I came across this post on Wired Blogs today where they interviewed the Cliffman about Gears of War 2. From the interview (after the jump) I can tell that having a certain someone around has been good for the Cliffman. You go C.M….. You Go! :p
SAN FRANCISCO — Gears of War 2 will be more “girlfriend-friendly,” says designer Cliff Bleszinski.
Speaking to Wired.com at Microsoft’s recent media event, the designer (above left) says that Epic Games is trying to make their upcoming Xbox 360 shooter more appealing to the casual audience. The game’s female characters, he said, won’t have “ginormous tits.” And the lauded kill-alien-swarms-with-a-buddy cooperative mode will let you adjust the game’s difficulty on the fly depending on who’s playing.
“If the sequence is overwhelming for your significant other, he or she can just sit behind cover, blind fire a little bit, and you can handle all the shenanigans,” Bleszinski says.
Our full Q&A with Cliffy B is below.
You’ve called Gears of War 2 “bigger, better, and more bad-ass.” What’s so new and exciting?
Gosh. I’ve always seen it as the sum of its parts, right? It’s the sense of scale, it’s taking the story a little bit more seriously this time around. It’s some of the great new weapons like the semiautomatic Gorgon pistol. It’s being able to chainsaw Locusts from behind. In the taint. It’s blocking chainsaws, giant derricks, express elevators to hell, giant monsters, lost loves, expanded multiplayer features. It’s the sum of its parts, man, it’s everything coming together. It’s bloodier, too.
Let’s rewind. You can really chainsaw the Locusts in the taint?
You actually flip the chainsaw over and you go taint to throat, and you cut them in half that way. It’s rather unpleasant.
What’s located down there on a Locust?
We’ve yet to reveal that. What’s behind a Locust’s codpiece may or may not be revealed in a Gears sequel.
You said that the scene we watched you play today was the game’s action turned up to 11. Are there scenes that are like a two or a three?
Yeah, you’ve got to ratchet it down a little bit here and there. So we’ve got some parts where you might have to be careful about where you’re going, how much the Locusts are alerted to your presence, things like that.
At this point it seems like the Gears of War audience has already bought Xbox 360s. Are you trying to reach a new audience?
We’re selling Gears of War 2 to every single guy who bought an Xbox 360 for Grand Theft Auto IV. As well as the guys who like Call of Duty 4 but might not be Halo fans. I still think there’s plenty of room to go. I think we’re going to make it more girlfriend-friendly, with individual difficulty settings. It’s a beautiful game with beautiful vistas, with an actual human story that I think will appeal to a broader audience.
How do you make a game girlfriend-friendly?
You do jump-in, jump-out co-op. You have configurable difficulty settings for the other player. You have very cool and bad-ass main characters that have a very human side. And you make sure that the female characters in your game don’t have ginormous tits and aren’t bad stereotypes.
What are the female characters in Gears 2 like?
I’ve always made sure, working with the art department, that Anya is strong-willed but also very mother-like to the squad. She has a very modest chest and doesn’t look like some sort of heavy metal movie fantasy.
The Dizzy character is pretty hilarious too.
You know, he’s a flavor character. He’s not completely throughout the single player campaign, but he’s fun. The fact that he’s not in single-player a tremendous amount means we can have a little fun with him. It’s fun playing as him in multiplayer, because he has a hat on his head that can get shot off.
You can actually adjust difficulty levels based on the player even in a co-op game. How does that work?
It’s just a number of tweaks, number-wise, behind the scenes as far as player health and player weapon damage. We know which pawn is which, and we know what all the variables behind the scenes, so we can control all that. We have the splits, where one player goes one way and one goes another way. Those co-op splits, that’s where it really kicks into high gear as far as players being able to be in their own difficulty. We found in Gears 1 that a lot of players had a tough time, dying during those splits. We’re making casual difficulty truly casual.
In Super Mario Galaxy, you can add a second player and they can just do support stuff while the first player handles the main action.
I thought that was going to be so totally lame, but it turned out to be awesome.
Can you do something similar in Gears of War 2?
You can do that. That’s the great thing about Gears gameplay — if the sequence is overwhelming for your significant other, he or she can just sit behind cover, blind fire a little bit, and you can handle all the shenanigans. But as far as the number of players in co-op, and what we’re doing with co-op, we’ve yet to announce too much of the feature set. So you’ll have to wait until a future date to see what we’re doing.
