1Up talks Gears of War 2 multiplayer with Bleszinski

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jun 25th 2008 at 1:45PM }

In an "epic"-ally long video with a lot of talking and not enough gameplay footage, 1Up's Dan Hsu interviews Epic's Cliff Bleszinski (no more CliffyB, remember?) about Gears of War 2's multiplayer. Bleszinski discusses various aspects of GoW 2's online chainsodomy, from god-mode animations, to hostage taking, to the new version of the Gridlock map. Although not confirming the final count, he also says about 10 multiplayer maps will ship with the game. Check it all out in the video after the break.

[Via X3F]

Update: Just to clarify, this video was shot in April before Hsu announced his resignation from Ziff.

Tags: cliff-bleszinski, egm, epic, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, interview

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Benny @ Jun 25th 2008 1:49PM

Just 10 maps? I was hoping for a few more (without having to pay out of my anus for them).

Obie @ Jun 25th 2008 1:52PM

Well they gotta save some maps to sell to you later.
God, I hate microtransactions.

Boffo the Sock @ Jun 25th 2008 2:01PM

There weren't any more than 10 maps when the first GoW released either.

Benny @ Jun 25th 2008 2:05PM

I know, but a little more generosity would have been nice. Multiplayer is clearly a big part of the game, and in two years it is surely possible to produce more than 10 fully-polished maps.

jake18oly @ Jun 25th 2008 2:18PM

Sounded to me that he said 10 all new maps not including the Gears 1 remakes.

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 2:35PM

Well, TF2 taught me that

Less really-well designed maps > More unbalanced/shitty/Cut-out Maps(CoD 4 being the biggest offender)

If tEpic can design maps that will remain fun after you play the same ones for a few hours straight then that's all they will ever need to have a great muliplayer experience.

After all, there is a reason why 24/7 Dustbowl,Dust2(from CSS) and Goldrush servers are so heavily populated.They're so well designed that people could play them for 12 hours and still enjoy it.

Mr.ESC @ Jun 25th 2008 3:04PM

You are right Dustbowl and 2fort are just great.

I wish I could play some other maps but I'm stuck with the xbox 360 version ¬_¬

I played Gold rush once in the Tf2 free weekend and I don't mind to tell you it was effing sweet, the program crashed after that and I was unable to play again but dude it was cool.

modified @ Jun 25th 2008 6:55PM

He said "at least 10 new maps"

Epic used to be all about free content, but that era is over. They like to act like it's all Microsoft, but I'm sure the higher ups at Epic are really putting up a fight knowing that DLC will bring in millions of dollars. Even worse they won't give us the tools and let us create our own for free.

Obie @ Jun 25th 2008 1:51PM

Sorry I will keep calling him CliffyB, because his last name is impossible to spell.

And I am glad they are fixing things of GOW multiplayer, but I am looking forward more towards co-op, rather than deathmatch.

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 2:40PM

Well, I don't see a problem since I'm Polish but I've noticed that English people do have a soft spot for these things.Especially the romanizing of Russian.

It's Czernobyl not Chernobyl
It's Iwan not Ivan
It's Sasza not Sasha
and finally, it's a Kalasznikow not Kalashnikov

Obie @ Jun 25th 2008 2:44PM

I *could* learn to spell his last name. But I don't understand why he hates his previous nickname, Cliffy B was a term of endearment from the community.

Oh well, his name, his prerogative.

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 3:01PM

"Cliffy B was a term of endearment from the community."

Actually everybody hates Cliff and they were all like "OMG TEH CLIFFy B UR GAME TOTALLY SUCKS BALLS COD4 WAS BETTER THAN THAT PIECE OF SH!T GoW AND HALO COZ THEYRE MADE BY M$".

But now, thanks to the nickname removal, he reduced Gamespot's and IGN's trolling by 25% because most of these idiots now have no idea how to spell his full name.

Phranctoast @ Jun 25th 2008 3:08PM

jakka ftw.

actually CliffyB was his screen name on the Epic forums long before Gears of War was a concept.

Obie @ Jun 25th 2008 3:12PM

Well those *are* the Gamespot and IGN forums...they are almost as bad as the Bungie.net forums...*shiver*

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 3:24PM

True, but on Gamespot all they ever do is rant and bitch while on Bungie.net somebody *might* post a decent map every hundred years.

But yes,all of them keep on bitching too much but I guess it happens to all games with large communities.

Ever since the Pyro Updates, the TF2 forums are just full of win.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=80

luigi @ Jun 25th 2008 2:01PM

There is at least 12 maps, he clearly states in the interview that the game comes with 2 remakes from Gears 1 and 10 or more new maps.

343 Guilty Fart @ Jun 25th 2008 1:59PM

I thought Hsu left EGM?

Vcize @ Jun 25th 2008 2:10PM

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh I'm at work and can't watch.

I'm going to go freaking CRAZY today waiting for that clock to move forward.

Bloo @ Jun 25th 2008 2:14PM

All other games be damned once this comes out. Thank god MGS4 came out now and FF XIII isn't coming out at the end of the year.

Vcize @ Jun 25th 2008 2:31PM

No doubt.

Although I doubt I'll be done with this game by the time FFXIII comes out (no matter how long it's delayed). I'll just have to find time for both.

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 2:53PM

Judging by the current state of Delayed Fantasy 13, I'm pretty sure you'll be done with both Halo 4 and CoD5 before it comes out.

Vcize @ Jun 25th 2008 3:01PM

Which in no way means that I'll be done with Gears 2.

