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Gears of War: Judgment Preview for Xbox 360

Gears of War: Judgment Preview for Xbox 360

Where Gears is Going

The Gears of War story is essentially over with the conclusion of Gears of War 3, but Epic Games would have to be insane to let the franchise die so soon. As a result, Gears of War: Judgment travels into the past, recounting events before the original trilogy. Of course, this travel back in time includes more guns, more abilities, and more evolutions on the series than anything we have seen before.

Gears of War: Judgment Screenshot

The first big evolution is in its single-player campaign. At its base, it’s still the same basic campaign formula you have come to know and love: You complete a series of missions, generally by shooting everything and everyone around you. However, there are a few things that make this campaign mode a bit different than what we have seen in the past.

For example, Judgment has created a new take on difficulty levels. Most games simply offer a higher difficulty level for people who want the challenge, but offer little to no reward for doing so. Granted, sometimes you can only get the “true ending” or special items by completing Hard Mode, but these endings can just as easily be obtained by watching YouTube, and these special items, though powerful, tend to be unnecessary if you weren’t playing the game on Hard in the first place.

Gears of War: Judgment Screenshot

Gears of War: Judgment has its own take on Hard Mode called Declassification. This New Game + mode makes missions more difficult by changing the rules. For example, different enemies may spawn, weapons may be restricted, areas might change, and more. However, these changes will also affect the story being told. This means the game’s Hard Mode is integrated to the story itself as a way to tell “what really happened,” as opposed to the events in easier missions.

Epic has also unveiled a ratings system for Judgment, which will rate each mission from 0-3 stars based on difficulty. Then, at the end of your mission, you will be able to see a detailed readout of all the actions you took (number of kills, downed allies, etc.) These stats will affect your star rating to show how well you did, and you can instantly replay a mission to improve this star rating. As of now, we do not know if these star ratings effect the game in any fashion, but if they, say, unlock bonus items or weapons, you can be sure that people will be going for a perfect score each time.

Gears of War: Judgment Screenshot

This alone increases the game’s replay value by quite a bit, but Epic is pushing the envelope even further by introducing the Smart Spawn System. This system ensures that different enemy types spawn at different locations in different areas of the single-player missions. This way, your gameplay experience will be totally different each time you play through the game.

Of course, multiplayer has always been a huge draw in Gears of War games, and Judgment is no exception. A new OverRun mode has been introduced, which is similar to the Rush mode in the Battlefield series. In this mode, one team is assigned to attack, while another team is assigned to defend. The attackers push forward on a “micro-map,” attempting to get to an objective. If they succeed, another section of the map opens up until they eventually push the defenders all the way back to the main objective, which they can take to win the game. The defenders, on the other hand, simply need to hold their position for a certain amount of time in order to push the attackers back.

Gears of War: Judgment Screenshot

In OverRun mode, the attackers are the Locust, trying to destroy COG encampments around E-Holes and eventually push their way back to the COGs’ main generator. The defenders, of course, are the COGs. Epic is mixing it up a bit by introducing interesting maps with multiple lanes and routes that attackers can take as they move toward their objectives. This requires the COGs to constantly work together and communicate, rather than simply holing up right around the objective and waiting.

Of course, Gears of War Judgment will also include all the traditional Gears of War multiplayer modes, including a brand new Free-for-All mode. The mode does just what it says on the tin, allowing every man to fend for himself and try to rack up more kills than the next guy. This might not seem like a huge innovation, but, for some reason, the Gears franchise has never had this mode before. So Gears fans can look at this as a semi-new multiplayer experience.

Gears of War: Judgment is currently scheduled land March 2013 and will obviously be exclusive to the Xbox 360.

Game Features:

  • Brand new OverRun multiplayer mode.
  • Finally, Gears gets a Free For All mode.
  • Interesting new takes on difficulty integrating the game’s story.

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