Microsoft has dished up a massive batch of Gears of War 2 screenshots - mostly old in magazine world, but they now give us a crystal clear look at the sequel's exciting campaign and multiplayer modes.
The shots show off (again) the second game's tasty looking flame thrower weapon, alongside new multiplayer modes Wingman, which sees ten players face off in teams of two, and Epic's own take on CTF, 'Meatflag', where the flag is a (presumably CPU-controlled) character who runs around the map trying to defend himself.
The first in-game shots of Gears 2 leaked onto the internet earlier this week, so be sure to check those out as well.
It's out in November, We'll have hands-on impressions of Gears 2 for you very soon, so stay tuned for that.
Can we have a decent matchmaking system with skill ranks ala Halo. That way we all get to play a good game against someone of our skill level.
Whenever ive played the original GoW online i either end up fighting some guy who plays if for eight hours solidly everyday, so i get minced, or i play someone who it seems has never held a 360 controller in their life. Neither is much fun
Not sure why you assume the Meatflag is a cpu controlled player, CVG. As far as I gathered from the latest video with Cliff talking about it, it works one of two ways:
Like capture the flag, basically - if you're playing single-flag, one team is defending and another is attacking. One player from the defending team will be the 'flag' that the other team needs to capture.
Same goes for multi-flag, with one person on each team being the 'flag'.
I could be wrong, but I'm 99% sure its not going to be a cpu controlled character. It would take a hell of a lot of fun out of it.
The snake boss pics are touched up photoshop jobbies, and badly done ones at that.... Looks good, you can tell its an unreal game from a mile off thats for sure
Well, it's certainly graphically impressive, and if the first game is anything to go by, the gameplay will be great too. Make it a bit longer, and you'll have a GotY contendor. And a strong one at that.
The snake boss pics are touched up photoshop jobbies, and badly done ones at that.... Looks good, you can tell its an unreal game from a mile off thats for sure
They're not touched up at all - it's called depth-of-field and focus effects. GTA IV has a similar fuzzy/blurry effect around things like that, it's not photoshop.
you cant really compare the two but GOW 2 and killzone 2 are looking at being the two consoles bench marks.
The next few months are going to be very interesting
There's no doubt about it, GOW1+2 look miles better than anything else the competition can offer.
Its just one of those games that screams next gen, or current gen, you know what i mean.
If they can sort out the over reliance on one shot kills ala shotgun, the multiplayer im sure will be fantastic. Split second one shot kills mean anyone (like me) with a poor broadband speed suffers greatly.
The snake boss pics are touched up photoshop jobbies, and badly done ones at that.... Looks good, you can tell its an unreal game from a mile off thats for sure
They're not touched up at all - it's called depth-of-field and focus effects. GTA IV has a similar fuzzy/blurry effect around things like that, it's not photoshop.
Unless you mean something I missed in those pics?
Screens like this are always photoshopped. Saying that though, I've got access to the hi-res versions here at work and they look amaaaaazing. Can't wait for this.
'Always' is a huge sweeping statement, and it's just not true.
You can tell when images have been photoshopped (I work with it all day), and these are definitely not photoshopped.
Everyone already knows how gorgeous the GoW engine is, so why is it so hard to believe that these are pure? It's hardly a huge step-up from GoW1, after all.
'Always' is a huge sweeping statement, and it's just not true.
You can tell when images have been photoshopped (I work with it all day), and these are definitely not photoshopped.
Everyone already knows how gorgeous the GoW engine is, so why is it so hard to believe that these are pure? It's hardly a huge step-up from GoW1, after all.
Always isn't a sweeping statement, it's the truth. I also work with Photoshop all day long, it's my job, and virtually every official promo image, be it for a TV show, a videogame, whatever, has had some sort of work done to it. And if the image has been worked on well then you can't always tell, or at least it's harder to spot. It's also a lot easier to get away with touching up game shots than, say, a gallery photo due to the unnaturalness of videogame graphics compared to real-life photography. You don't have to worry as much about over-working it and making it look unnatural, which is always the biggest worry, as it's already unnatural.
It's so hard to believe these are 'pure' because they never are. I guarantee they've had a lot more work done to them than you think.
The 'virtually every' was aimed at all media, not just games. The fact remains that every one of these images has had at least a little PS work done to them and you're deluded if you think otherwise. Saturation will have been played with along with the levels and balancing, imperfections will have been cloned out, a little extra blur may have been added, etc, etc... It's not a bad thing, it just cleans them up and makes them a little more appealing. It's the norm, and I'm pretty sure you'd be a lot more eager to accept that fact if this was a PS3 or Wii article.
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