to revive their squadmates, Gears made the co-op experience that much more involved. Cowering behind a rock and waiting for magical reinforcements to appear out of thin air wouldn’t cut it anymore. If you wanted your friend to live to fight another day, you had to brave the hot lead and rescue him. Then, as often was the case, you both had to fight your way to safety. My eternal co-op buddy and I became so accustomed to this that reviving one another has become as natural as curb-stomping Locust.
And once again, other games sought to capitalize on this success. Misting your partner with first aid spray, applying a medkit while they cover you, shoving a hypo into their vein, rescuing them from a closet; the list goes on and on, but the story stays the same. Gears inspired a generation of true co-op games; games in which if your partner died; you failed, and often would be forced back to a checkpoint. Gone were the days of playing the hard parts alone and spawning your partner afterwards.
As a whole, I view this as a victory for co-op gaming. It adds to the often frantic nature of firefights and forces you to be constantly aware of not only surroundings and enemies but of where your partner is. I remember the first time I beat Halo: CE on Legendary difficulty, I did so by taking turns with a buddy running into battle while the other waited at a safe distance. While this certainly was not the intended way to play the game, it was apparent that we were not cooperating so much as simply using one another as living checkpoints. Clever? Maybe. But it would have gotten me kicked out of the UNSC.
Hoarding the Horde Mode
The Gears of War 2 feature that best exemplifies the need for cooperation is Horde Mode. I get madder when players do selfish things in Horde than I do when my dog pees on the rug. By forcing players to share ammo, constantly revive one another, and share kills, Horde solidified Epic’s commitment to making Gears a solid co-op experience. The camaraderie that Horde created among gamers led to great acclaim, and consequently scores of studios trying to replicate that success.
While it doubtlessly annoys some developers, “horde” has become a universal term for survival wave combat (I’m copyrighting that phrase). Among other gamers, I’ve often heard the term “Halo Horde” used in place of “Firefight.” Even a concept as hilarious as Nazi zombies was overshadowed by the question of “how does it stand up against Horde Mode?” While I won’t say that Horde Mode is the be-all and end-all of Survival Wave Combat ©, there certainly is reason for its duplication across so many different types of games. For big name shooters it has almost become obligatory – Halo, Call of Duty, even the single-player heavy Red Dead Redemption features its very own version of Horde.
Epic happened across a game mode that fit perfectly into the type of game that Gears of War already was. Just try to name another game where it feels natural to crouch behind the same wall for three hours shooting at wave after wave of oncoming enemies. It fits because Gears takes place in one of the most depressing video game stories in the universe, where you know that you're part of the last remnants of the human race, under constant assault from the Locusts. Not only did it fit, it was fun. Really fun. And so are other versions. I used to kill a bunch of hookers in order to fight the resulting waves of cops in Grand Theft Auto; but now there’s actually a game mode dedicated to it and when other games incorporate it I’m ecstatic.
Gears of War did not introduce anything that hadn’t been done before in video games. It simply picked out some neglected aspects and did an incredible job of improving them, and meshing them together in a way that really worked. Everyone had played a co-op game before Gears came out, but no one had really cooperated in the way Gears forced them to. In fact, it wasn’t until Portal 2 that my co-op buddy and I felt a challenge similar to Gears of War. Everyone had used cover in games before Gears of War, but no one had blind fired, slammed into walls or mantled over obstacles quite like they did in Gears. And while Survival Wave Combat© existed in one form or another before Gears, it has never been the same since.
It’s an absolute certainty that Gears of War changed games forever and only time will tell just how much. There’s so much that Epic added to the industry that I’m sure I’m missing stuff. I seem to recall a gun with some sort of power tool attached to it…maybe a drill? I’m sure it'll come to me later.
Nationally unacclaimed freelance writer Jonathan Deesing has been writing about video games for dozens of weeks. His professional knowledge ranges from skiing to Peruvian history and of course, anything with buttons. If you can't get enough of his musings, check out his Twitter feed.
Comments are Closed
Comments
Displaying 1–20 of 34
122
mkorabik@yahoo.com
The funny thing is that in early design the lancer WAS meant to have a drill on it, not a chainsaw :)
RACMOP
too tell the truth gears may have its hands full this year this is one of the biggest years in gaming that i can think of.
gears has never been released with the big players ever and what i have seen in the beta its ok is it ground breaking no!.
cliffy b said gears 1 set the bar and it did gears 2 fell sort so epic would try and set that bar once more it just don't get it done.
epic gives you new guns that make it easy to get kills they give us beast mode horde mode and now arcade mod big heads and stuff like that come on wheres theater mod wheres the ground breaking stuff from epic can they be leaders with bf3 mw3 skyrim rage time will tell but i love gears but i just don't see me giving the time i have in the past to gears with the rest of these games coming out.
oh and don't forget about duke nukem if you won't ground breaking look at bf3 and the frostbite 2
Spybreak
I'm pretty sure Gears 3 isn't "the end of the trilogy".
