Gearheads of War

I know that most of you read Joystiq, and so you probably got the heads-up and have read this already, but I figured, in case someone might have missed it, here you go.

Pretty honest and open reflection on Gears 2.  Good stuff.

I remain extraordinarily proud of the work that I do as well as the gifted team I work with. But that said, nothing's perfect and hindsight is 20/20. Matchmaking was very flawed out of the box; the game did ship with exploits, and it's an unfortunate reality when you make a product that is played by millions of players on day one.

That said, Horde was really a resounding success, and this really seems to be the era of co-op really and truly emerging as its own thing, much like versus did years ago in the Quake and Doom era. But we'll continue with DLC and keep that long tail as long as possible.

I think we did a far better job with the story this time around - I think Josh Ortega is a fantastic writer, the game had a tighter story, made a lot more sense, had some nice twists and turns, a little bit darker. That said, of course it's not Shakespeare; it's still a popcorn blockbuster.

The single-player has not a second of backtrack, but is incredibly varied, spectacularly beautiful, and highly entertaining.  Horde...well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and everyone and their dog are making some kind of survival wave game mode (including veterans Valve and Bungie).  MP?  All they need to do is give themselves some time in the development cycle for a public Beta.  They can no longer allow marketing/publishers to tell them when the game must be released.  Good luck, Cliff and Epic!  For a company that historically focused almost entirely on MP gaming, you sure hit campaign and co-op gaming out of the park!

Update: Don't miss MDK's diary on the TU4 release notes.  Tons of info!