Gears of war
From Gamedatawiki
Gears of War is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games using Unreal Engine 3 technology and is published by Microsoft Game Studios. Gears of War was released for the Xbox 360 on November 7, 2006 in select stores in the United States and was broadly released in major U.S. retailers on November 12, 2006. This day was dubbed "Emergence Day" by Epic Games. It was also released on November 17, 2006 in Europe outside of Germany, where Microsoft Game Studios did not publish the game after it was denied a rating. A limited collector's edition was also released, which included an art book titled "Destroyed Beauty" that detailed much of the game's backstory.
Gears of War centers around the members of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from the relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde. The player takes on the role of Marcus Fenix, a former prisoner and war-hardened soldier. In cooperative play, the second player plays as Fenix's loyal friend and fellow soldier, Dominic Santiago. The two soldiers join up with Delta Squad and battle the Locust Horde through the course of an action-packed campaign.
The game achieved major success after its release. On November 20, 2006, Gears of War became the most popular game on the Xbox Live service, overtaking Halo 2, which had held the spot since its launch in November, 2004. Xbox live use increased by 80 percent after the release of "Gears of War." After only two weeks of availability, Gears of War sold over one million copies, also making it the fastest selling Xbox 360 game ever.
Gameplay
Unlike previous first-person shooters by Epic Games, Gears of War takes a completely different perspective as a third-person shooter. This design choice reflects itself in the gameplay as Gears of War focuses mainly on sound team-based and cover-dependent tactics rather than brute force. Because of this, the player is able to carry only four weapons instead of a large array. The player's inventory contains two primary weapons, a sidearm, and a limited supply of grenades.
Instead of a health bar, Gears of War uses the Crimson Omen, a cog shaped icon that fills up with blood to represent damage. When the Omen has a faint appearance, the player has experienced minor wounds. Once the Omen fills completely, the player is incapacitated. When a player is incapacitated another player can revive him (in co-op). If a character stays out of the line of fire long enough the Omen will fade, and they will regenerate health. When there is a skull inside of the symbol the character has died.
Epic Games placed emphasis on cover, similar to Kill.Switch, and on harder difficulty levels being exposed to enemy fire for only a few seconds can result in death. While behind cover, players can choose to aim carefully with their weapons or use blind-fire to avoid subsequent damage from popping their heads from behind cover. Players have a wide assortment of rolling and cover maneuvers at their disposal with the press of a single button. The availability of certain maneuvers are also indicated by context sensitive icons that appear at the bottom of the screen. The game also includes a full sprint, known as the "roadie run." The roadie run is part crouch, part run, which can help traverse exposed ground quickly as well making characters harder to target. During a roadie run, the camera lowers towards the ground and bobs considerably, as if the camera were being held by another person running behind player.
Future Development
Gears of War news has been hinting at its future development since its release in fall of 2006. PC Gamer accidentally released an image in its 2006 holiday issue where Gears of War can be seen in a Games for Windows display, which seems to indicate that Gears of War could be released for the PC; however, the image was later stated to be a mock-up. Epic Games's Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski said he hoped for the game to expand into graphic novels and eventually film. On November 21, 2006, Jeff Bell stated Gears of War is the first in a trilogy. Epic Games' Mark Rein made a counter-statement on the Gears of War Official Forums indicating that three games may not be enough, and it's possible Gears of War may become the next Halo series in terms of popularity.
