Gearheads of War

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdk2002/sets/72157607056585894/

This second set of pictures is courtousy of the Gamerscoreblog.com It shows some people signing the Comic-Con poster from the fans to the hard workers at Epic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamerscore/sets/72157607030069768

First thing i need to get out of the way is that the version of the game i was playing was a few months old, so there were a few problems i don't want to go into too many details about the problems i want to talk about the best parts.

Caution May Contain spoilers and everything stated is subject to change in the final game

Now that is out of the way i entered the convention center and the Microsoft booth was directly placed at the front entrance to the convention center and was always packed with a line of 4 or more people waiting in line to play gears 2.

The first day was so chaotic i was unable to actually play, but i did have a chance to talk with Six Okay (Justin) a lot during the convention about the game. I also got in touch with Pete Hayes the senior artist at Epic and he is the guy that makes all the brain chunks and stuff pretty when we get headshots that we all love. Also at the Microsoft booth was Josh Ortega the writer for Gears of War 2 and upcoming comic. Both guys were very nice and took out the time to talk with me and everyone else at the convention.

So while i was waiting to play i was watching people play and some people knew the game well and some others didn't but were doing okay anyways. The new lobby system is amazing, everyone will praise Epic for years to come because this lobby and party system is really up there with other triple A titles.

On the left side of the screen when setting up the game you have the following:
Match Type
Game Type
Number of Rounds
Round Time Limit
Bleed out Duration
Friendly Fire
Map Selection (Host Selection, maybe others i have to find out)
Weapon Swapping (on or off maybe selection still need more information)

On the right side of the screen you will see 5 Blue spaces and under that 5 red spaces stacked on top of each other.

Blue = Cog
Red = Locust

Hopefully official pictures will release soon of the lobby system.

Ok now onto my impressions:

I got to play on River and Security both maps do very well in the universe and are set from the campaign.

River is a bigger map than you expect it to be if you seen pictures of it. There are power weapons on top of the bridge and under the bridge and they are always swapping around. One round, i saw a boomshot on the top of the bridge and the next was a flamethrower, which is my new favorite weapon to use, i grabbed it as much as possible when playing security.

All of the grenades worked as they should have either when throwing them or placing them into the wall, which is just fun to do. One instance I was playing Guardian on Security and the opposite team had lost their leader and there was only one person left on the team, wisely he had placed a few smoke and frag grenades and hid himself into the corner and got a few kills before dying himself.

Lancer is used very well now and the shotgun doesn't feel as powerful because of the spread from distance. I forgot to try and use the hammerburst the host kept starting the game before i could switch my weapon which you can now do with the LB and RB to switch between the lancer and hammerburst in the lobby.

Not all of the characters were selectable in the version i was playing but all the old favorites from the COG side are there, But on the Locust side is some very new and interesting characters to choose from. I can't go into detail because they are very hard to describe, but when you see them you will like the new choices.

I saw people frequently getting into chainsaw duels and i can tell you they are both fun to watch and participate in. While playing guardian on Security i was the leader and i ran into the small hallway where the flamethrower is kept and around the corner is the other leader running at me, so i shoot some lancer around the corner and start trying to lure him into the area that i am at and i just start revving my chainsaw and move around the corner and he has the same idea, so we end up in a duel. Im smashing the hell out the B button to win the duel and all of a sudden it stops and we throw ourselves off of each other, turns out it was a draw so i just revved up my saw again and caught him with it right in the chest ( myself and the crowd erupts into a frenzy as i dig my saw into the leaders chest clenching the victory for my team)

Another really cool thing i saw was on River these two guys ended up in a chainsaw duel, i see on another monitor that the guy is looking through his Sniper scope at his teammate in the chainsaw duel and shoots the COG in the head to save his partner.(all you heard in the crowd was oh my gods and what the hell just happened)

I do have more things to talk about, but would like to stop now before it gets too long. Feel free to ask any questions or concerns in this post and i will answer them for you or get them answered as soon as i can.
Update [2008-9-2 16:15:44 by MDK2002]: My apologies i had Pete Haye's job title listed wrong, its now fixed. Update [2008-9-4 0:25:50 by MDK2002]: Now added more pictures from the gamerscoreblog.com's Flickr from Pax 2008