Cliff Bleszinski

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Bleszinski seems to be trying to shake off the whole "bigger, better, more bad-ass" phrase because during our visit to see Epic's design director in Seattle we didn't hear it once.

Instead of cheesy PR and marketing hyperbole Bleszinski just sat back and let the game do the talking. But he was more than happy to mull over why Gears' multiplayer wasn't quite what was intended and how its now been fixed. It's all interesting stuff.

Gears is still very popular online, but it wasn't without its hiccups. Did the multiplayer turn out as planned?

Bleszinski: Mostly yes, but in some ways no. Initially when we shipped it grenade tagging was too easy because of the distance. Players could tag from far away. I'm personally responsible for that because it was a setting in the game that I missed. But players were still taking cover and using chainsaws and grenades so that turned out well.

But one thing that disappointed us was the shotgun roll - players that roll at each other to close the gap and just shoot with the shotgun. It's the biggest cheesy dick way of playing. I can't stand it. Now we have stopping power to slow them down so they can't do that anymore.

The shotgun was also a little inconsistent in Gears 1. Sometimes it'd seem like you get an instant kill if you're right near a guy, and other times it felt like you're not doing a lot of damage at all. We've tweaked it so if you're still eight feet away two shotgun shots to the head will down a guy. It's a close- to mid-range weapon.

You have a new achievement system in which players can only earn, say, one head shot of 50 required for an achievement per game, stopping players from focusing on that. Is this the ultimate solution to problematic multiplayer achievements?

Cliff Bleszinski: I hope we have provided a little thought leadership in that department. It's one of those things where you learn from your mistakes. Players get tunnel vision - they just want to get the achievements. And you think to yourself that this isn't the game you intended to make.

The purpose of achievements is to encourage long-term gameplay as well as encourage players to play the game in ways they maybe previously hadn't thought about. It's a motivator. It's not for players to annoy other players, or play in a way that's irritable.

You say that there are 400 tweaks that have been made to the cover system. Sounds like a lot.

Bleszinski: It's everything. I feel like with the first game we were 85 percent of the way there. We did a lot for what cover-based gameplay could be.

Playing the original is a little bit difficult for me because now things like the direction your character is facing when you dive into cover can be crucial. And if you face the wrong way, that quarter of a second it takes to flip around is agonising. We're doing a lot more intelligent things with it, like anticipating which way the player is and wants to face.

Also, if you're near the edge of the wall and you blind fire, it defaults to shooting around the edge of the wall instead of over the top, which makes a lot more sense.

When you're in the middle of a Swat turn you can press A to interrupt the animation. You can hold A while picking up a weapon to immediately run instead of having to wait. All these things add up to make the game that much better.

Can you tell us a little about what content you have lined up for DLC after the game's release?

Bleszinski: We haven't made an announcement about that just yet. We have to have stuff ready at this point - we're so close to shipping the game. We want to ship with a very healthy stable of maps and have other maps waiting for players to check out online.

You mentioned that some maps will have new features like environmental hazards, which will force players to move around the map. Can you tell us more about that?

Bleszinski: We can't say too much about that right now, but I will say that environmental hazards play a much bigger part in Gears 2.

There are certain aspects of the planet that are changing - the atmosphere is getting a little bit grumpier, and that will cause players to want to stay indoors a little more often.

Sounds like storms and tornadoes...


Bleszinski: You'll have to wait and see...

Fair enough. In terms of technical prowess, the first game pushing 360 to its limits, at last visually. How much extra have you got out of the hardware for the sequel?

Bleszinski: It's a matter of getting better at using your tools and figuring out how to better fit things in.

If you look back at the days of the SNES the first generation of games were pretty cool. But by the time you got to the end of the generation they were pulling things off with Mode 7 and all this craziness that you couldn't believe. The same applies to this system.

I love having a PC heritage, but the duty of console development is that it's a fixed platform. You can't just say "go buy some more RAM or a bigger hard drive." It is what it is and you have to work within those constraints. That forces you to be better with memory usage or more creative with the engine and we enjoy doing that.

So would you say Gears 2 pushes the console to its limits?