Especially considering that I'm done with CoD4 and Halo 3 (as fun as both were while they lasted) but still playing Gears 1 nearly every night.

NATO_Duke @ Jun 25th 2008 2:29PM

I just found GoW MP to be no fun when I played it, so I have trouble being excited about this. I know - I'm the minority on that thought.

Obie @ Jun 25th 2008 2:41PM

GOW was not bad, but it had issues. Like how the host was almost God-like, and I have a crappy internet so I always got screwed even if I got a drop on an enemy.

Regardless I will buy the game, and give multi a try.

Xpaco @ Jun 25th 2008 2:34PM

Wow, this is a must-buy for me.

caramelzappa @ Jun 25th 2008 2:40PM

Looking good so far. The new gameplay modes sound great.

I'm just worried about how online is going to work. Having a party system is great, but the party leader should be able to choose a server to join. The thing I absolutely hated about Halo 3 is that you couldn't choose what map you wanted to play, the server chose for you and all you could do is possibly veto to another map you may not like.

Mr.ESC @ Jun 25th 2008 3:00PM

"The server chose for you and all you could do is possibly veto to another map you may not like".

Which never worked because even if the server choose something like I don't know Team S.W.A.T in a cool map players will veto immediately for the sake of it even if it means playing Team Sniper in Snowbound...again.

What I really hated about Halo was its community, playing in team was impossible. Meaning that “Lone wolves” was the only way to play or the weekend events but that was immediately stopped by the first thing I hated about Halo 3…Lag.

I don’t what happened that by the end of the match that I had these awful connection spikes, meaning that from a healthy 1st or 2nd place I dropped to a 3rd 6th place immediately or the match abruptly finished showing me in 4th place for whatever reason. I have this video where my character dies mysteriously over and over in such ways it could be youtube poop material. I mean it seems like he is having a heart attack all of the sudden.

TWiNKiE @ Jun 25th 2008 5:42PM

It's not Bungie's fault you have a bad connection.

And although it is pretty hard to meet a good team on matchmaking, it's possible. Even then, you can always invite a group of friends to play with you.

If you can't communicate with your friends, then you deserve to lose.

caramelzappa @ Jun 25th 2008 6:21PM

My whole point was that you couldn't play the maps you wanted to play...

Mr.ESC @ Jun 25th 2008 6:57PM

“It's not Bungie's fault you have a bad connection”.

True but is not my fault either that matchmaking chooses something in Australia as a host.

“If you can't communicate with your friends, then you deserve to lose”.

What part of ranked matches you don't understand? I do communicate with my friends but is not like I can invite them to that match in particular. I mean we have met and pwned the board like for 10 games before having to do something else but it’s rare, we play in different hours (one of them has recon lulz) and we are not friends, more like a tiny clan of some sort.

porplemontage @ Jun 25th 2008 2:42PM

My guess is a map on a train.

Mr.ESC @ Jun 25th 2008 2:53PM

Progress bar, thank you very effing much. If it works like the one in TF2 it would be perfect.

So many kills I got weren't counted because the host was a ***.

I really hate I can't kill enemies from distance, not because going towards is unsafe but people like to steal kills. I'm not one of those xbox live f*ggots that complain every time someone took their kill because they were doing teabags or the Gears equivalent (Stick a gas grenade in their butt and dance around them) but in a game where getting 1,000 takes weeks is really annoying.

About the maps, well didn’t he do that already in Gears 1 I mean the environmental hazards in the Garden level? I would like to see those but is not totally new, still cool tho’.

I would like to use Vehicles in Mp as well that would be cool.

Finally I would like to mention that if the game was divided in classes instead of everyone grab a weapon it would so much better. I love playing as a Pyro in TF but in games like Gears or Halo won’t be always getting the flamethrower and sometimes it sucks, if I could start with it I would be happy.

(Sorry if this is a double post)

Vcize @ Jun 25th 2008 3:04PM

Gears uses weapon spawns to help balance other weapons as well as the maps. If everyone could just spawn with a boomshot it would

A) Make the game terrible

And

B) Ruin maps that are designed around a chokepoint at that weapon.

Jakka @ Jun 25th 2008 3:14PM

That would fail imo.It works on TF2 because there are a lot of players(console-players still maps) and large maps.
Class-system on CoD4 barely makes it with 16-players and medium maps.
Now imagine a class system for GoW with 10-12 players and tiny maps?

It's much easier to save all the hassle and balance things out by placing Power-Weapons in the open,center areas of the map.It'd work like middle CP's on TF2, where everybody rushes to one area and fights on the opposite sides struggling to get the game-winning weapon.Anybody who rushes into the open to grab the sniper dies within seconds so in the end, both sides suffer from heavy loses before anybody would be able to get the weapon.

For those who didn't bother to read all of this: PUT THE GODDAMN SNIPER AT THE CENTER,IN THE OPEN!

Mr.ESC @ Jun 25th 2008 7:00PM

But I want flamethrower :(

Mutagenaric @ Jun 25th 2008 3:03PM

I'd guess something like a spreading fire hazard. Or a toxic gas, maybe. Or, if they're going REALLY original, lots of NPC (probably Stranded) that attack from behind periodically, and push the players in further before holding their ground. That would be awesome, if they could get AIs that actually worked for it.

Of course, the simple two-front battle would be reason enough to allow yourself to be pushed further by the AIs (being attacked from in front and behind).

I always liked that Gears map at the trainstation; I'd put up split screen and me and a friend would play chicken with it. Lots of lulz.