Epic: Gears of War seems stereotypical because everybody copied us and copied our look

In an interview in issue 96 of OXM Epic Games art director Chris Perna says that “everybody copied us and copied our look, and the market was flooded with Gears clones, which hurts the original.”

[Dylila]

he must be reffering to the people that uses the unreal engine

[majiebeast]

That made me laugh.

[miyamoto]

because Gears is not a clone of RE4...yeah

and this cockery reminds me of Ninja Theory and Mercury Steam...

am I seeing a trend here?

@turnerdc

what made Gears true next gen AAA M$ PR millions?

don't try to misinform us. now way in the article it said they took some stuff from Gears
"We consider the Uncharted franchise to be the very best of the generation. But it wouldn't be the series we know today without an outside influence.

According to what former Naughty Dog environment modeler Don Poole told Play, Uncharted was originally supposed to be a "fantasy game." Then, Sony forced them to make the debut effort "more realistic."

It seems the team had something "much more far out" planned, and that included a forest world where people lived underground. Poole said it definitely had "elements of Tolkien" but with gritty shooters like Gears of War getting so much attention, Sony wanted Naughty Dog to adapt. Said Poole:

"Sony kept pushing for a more realistic game in all respects. The market had changed a lot by then. The demographic was older and gritty shooters were really dominating. Sony wanted very much to get into that market share, it pushed all of its developers in this direction.

So the big push from Sony, not just at Naughty Dog but at all of Sony's development companies at the time, was to craft games for PlayStation 3 that were much more realistic. The pressure from Xbox's success with gritty shooters was a very real force on our direction at that time."

Poole went on to say there was a lot of "internal grumbling" about the whole realism thing, because so many of the guys were from the Crash Bandicoot and Jak era, and they complained about the new style. "But alas, it was a losing battle." Ah, but what a way to "lose."

it was shooters in general not Gears only because ND unveiled Uncharted the same time Gears was released.

[NewMonday]

wasn't Resident Evil 4 the game that made over the over-the-shoulder shooter work?

don't see Epic giving it any credit.

[jetlian]

re4 was not the first over the shoulder shooter! Tired of saying this. These new age gamers getting on my nerves.

RE4 doesn't even play like gears. It doesnt have the pacing or the grit of gears

[Fyflin]

Gears is hardly a clone of RE4, hell you can't even walk and shoot at the same time in resi 4, let alone snap into cover anywhere you see fit. Only things they have in common is the third person view and arguably the content and gore factor.

[007Bond]

Of course it did anything coming out of M$ or their developers mouth does.

[ALLWRONG]

Uncharted does borrow a lot from Gears and Tomb Raider. If you don't see it you're blind as a bat. Gears borrows from Kill Switch but pulls it off by making the game different. There is nothing about any of the Uncharted games that makes it an original idea. Only thing Uncharted didn't copy was the steroid junky look.

[Diver]

No he's saying other games like this copied them:

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

oh wait

[Seraphim]

that's exactly what I was going to say. First thing I thought when I played Gears. Loved Kill.Switch. idk why, wasn't spectacular by any means but it was a blast. Been wishing they'd revisit that game.... true true. truth be told, finally!

[SageHonor]

You do realize the lead designer of kill switch was hired by epic games to work on gears right?

[otherZinc]

Gears is a spectacul series, period!

Looking very forward to playing Gears Judgment. I've replayed all3 Gears games in "Campaign Co-op" something the entire Uncharted series can't do.

Gears games sell well because of Story, Campaign, Horde Mode, Campaign Co-op, Multiplayer, and it's hilarious and serious at the same time.

[Mounce]

Nathan Drake copied Gears of War as well. Totally.

I mean, also, the game called Winback, totally stole from Gears. Gears was the pinnacle of Third Person Shooters and totally the first of its kind.

I've totally never seen Roid-boosted tank-men with muscles the size of an elephants' cock. with giant Boombox-armor. That and soldiers who can try so hard to strive to look and sound like a hardass and somehow survive countless wars WITOHUT a fucking helmet. Gears of Helmetless War.