Cathartic Denoument
"Horde" mode = *Co-op Survival* mode
As far as I remember, fighting games have had survival mode even before it was implemented into shooters.
shadows1192
Why are there suddenly so many people here giving credit to other games that have nothing to do with Gears of War? its simple, this article isnt saying Gears created these ideas, rather they improved it to create a great game. sadly, just like with any great game, people will find a way to hate it by going on articles related to it and just talk smack. people need to get a life.
leeperry
Hahahaha, even I do it! Lee Petty is at Double Fine, I'm at Epic :P
leeperry
I'm sure my buddy Lee Perry over at Double Fine appreciates the credit, but I think the article means Lee Perry. :) Thanks to twitter followers for pointing it out.
lowkevmic
No matter how much you love the PS3 and hae the Xbox, there are certain games you can't deny and Gears of War is one of those games. Beautiful artwork, great story line, characters who you'll never forget, and super intense action. There still has yet to be any third person shooter to come out since Gears that can be considered better then Gears.
godzillaisyourdaddy
Also, do not forget that Gears, back in 2006, was one of the games that created the addiction for graphic quality, since it was the best looking game of 2006. Without this behemoth, the graphic race may not have been pursued so suddenly and now look at all the pretty games that came after. Epic Games, after all, made a platform stating that they always intend to push the graphics of their engine to highest possible settings. This alone catalyzes the need for developers to want to surpass Epic in the graphic area.
nimbifer
I played the first 1 on pc and the second on xbox, and im not a big fan of it, its a good game, different than othr shooters, but i enjoyed Left 4 dead much more than Gears, and i nevers listened to anyone called Nazi Zombies, HORDE, i only used HORDE when i was playing WoW
XXXSpartan118XXX
The only people compalining on here are ps3 fanboys, people who have never played Gears and those who are mad Gears of War is a great Third-Person Shooter and only on the Xbox 360. Stuff it up. Even If I didn't have an Xbox this game still looked Epic from day 1. It's the main reason I got a 360 back in 2006 besides me wanting PGR, Forza, Halo etc. And since then I have been happy. I will for sure be getting this game sometime this year after release if I don't get it at launch which I doubt but my b-day is a month after this release so I'm pumped!
MekkaChyld
Hey Kill Switch wasn't that bad. lol I enjoyed the hell out of that game. lol I would say this though, it really lacked a story. They should remake that game. Toss in an actual story, some multiplayer gameplay, include diverse characters, upgrade the weapon selections and voila, you got yourself, oh yeah, Gears of War. lol
htownking
So basically Gears changed video games by taking a whole bunch of concepts from other video games?
TheRealBugz
Don't forget the Active reload 'mini game'.
Wolokowoh0
Technically, it was RE4 who started this change. It brought the OTS perspective which many games now use. Gears of War was basically the first game with a good cover system but Uncharted less than a year later did it better and then Gears of War 2 horde mode has existed in other games prior in different forms. Look at Mercenaries from RE for instance. Horde is basically a survival mode with a clear defined end. As the article said it didn't do anything new but took things that were neglected and opened up some new possibilities. It didn't really change things though. RE4 introduced a new third perspective. It was revolutionary and then a year and several months later Gears of War used it, then Uncharted and Tools of Destruction used it, Dead Space used it, and it became a good system for third person shooters to use. Hopefully RE6 creates another great system because that OTS perspective and RE4 were pure genius
Ritalynn
i haven't played any of those games, or any in this series. hmmm
AngelsandDemons
Kill Switch was the truth!...It's slow paced by today's standard but the story and gameplay mechanic were perfectly meshed together. If you don't know the premise, not to give it all the way, you start out as basically a "gamer" controlling the protagonist as a new weapon system whose desiger intends to start a world war.
Harbinger2nd
Anyone wanna know what made the first gears so popular? sure it was a good game but there were two key elements that brought it to the masses. The first being that EPIC was a well established company for a reputation for making great games. The second being the insanely successful ad campaign that was launched for the first game. The first brought the hardcore fans and the second brought the "casual" gamers who bought it because it looked cool.
Wozman23
Just came here to say Kill Switch was awesome and deserves much respect for its influence on cover shooters.
DPsx72
Crap game. The ideas have been done better before and elsewhere. Really, if it weren't for the clueless kids on the platform buying the hype this would have faded long ago.
Displaying 1–20 of 34
122