Cliff Bleszinski, one of the most influential personalities in game development held an open house for select journalists not long ago. Of course, we weren’t invited because we weren’t cool enough to go to the party, but turns out that we ended up getting enough information anyways. Oh internet, is there anything you cannot do?
“[Gears of War] it’s got to be a pretty f***ing hardcore movie”
Gears of War, one of the Xbox 360’s best titles out there is being turned into a movie and CliffyB is making sure it does not go wrong (like Halo). When asked about the Halo movie, he says:
“I would love to see a Halo movie. You have the number one most recognizable character right now for gamers, which is Master Chief. I think in some ways Gears excites me as a movie because you have these actual characters and faces and they have their own personalities.”
Cliffy is also collaborating with Stuart Beattie, an Aussie screenwriter known for writing the abysmal spectacular scripts for Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and the upcoming 30 Days of Night. When asked about him, Cliffy says:
Stu is amazing to work with because he knows Gears inside and out. He beat the game several times and he was hooked on multiplayer. … … I think we have a really great script and now it’s just a matter of getting the right director attached and making sure it becomes a “AAA” blockbuster movie.
Typically, I’d post a cynical comment here, but seeing as we have an experienced screenwriter here, the script might actually be good. Besides, good man Cliffy won’t lie now, would he?
Another concern that is most common in game-to-movie adaptations would be of ratings. Quite often, you have an insanely gory game, which when turned into a movie becomes a family movie complete with teddy bears and pixies. Well, Cliff says that this won’t be happening.
The fact that Gears is an M-rated franchise and involves people getting chainsawed in half, it’s got to be a pretty f***ing hardcore movie.
And you know it’s going to be badass when one of the leading crew members uses profane words about it. Damn, I can’t wait to see it. Hit the jump for more about the movie, details about Gears of War for the PC (and it’s extras) and Cliffy talking some more about stuff.
Who will play the protagonist in Gears of War? As you can guess, that is a topic that makes instant fodder for forums and boards. Cliffy says that he won’t be including any buffed-up wrestler or bodybuilder, or anyone for that matter who lacks in charisma. That’s right, folks – Cliffy wants his Marcus to have a level of charisma rather than biceps twice the size of Ahnold or moves twice as fast as Chuck Norris.
Gears of War hitting PCs on November 6th
Now, despite what they get paid for, Epic is a PC company. Unreal Tournament, Jazz Jackrabbit – it all came for the PC, and so they have a natural affection for us PC-purists. And Gears of War just had to come to the PC! From Shacknews the source itself:
“You can tell it’s not trying to be a PC game,” said Bleszinski of the end result, referencing titles such as Halo 2 and Shadowrun as lazy examples of PC ports. Gears of War for Windows will support Windows Vista and XP, keyboards and Xbox controllers, and all manner of PCs, having been reworked to scale for low-end computers.
And just why would you want to buy a PC version of GoW if you already own an XBox 360 version? Just look at the goddamned feature set:
- Five new singleplayer chapters (you can start these up directly, too)
- New “King of the Hill” gametype for Multiplayer.
- Three new multiplayer maps.
- Game Editor!
- New boss named “Brumak”
- All content that has been released for GoW via Xbox Live to date
Will all this be coming for the Xbox 360 version? I think not. Cliffy explains, “Quite frankly, we want there to be other reasons to buy the PC version.” Take that, Microsoft fanboys.
“Bungie creates these giant bathtubs…”
When asked about Gears of War competing with Halo to be top dog of the 360 shooter arena, Cliff says:
“I think other than the fact that Gears and Halo are sci-fi shooters that have some co-op and multiplayer, in a lot of ways it’s an apples and oranges type of comparison. Halo is so much about larger scale battles. Bungie creates these giant bathtubs where all of these vehicles stir around and enemies spawn in this giant mixture of combat, whereas Gears is a far more intimate experience in terms of the combat distance to the enemies and the way that we pace the game out. Our art styles are tremendously different and are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.”
Yes sir, how diplomatic. But you have to know that Cliffy is a nice guy who was just as unskilled and un1337 as the rest of us. I’m sure that if CS and UT existed when he was my age, he’d probably have been pwned multiple times. Well, now he drives a Lamborghini and is one of the rulers of Epic, AND is working on a Hollywood movie.
“I was a shitty programmer and an even worse artist, but I somehow managed to code and stumble my way through…like painting my own pictures to make my own game, because I was that hungry and I wanted to make my own games that badly. Today, there are a lot of great colleges that have great game development programs and many of them use Unreal Engine. They assemble these fire team cabals of students to put their own games and mods together, which I think is a great way to teach people the development process not only from the tools and technology process, but also from the social interaction and team-based dynamic of game development and the reasonable trade-offs that are always involved in development.”
Encouraging thoughts indeed. I suddenly want to leave this job and join game development.
[Via Shacknews, Kotaku and GameDailyBiz]
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