[MacDonagh]

All I want to know was if the sub-woofer boobs were necessary?

[StrongMan]

That's what the Killswitch devs said about you, Epic. Epic thinks they invented the cover system. smh

[spicelicka]

Control+F and search the word "cover", the entire article doesn't even contain the word. No where did Epic say they invented cover, and neither were they talking about cover in this case. Please stop making yourself look like fool. smh

On point, it's a bad excuse for being stereotyped. The only thing stereotypical are the characters and the unnecessary "manliness", everything else is unique about the franchise. They shouldn't even be talking about this, sure manyy games have been influenced by gears' formula, regardless of what they invented or innovated, but that's not why gears is stereotyped. Furthermore, Judgment wasn't really hyped nor asked for by the fans, everyone wanted a gears 4 for the next xbox.

[nukeitall]

Gears of War has some of the most unique artwork around and yes, people copied a lot of that with the gritty look.

The Gears of War world is fantastic, and the few that are hating on it's success isn't going to bring the series down. Consumers have already chosen.

GoW: Judgement wasn't asked for, but I'm sure am excited about it. To get my hands on and try the newer fast paced Gears.

[spicelicka]

@tiqila
You're fragmenting their ideas and allocating them to potential sources so obviously it looks like nothing new was innovated. But it's the collection of all these borrowed ideas in a formula that's so easily accessible is what makes gears innovative.

On top of that the borrowed features were much improved than they were in the original games. Killswitch had cover system but it wasnt the smoothest and in re4 you couldn't move while aiming so what the heck. Gears took the formula and made the action dependant on it, stop n pop, magnetized cover mechanics, dbno, executions, roadie running, even the simple rolling evasive manouvers are essential in playing the game properly.

And dont even forget multiplayer, no other third person shooter before it could run as smooth as gears and so competitive at the same time. I loved battlefront but it was clunky conpared to gears.

So u need to understand, its not just the "idea" that can be innovative but innovation can come from gameplay, engine fluidity, and just the general combination of features that may have been invented by someone else. Acclaimed scientists often are credited for innovating things invented by other, take graham bell for example.

[nukeitall]

@spicelicka:

Exactly!

It is not the individual ideas, but the overall implementation together of it. The overall feel of the game. How the character moves, the buttons react and so on.

It's as if you read a novel, then stop to say this guys father died so this idea is copied from this other book that has his father die too. Yet, there is so much more around it, like circumstances, back story, story telling and so on.

Stealing is more like when you make a clone of it, like let say BF3 single player campaign heavily mimics Modern Warfare or Quantum Theory looks and feels like an inferior Gears of War.

Then again, consumers don't care as they just want good games, whether it be clone or not.

[spicelicka]

@nukeitall

yes precisely what i was trying to say!

[DaThreats]

Ummm

[BigStef71]

Yea because you guys didn't copy Re4 and Kill Switch right? Give me a break

[Kratoscar2008]

Its still funny that people claim they didnt copied RE4 when Cliff himself admitted that much.

[oIITSBIIo]

cliff : Soon after playing the heck out of games like Resident Evil 4 and Kill.Switch, we realised we wanted a game that had a fun, summer, blockbuster-feeling campaign, with integrated co-op, and a solid, if simple, multiplayer.

where did he say we did copy the gameplay or the camera from KS or RE4 ? he just say we thought of having fun campaign - coop instead of MP only .

[Kratoscar2008]

@oIITSBIIo

Yeah because they will totally admit that they copied the formula that RE 4 created.

Of course they will tell you that they only took a slight inspiration, its not a rip off but its not like they can credit themselves that Gears was revolutionary to gaming (Wich they did) like RE 4 was.

[Sigh]

Man I just love how much idiocy I've been seeing lately from Epic and CliffyB.

[Godmars290]

Didn't this start off horror-survival in a military setting?

[C-Thunder]

Yeah, raided out dudes learning to walk while covered in glue sticking them to every wall they brush up against....

I really liked the first one, and the single player in all three is fun, the multiplayer died for me when everyone found out it was better to not use the cover system hardly at all and roll around like acrobats.