What are your thoughts on the upcoming Gears 2?
May 16th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Very cool.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
What was so un-girlfriend friendly about the first game?
I’ve always said that if you want your girlfriend to play with you, all you need is good co op. My girlfriend doesn’t just want to sit and watch me play (except maybe Bioshock or Silent Hill…but that’s the exception not the rule).
She also hates really competitive games…like say racing games. Well she actually likes them but hates losing…and by hates I mean swings the PS2 controller around on its cord and hits me in the side of the head with it like a morning star.
No. You want your girlfriend to get into games..it’s all about co-op. I’ve had so many friends start thier girlfriends down a road to being a status after playing a few games like Baldur’s gate, titan quest, or diablo.
Gears was a GREAT game to play with her. She loved it.
In fact the slower pased team based multiplayer got her primed for eventual addition to Halo. And you don’t get more mainstream boys club than Halo multiplayer.
Still I think that a more accessable co-op game just makes it more consumer friendly in general which is a good thing.
When will other companies start giving us more split screen co op?
No split screen co op in CoD 4 means we didn’t play it and so on and so forth.
We’re looking forward to FAble 2’s co-op as another good couple game.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Can it get me a girlfriend?
If so I’d be VERY impressed.
May 17th, 2008 at 8:33 am
People shouldn’t try to tailor games to suit the needs of people who just don’t play video games. It’s not the companies fault that allot of girls don’t play… there are plenty of very girly titles out there.
Although my fiancee and I would really like some more co-op and online splitscreen game. You can’t even begin to guess how bummed we were that we couldn’t play GTA4 multiplayer on live together.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Does this mean they’ll be playable girl characters?
May 17th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Is Anya a playable character or not? I’m confused. The way he compares her to Dizzy implies yes?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:25 am
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/3408/cliffymationxl2.gif
May 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Quote: “Yes boys, women CAN play a big part in decisions on the higher level of the industry.”
Oh my ****ing god. I had to register just so I could comment on how unbelievably offensive that line is to all women working in the game industry. Yes, women can play a “big part” in the “higher level” of the game industry. They’re called DESIGNERS and they are PAID to make the decisions.
Do you even get how offensive your spin on this article is? CliffyB has a girlfriend and so has realized that the way to get girls interested in games is co-op – look, a girl had an impact on the game industry, it’s amazing, omg!!!!!
How can you so callously disregard all the female game designers, artists, and programmers making a living in the “higher levels” of the game industry – including all the ones doing the work that CliffyB is figure-heading? What about the women who are putting in the long hours right along side the boys, making the gameplay you’ll drool over? What about the writer of the God of War games, for crying out loud?
Stop patting yourselves on the back for getting your picture taken with CliffyB, and have the guts to do a profile on the women REALLY making the decisions in the game industry. The women who play a big part in the game industry aren’t the girlfriends and wives who make a suggestion here or there. They’re the professionals pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into the games, day in and day out. Praising CliffyB’s girlfriend for inspiring a co-op mode is an insult to all the hardworking female professionals in the industry. Get a clue.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Ryot, I think that you may have taken my comment a bit too seriously. This was a lighthearted post showcasing (what I felt) was a funny story that someone else did about how Gears will be more Girlfriend friendly. Cliffy and his girlfriend (who use to be one of our writers here) are good friends and therefore, we were joking around when posting all that about how a girl can have some say.
I come from the industry myself (Mythic Entertainment, Acclaim and White Wolf) and I know full well how hard women work in this industry. I was not at all implying that this is ALL women are good for. I was simply making a tongue in cheek jest at Cliffy and Chantal’s expense while playing with the stereotype that this is “all women are good for”.
I am sorry you were so obviously offended and I hope that you can understand my point of view here. I will take out that line in the intro so that it doesn’t come off as offensive. My appoligize.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Hmm, I think some people get too easily offended. Meh. Just my opinion.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
There are plenty of chicks like the PMS Clan who plan games like this and they’re probably getting boyfriends left ‘n right, so there’s no need to worry about “Girlfriend Friendly” games, Cliffy. You’re still sexy <3