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Gears of War Visual Exploration

Posted by Zonk on from the ooo-shiny dept.

Shacknews has images from a small product information piece about Gears of War. The scans show off a booklet full of beautiful imagery and some interesting insights into the game. From the booklet: "Since Emergence Day, the residents of Sera have been paying the price. Crumbled buildings and ruined monuments loom over the battlefield as somber reminders of what the Gears fight for. The glory of Sera and everything that mankind has struggled to achieve collapses in upon itself, yielding to an unstoppable force. A brutal and protracted war has dashed this planet's veneer to pieces, and left the shattered bits to be picked up by the most unlikely few. The Gears of War continue to turn."

10 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot... by Dizzle · · Score: 4, Funny

    ads for nerds. Products that matter.

    --
    -Dizzle
    "I most likely AM so interested in myself."
    1. Re:Slashdot... by SeekerDarksteel · · Score: 2, Informative

      Err...I think the trashing probably has more to do with the fact that the "article" is just a bunch of pretty pictures without any information whatsoever. There doesn't seem to be any point other than "ooh, lookie the screenshots. Sure, they're screen caps of cutscenes, not actual game play, so they don't mean jack shit. But they're pretty."

      --
      The laws of probability forbid it!
  2. How about a date? by alexandreracine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this game will ship before Duke Nukem Foreever? Or Lonworn? (eee... the next windows, watever the name is.)

    --
    No sig for now.
  3. Call it what you will... by HanClinto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...whether you think this is astroturfing or not-news, I still think this is incredibly riveting.

    Am I the only one who believes this sort of thing is going to be the future of video gaming?

    Games are just the next level of interactivity. It was books, then radio, then movies, now video games. It's just the next level, and I for one am looking forward to getting some "good literature" out there in the form of video games. Classic storylines that are powerful and mean something and stir something from within us.

    The concept of "destroyed beauty" in the article's pictoral essay is quite good imho, and if you like the storylines of games like Half Life, Myst, FFX, or other games with rich, involved storylines, you may find Gears interesting.

    Here's hoping they don't b0rk it up and turn it into a cheesy shoot-em-up, but remain true to the concept and retain some of the good storyline.

    The only part that I'm worried about is the cheesy cliche'ness of the protagonist, but perhaps they can pull it off.

    I'll be watching this one with interest.

    1. Re:Call it what you will... by snorklewacker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      God I hope this isn't the future. The writing adjacent to all the concept art is frightfully awful, hokey, cliched stuff. I'm talking high school melodrama here.

      Actually just about anything titled "noun Of War" is off to a bad start, cliche-wise.

      --
      I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
    2. Re:Call it what you will... by Marc_Hawke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As the conversation with my friend went:

      Me - "Look at Gears of War."
      He - "It's just another Doom."
      Me - "It's supposed to be about story and 'cover'"
      He - "Is it a single-player FPS?"
      Me - "Yes"
      He - "It's Doom."

      It'll take a whole lot to make something other than a Doom clone. When you try, you mostly end up with a 'boring Doom clone.'

      Best of luck.

      --
      --Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
    3. Re:Call it what you will... by Kassiopeia · · Score: 2, Informative

      No wonder, Eric Nylund is listed as a writer of the texts. He's the one responsible for the novels based on Halo. "The Master Chief runs down a corridor, then the Spartan kills a Grunt dead, and so the supersoldier saves the lives of his team."

    4. Re:Call it what you will... by Repton · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, like that _Art of War_ book ... Man, that guy could have used a decent editor.

      --
      Repton.
      They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
    5. Re:Call it what you will... by HanClinto · · Score: 2, Interesting
      There are very few video games that aren't full of frightfully hokey writing, if you start judging them by the same standards as movies or novels. Generally, the audience for video games doesn't have very refined taste in writing and doesn't value originality or sophistication very much.

      If you think about it though, there are very few books and movies that also aren't frightfully full of hokey writing. The ratio of "great" literature to the amount of "okay" literature is very small. For every really good book published, you probably have a couple hundred or thousand trashy romance novels published. I wouldn't expect it to be any different with video games.

      The OP was talking about a call to higher literature in video games. I'm really looking forward to there being classic-literature quality stories in the form of video games. It's been done with movies, it's been done with books, it's been done with radio drama -- why can't it be done with video games? Why are we so jaded into thinking that video games can't hold to higher standards? It's like saying "well we certainly can't hold movies to the same standards as books, because all moviegoers want to see are adventure, sex, and violence" but that certainly isn't true.

      I dunno', perhaps it's just an unjustified soapbox of mine, but I really wonder if we could finally start seeing some good literature come out of interactive fiction in the form of video games.

  4. An odd paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I find myself exibiting an odd reaction to information about next generation videogames. It seems that as I am looking at pictures and videos I become instantly impressed at how far the graphical techonology has come; at the same time as I read about the game play dynamics and the story lines I become instantly disapointed at the little progress that has been made in these areas.

    I may just becoming old and cynical but it seems to me that there are (almost) no companies that can merge interesting gameplay with impressive graphics. For the most part the interesting game ideas are usually less impressive visually.

    Not to divert attention from this game but ...

    It seems to me that ever since Iwata has become president of Nintendo there is a far greater focus on inovation in videogames. Games like Warioware, Nintendogs, and Kirby Canvas Curse are great examples of unconventional game ideas that are interesting. The thing that actually has me interested in the Revolution more than anything else is probably the Nintendo DS (although I don't own one yet). Even with it's small game list, and limited upcomming supply of games, it has far more unconventional (and interesting) games than any platform at this point in its lifespan. I think regardless of whether you will own an XBox 360, PS3 or High-End PC Nintendo may give you reason enough (through inovative games) to buy a Revolution.