[Max-Zorin]

They ought to thank Winback for influencing the cover system.

[turnerdc]

Gears of War inspired quite a few games. Sure Epic wasn't the first to create the cover mechanic but they were the first to really deliver a true next generation, third person AAA title (WinBack and kill.switch averaged 60-75 on metacritic) that centered around this mechanic and used it well. Hell, even Sony took notice and pushed their developers towards that direction. If it wasn't for this, Uncharted might have been a very different game.

"It seems the team had something "much more far out" planned, and that included a forest world where people lived underground. Poole said it definitely had "elements of Tolkien" but with gritty shooters like Gears of War getting so much attention, Sony wanted Naughty Dog to adapt."

http://www.psxextreme.com/p...

[zebramocha]

It sounds like the old way games where presented has changed from fantasy/cartoony type games to more of real world type games,the influence seems to be indirect than direct.

[biRdy]

To be fair Gears 2 revived the huge enemy waves game modes in many games, such as call of duty's Nazi-zombies, Halo's Firefight and Mass Effects' Galaxy at war.

[turnerdc]

Great point! It seems every game has some kind of Horde mode now.

[WeAreLegion]

To be even more fair, Resistance 2 came out at the same time and did it, as well. Ted Price and Cliffy B bounced ideas off each other and it shows. Play Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2 back to back. The similarities are uncanny!

[RememberThe357]

Or maybe it's the simplicity of the entire series. Simple pots, simple characters, simple mechanics, it's all really simple. There's nothing wrong with that either, the more they embrace Gears of War for what it is the better the series will get. Keep it simple and make it fun, leave it to other games to be profound and moving.

[oIITSBIIo]

@Kratoscar2008

If your talking about Over-the-Shoulder there are some games did it before RE4 such as Splinter cell 2002 .

[2pacalypsenow]

thats funny didnt gears copy the gameplay of killswitch?

[L6RD7BLU3]

*COUGH* KILL . SWITCH *COUGH*

[0pie]

Studios copied gears of war and Epic sold the unreal engine to any studios who want the engine, so at the end all games made with the unreal engine became generic.

I would say its more the fault of Epic than those who try to copy them.

Btw, even id software stopped to sell his own engine to other developpers, maybe epic should do the same:)

[madjedi]

Funny i just figured bulky roided up soldiers were a side effect of using the unreal engine, because early on you could always tell which games used the unreal 3 engine .
Because they looked exactly the same as the last game you played.

[dirigiblebill]

Christ almighty, the ambulatory braindeaths in this thread. They're talking about the LOOK, people. Not the cover system, or the view angle, which they've freely admitted in the past to be second-hand goods. They're talking about the aesthetic.

[Klonopin]

Demolished buildings covered in arse gravy is not a unique aesthetic, even by 2005 standards.

[dirigiblebill]

Well yes, I suppose if you massively over-simplify things then no, it's not a unique aesthetic.

[talisker]

So the alpha male with a gun fighting monsters was invented in 2000s. That's new to me.

[Kennytaur]

I've never liked the Gears art style, everyone looks like they've been on steroids since they were ten.

[WitWolfy]

That makes a lot of sense. I always wondered why they always shout obsanities when you missed a perfect reload... Must be the roid rage...

[HurstDarkStar]

Everyone hates the manliness because they're intimidated.

-true story

[InTheLab]

Amazing how much credit Gears receives for ideas they ripped from other games....

Cover
Waved based survival
Their entire story
over the should view

[e-p-ayeaH]

Gears of War is stereotypical for many reasons not just one.

[Klonopin]

Epic thinks people are morons. The duck and shoot mechanic had already been done in Kill Switch. Over the shoulder camera, Resident Evil 4. I even remember Cliff raving about RE4's over the shoulder camera during a guest appearance on the g4tech channel in 2004. Suddenly Epic thinks they were ripped off.

[extermin8or]

HAHAHAHAHA look basically Films with over muscled space marines shooting stuff have existed for decades, and those warhammer games and the actual pieces existed long before Gears (I used to know people that collected them-I never did understand why?) And that's not the only thing about it that makes it stereotypical...