CliffyB hosted a panel at GDC to discuss the design process for Gears of War. While the panel didn't exactly contain much in the way of news (apart from Jazz Jackrabbit), it was interesting to see the beginnings of Gears of War and see how it became the phenomenal success that it is today. Cliff shared some early design work from Gears of War and how it changed and evolved over time. For instance, the Locust were originally called Geist. However, the name was trademarked by Nintendo, so we wound up with the Locust we know today. Cliffy also discussed the inspirations for Gears of War, which was originally designed as an extension of the Unreal franchise. In fact, many of the original concepts for Gears of War made it into Unreal Tournament 3. He uses the phrase "Resident Killswitch" to describe the title's inspirations from both Resident Evil and Killswitch.
A few more entertaining tidbits of information were revealed, too. For one, the cinematic Y button was actually created by accident. Epic originally decided to emulate the Halo control scheme. After mapping the weapons to the D-pad, the team was left with an empty Y button. So, they had to figure out what to do with it. As Cliffy put it, one of his leads suggested that it become the "look at cool sh*t" button. And so, the "points of interest" function was born. Finally, Cliffy revealed that the infamous "roadie run" is very misleading. You see, the roadie run is, in fact, only 1.2 times faster than regular movement. The illusion of speed is created by the camera angle and the wobble effect.
Just remember that next time you rush the torque bow.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-09-2007 @ 9:44AM
DjDATZ said...
lol...1.2 times the regular run.
i love my gears. :D
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3-09-2007 @ 9:53AM
SRU Phil said...
I love my Gears too, but GRAW 2 is my new love until they fix all the glitches.
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3-10-2007 @ 2:50AM
dusty said...
i don't give a dookie what cliffy b's excuses are because glitches are glitches and its epic's responsibility to resolve such annoying, and overly abused, issues.
also, on the topic of bugs, if epic REALLY cares about its customers then why do cheaters still plague the leaderboards, i.e. 2 million points and 65 kills?
i don't care how meaningless some people think the leaderboards may be, but the majority of us earned those spots and its wrong that a few bad apples look like they are better than we are.
come on, epic, show us what kind of company you really are and stand by the big talk.
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