Gears of War 3 Multiplayer Preview

While you will have to wait an extra five months to get the full version of Gears of War 3 at retail, Epic Games is offering up a concession in the form of a free multiplayer public beta. You’ll be able to check out the new multiplayer well before the game ships, although Epic has not released the exact date yet. And the extra development time will allow the developer to take full advantage of feedback from players and implement that information into the final version of the game.

"A big part of what we’re trying to do is embrace the different play styles that people have, so this public beta is going to be a very big chance for us to throw it out in the wild and see how well we’ve met the needs of what players want in order to use different tactics," said Lee Perry, senior gameplay designer, Epic Games.

Epic held an open house, showing off its newly expanded digs in Cary, North Carolina and offering a first taste and hands-on gameplay with a trio of multiplayer maps – Checkout, Trenches and Overpass. Each map showcases a different aspect of gameplay strategy: Checkout is set inside a large market; Trenches is a map focused on trench warfare that has a large hill at its central point that leads to a very powerful sniper position; Overpass is a section of street with buildings on one side and a bus stop on the other with a large overpass dividing the two sides of the road.

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Gears Of War 3 Co-Op Offers Playable Monsters

LOS ANGELES — Back in 2008, Gears of War 2 introduced Horde mode, a co-operative way to play that saw five friends holing up and fending off wave after wave of hideous creatures. When it launches next year, Gears of War 3 will add a new Beast multiplayer mode that lets you and your friends get inside those marauding monsters.

I played a few rounds of the promising five-player Beast co-op during a hands-on E3 event here Thursday. We spawned on a map called Mercy, a church where Marcus and his COG buddies attempt to make a final stand. Our mission was to spawn as a variety of deadly creatures and attempt to off the computer-controlled humans.

The meatbags aren’t exactly helpless — they’re armed with the standard COG loadout, and they’ve also got mounted turrets, barbed wire and laser fences to keep the beasts from running roughshod over them.

I started by spawning as the smallest monster — a Ticker. I steered the small, fast-moving suicide bug around the human barricades and self-destructed at the feet of two human gunners. That was two down and many more smoldering splatters of flesh and blood to go.

Beast mode is still being tweaked, Gears of War 3’s Rod Ferguson told me. When the game ships, players will have to earn the ability to spawn as bigger, meaner monsters by getting kills and causing damage.

For the demo, we had free reign to spawn as almost anything we wanted. In this early stage, the creatures were split into four categories. Beasts are nasty little creatures like the Ticker and a new, slithering insectoid called a Serapede. (As this critter, I squirmed around the feet of humans, clamping their legs between my electrically charged tentacles. I racked up more kills as this monster than as any other.)

Other categories will be familiar to anybody who has played Gears of War. Within the Humanoid and Drone categories, players can opt to spawn as a gun-wielding locust or play as a Kantus healer.

Big beasts like the Boomers prove a real hoot to play. One of the behemoths totes a new gun called The Digger that launches burrowing missiles underground and beneath cover. A Mauler, with its giant flail, can smash human barbed-wire fences with a single swing.

Destroying humans isn’t as easy as it sounds, though. More than a few times, the A.I. defenders ran out the clock, surviving our attack and forcing us to replay the wave and slaughter more efficiently.

Even in this early state, it’s easy to tell that Beast mode will be as appealing to co-op gamers as Horde — which, I might add, is being refined and tweaked for Gears of War 3 as well.

Gears of War 3 comes out April 2011 for the Xbox 360.

Image courtesy Microsoft

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Microsoft Reveals Top Xbox 360 Games of 2008

As the trend of looking back at 2008 continues, Microsoft has provided lists of the year’s 20 most popular Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade, and original Xbox games.

As noted by Xbox Live programming director Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, the original Xbox and 360 lists were calculated by the amount of online Xbox Live users playing each game, while the Xbox Live Arcade list was based off sales of the 360 downloads.

1. 1. Halo 3
   2. Call of Duty 4
   3. GTA IV
   4. Gears of War 2
   5. Gears of War
   6. CoD: World at War
   7. Guitar Hero III
   8. Battlefield: Bad Company Demo
   9. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Demo
   10. Rock Band
   11. Fable II
   12. Mirror’s Edge Demo
   13. Madden NFL 09
   14. BF: Bad Company
   15. Rainbow Six Vegas 2
   16. UNO
   17. Castle Crashers
   18. COD: World at War Multiplayer Beta
   19. Forza Motorsport 2
   20. Too Human – Demo

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles

To see the rest of the lists, visit ShackNews.com

New Comics For The Week Of 12/24/2008

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Gears Of War 2 Midnight Launch Events In NY, LA, London, Seattle

Microsoft is expecting some 20,000 stores worldwide to hold midnight openings for Gears of War 2 this Friday, Nov. 7. However, much like the Wrath of the Lich King, certain locations will also have special events going on.

London, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle will hold special events and contests where GoW 2 branded consoles, Zunes, comics, art books, posters and “more” will be given away. Microsoft is putting its effort behind the LA launch, which will have the game’s voice cast, Clifford Bleszinski (aka: CliffyB, Cliff Söze, Cliff Organa Solo) and other MS notables in attendance. After the break we’ve listed all the special launch locations, with some more details about who will be attending.

London:

GAME at 64-66 Clarence Street, Kingston Upon Thames, KT1 1NP

• Gears of War comic book artist Liam Sharp and Microsoft Game Studios staff.

Los Angeles:

GameStop at Universal City Walk, 1000 Universal Studios Blvd, Universal City, CA 91608

• Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson, autograph signings by Cliff Bleszinski, voice actors John DiMaggio (Marcus Fenix), Lester “Rasta” Speight (Augustus Cole) and Carlos Ferro (Dominic Santiago).
• “Delta Squad” – costumed characters from Nightmare Armor Studios will be there (bring your camera).
• Note that lineups will not begin before 11 a.m. PST.

New York:

Best Buy, 622 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

• Epic Games’ senior producer Rod Fergusson and Epic Games team members will attend and autograph copies of the game.

Bellevue, Washington:

Best Buy, 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98005

• Gears of War 2 co-writer Joshua Ortega and Microsoft Game Studios staff.

Source: joystiq.com Read more