GearsofWar.com’s new splash page may be giving us a strong (yet subtle) hint for the release date of this Winter’s biggest blockbuster. The dog tags that appear on the page show 033-116-117-126-071, which apparently in ASCII character codes translates to ESC-N-O-V-9. Unless this is a crazy coincidence it looks like this will probably be Emergence Day for Gears of War 2, but expect confirmation from Epic very soon as E3 starts in a matter of days.
Respect to Dark Infinity 1 on the GoW forums for Nicolas Cage in National Treasure-esque code-breaking skills.
Now, some might say that Gears of War was just a generic shooter. Yes, it controlled well and yes, it looked nice and was tense enough to keep you going. But generic shooters don’t challenge for the top of the XBox Live playing charts for 8 billion years (until CoD comes along and topples it, that is). Generic shooters don’t have friends bringing their copy over to complete the co-op mode for what would be his tenth time. There has to be something else to it. And this is where Gears excels; in its details. So-effective-why-isn’t-this-in-every-game camerashake, for instance. Also, probably one of the best animations for a lumbering hulk of armour trying to sprint through a battlefield I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the most tactile-looking metal textures in video games. Ever.
These might not sound like massive issues, and certainly shouldn’t bring your game from a 7.0 to a 9.0. Or should they? I’ve been racking my brains for some of the games, off the top of my head, that have stuck with me - and what the first thing about that game is that flashes into my mind’s eye. I’m talking Resident Evil 4’s “Ello, stranga… whaddya buyin’?”; how Sony absolutely nailed the music track in Loco Roco - without which the game would’ve probably crashed faster than Allan’s Eee PC trying to record a podcast; all of the miniature challenges built in to Smash Bros Melee that become games within games.
Sure, set-pieces and massive boss fights will wow you on the first and maybe second run-through, or as Cliff puts it: “watercooler moments”, that keep you jabbering on to your non-gamer friends for weeks about how amazing this one scene was to the point of them shunning you from what little contact you had with society to begin with. But it’s the little character quirks and epic collective efforts to complete a game 100% that stick with most gamers, I’d wager.
These little pockets of developer-to-gamer love are all the more notable in their absence. Take Battlefield: Bad Company for instance. I’ve just been blasting my way through it at a frantically leisurely pace (we love our oxymorons), and while it’s undoubtedly a fantastic game - I’m not convinced that anyone will be scrambling to find a copy in ten years’ time, all giddy in the throes of a rose-tinted memory-specs haze. Little touches that may not seem like a big deal in beta, but make a massive difference to the longevity of a title’s reign, such as spawning 4 inches from the end of an enemy shotgun, make all the difference.
It’s for this reason that, although we’re initially disappointed, phrases like “it’s done when it’s done”, and “we’re scrapping the combat system and starting again. It’s not good enough”, from companies who can afford the luxury of perfectionism such as Valve and Blizzard, always make us smile just below the surface of our grumpy, pouting faces.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: “Look! When you shoot that dude, he actually moves like he’s injured and slows down. Sweeeeet…”
