CliffyB Gears Up

Xbox.com Editor Mark Eveleigh cornered CliffyB to get his take on Gears of War.

Without a doubt the biggest thing this Christmas, Gears of War has us hooked at the Xbox.com offices.  It’s not just the chainsaw on the end of the gun, it’s each and every experience you have – from playing in co-op and having your friend save you just as that last Locust with the Boomshot comes running for you.  It’s about the satisfaction of having nailed your multiplayer opponent with the torque bow and watching for the few seconds that he doesn’t realise he’s been hit before the inevitable scream flies across the room and their character explodes on-screen.  We caught up with game designer CliffyB at the Epic HQ in North Carolina to get his take on Gears of War.

Xbox.com: How would you describe Gears of War to fellow gamers?

CliffyB: We would hope that Gears is the trifactor ‘o fun.  A cool and compelling single player, a fun co-op and then a visceral versus multiplayer game. 

Xbox.com: How does the co-op work next to the single player?

CliffyB: It’s great, man.  It’s drop in/drop out, so I’m playing and I see my buddies online and they can join in.  So I’m playing as Marcus and my buddy Dom’s next to me and it’s like, “hey AI Dom, let’s go over here, what’s going on in the Gears of War universe?” and then all of a sudden my friend will join in and it’s like Agent Smith from the Matrix taking over a random person and suddenly it’s my friend saying “ok, let’s go!” and then it’s my friend playing.  It’s cool – it’s one of those things that when we got it working it just worked and suddenly we thought “oh, ok!”  

Xbox.com: Do you guys have plans for any downloadable content?

CliffyB: We do, but we’re not sharing it at the moment.  I’m a crack head on Xbox Live like anyone else – just a few more Microsoft points!  We’ll see what we do, at Epic we have a tradition of supporting our products very well, from Unreal Tournament with its bonus packs all the way back to Jazz Jackrabbit and Holiday Hare.  It’s safe to say we’ll be doing something on Live.

Xbox.com: Have you got any cool achievements lined up?

CliffyB: Oh yeah, you can see up there that we have a letter from Ted Nugent, you know – the rock star Ted Nugent and we have the Torque Bow in the game so if you get a certain amount of kills in the game you get an achievement called “The Nuge”.  We actually had to get legal rights for that!  We have one where if you kill a bunch of your enemies with subsequent grenade attacks, that’s called the “Clusterluck” and stuff like that.  The achievements area is somewhere where you can have a load of fun.

Xbox.com: So what’s your favourite weapon in Gears of War?

CliffyB: It used to be the chainsaw at the end of the gun but it’s turned into the Torque Bow because it’s one of those weapons that takes a couple of seconds to charge up and fire, then when you have the shot it’ll stick in your enemy and explode a couple of seconds later.  It’s just tremendously entertaining, it looks cool and it’s imposing to be shooting.  Finally, it’s got a really good melee – two hits and you’re down because it’s got a blade on it – it’s kind of like a bladed bow and arrow, it turned out really well.  I’m happy with it!

Xbox.com: It’s a much more tactical game in feel than the player might think.  Was this a deliberate decision given Epic’s reputation for action shooters?

CliffyB: The goal was to do tactics, but not to boring lame tactics, the goal was to do fight tactics.  Everything is tactical, but once you’ve made a decision everything happens lightning fast in the moment.  You may realise they’ve got the drop on you but then zip round and chainsaw them from behind.  Ultimately, I like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six but I think the character control is kind of sluggish and you don’t really dive into cover so much as you slog up to it and press against the wall slowly.  I wanted a game that was tactical but for impatient people like me and I think that’s what we got.

Xbox.com: Finally, have you got any plans for a sequel to Gears of War?

CliffyB: You know, I think the number one way to curse your gaming trilogy is to talk about it being a trilogy before it’s released, so for now this is just Gears of War.  If you guys like it and everyone buys enough copies, we’ll consider doing a sequel but we’re not going to plan on a trilogy just yet!