Bleszinski: I know we're using a fair amount of its potential, but for any future product we might be doing on a console I guarantee we'd be able to push it a little bit more.

The campaign in the first game ranged from around six to nine hours. Are you going for a similar length with the sequel?

Bleszinski: We definitely want it to be longer. We won't specify a number of hours right now, but it will be longer - I can guarantee that. And it'll have a little bit more drama too.

How long do you think games should be nowadays?

Bleszinski: I think that, with campaigns like in Gears, Halo or Call of Duty, my personal preference is around the 10+ hours mark, with a co-op and a multiplier you can play in the longer term.

But I find a lot of games are filled with padding to make them seem longer. They do stuff like, at the half way mark, demand that you play through all the levels again backwards, and you think "kiss my ass." We'll never do that. We'd always rather push forward and provide new experiences.

You say that the second game will put a bigger emphasis on story, and will include more drama. What's your take on the debate over the much-discussed 90-minute cut scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4?

Bleszinski: I'm a huge fan of Kojima. I've played through all the games on the NES and MGS 1 and 2. In the kind of games we do, the cut scenes are around three to four minutes on average. It just says what needs to be said and moves on to letting you actually play the game.

The kind of scenes they do in MGS4 is phenomenal. I think it has the best sound and real-time [cutscenes] I've seen in the industry and since they're the best at what they do, players love it.

It's the hallmark of the series - the camera angles and dramatic scenes and it's really taking film-making to this new digital level. My personal preference as a gamer though is shorter cutscenes.

Xbox Live is the dominant of the consoles' online services, but PS3 has caught up somewhat with 2.4. Do you think Microsoft can continue to justify charging for the service?

Bleszinski: All of it remains to be seen. I think Microsoft has been very smart with getting a head start with that, they also got a head start with this console generation. And it's a very consistent platform as far as Xbox Live goes.

It's easy to connect, easy to use, and I think that Sony is recognising that having a strong online community is how your games get legs and how you get people playing the game for a long time.

Then you get them downloading new map packs and things like that. It helps your bottom line out. So I'm eager to see how it all pans out.

There has been talk recently of MS wanting to be the first out with the next console generation, too. Do you think that's the way to go?

Bleszinski: Well, I know I'll be knee deep on the 360 for a good while to come. I hope if there's a new Xbox that there'll be fewer buttons on the controller.

This is purely me speculating in my own realm of game development, but if you look at a controller right now it looks like an alien space ship. I think you could do things with a built-in camera or a little motion sensitivity.

You look at the Wii controller, with less buttons and they added functionality by doing waggle - not a lot of games use the waggle well, but Super Mario Galaxy for example uses it perfectly. Zak and Wiki uses it rather well.

There are other ways of providing interactivity without having every single finger doing something at once on a friggin' controller.

I've seen some prototype camera stuff that some friends are working on that can actually tell the depth of the world around the player, and can track individual finger movements and stuff like that. That's exciting stuff, and I think that's where it all needs to start going towards.

How would a Gears work with a controller with less buttons?

Bleszinski: Not to pat ourselves on the back too much but we did a pretty good job of the controls in Gears 1. We had the Y button and we didn't know what to do with it. So we made it look at stuff.

Even the right bumper - we could have made X the reload button but we chose to put it up there to keep gun functionality on the triggers.

Have you seen the mind control stuff they're working on?

Yes we've seen some basic demos.

Bleszinski: I've seen this system where they calibrate it to several areas of your brain that light up when you have a thought. They tell you to think 'push', then 'lift' and they map the parts of the brain that light up.

Then you have a block on screen and when you think 'push' and it starts moving it's creepy. But it's amazing. If there was ever a mental war game, like some psi-ops shit I'd totally kick ass at it.

Come on, mind-controlled games will never happen, right?

Bleszinski: It always starts of clunky and crappy, but then the tech gets better and better. I mean if you look at the Wii controls, its basically a repackaging of the little ping pong games they were selling at the mall.

They take that technology, they polish it up, they make great games and now it's huge. It's the same with all new technology...

Mike Jackson