What? A Gears of War sequel? That’s a shocker.

You have probably already heard, but Gears of War 2 is going to feature more of the same gameplay, with some add tweaks to the cover system, weapon-specific executions, and the ability to take meat shields. Above, you’ll find the E3 walkthrough video from just this morning.

In the video, Marcus and his allies are trying to escape a burning sideways building. Inventive level design? Possibly. To me, though, it still feels like more of the same, simply because of the color scheme. Developers have a trend of associating dingy colors with realism, and every game is just starting to blend together. The graphics do look quite polished, however.

Some of your favorites weapons, such as the Hammer of Dawn, will reappear, but another turret-like gun also makes it’s debut. Hopefully, this sequel won’t just be more of the same.

BioShock seems to be the go-to video game for storytelling comparisons these days, and according to Carlos Ferro, Gears of War 2’s story will be even more emotionally impacting than BioShock’s. Ferro does the voice for Dominic Santiago in Gears 2, and speaking to The Official Xbox Magazine he said that Gears 2’s storytelling goes “beyond” BioShock’s.

“It’s going to be more emotionally effecting than BioShock,” he says, “a lot happens.”

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By now I’m sure you’ve heard about Gears of War 2, but there were also some pretty cool demonstrations of Unreal Engine 3 using Gears of War. Gamersyde got some video of Epic Game’s presentation off the screen, which I’ve embedded above.

They show plenty of new features for Unreal Engine 3, but the best part is about a minute in when they demonstrate high density crowds by showing over a hundred locusts on screen all at once.

They also show the improvements in lighting and water, the system used to build all of Gears’ cinematics, soft body physics, and destructible environments. It’s awesome to see these improvements to the engine that powers so many great games, and I for one can’t wait to see them implemented in Gears of War 2.

Hey all you lovely MEGATONik readers, great news if you own an Xbox 360! Before the Microsoft keynote speech was even delivered at this years GDC, the details of the hotly anticipated game was spilled by a crafty NeoGAF poster who found the following on Microsoft’s Italian PR website.

Gears of War 2 (Epic Games). Gears of War 2 is the sequel to the best seller, with 4.5 million copies sold, which redefined the tactical/third person/action game genre. Gears of War 2 follows the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Team in an epic saga of survival, defeat, and punishment. Developed by Epic games as an Xbox 360 exclusive, Gears of War 2 will be available in November.

Thank you wonderful web translations! I’ve just been told that this news has been confirmed by Epic developer CliffyB during the GDC keynote speech. I’m guessing that nobody here thought that any console other than the 360 would be getting this game did they? Now, when is GameStop going to offer pre-orders?

In honor of today being Valentine’s Day, I created the this crude representation of love, Gears of War style. There’s not much to say besides Happy Valentine’s day, so enjoy the chocolate and extra BJs while you can.

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Need something to help pass the time while waiting for a Gears of War sequel? Read a book.

According to website listings from Amazon UK and Wal-Mart, Steve L. Kent is writing a Gears of War book titled Gears of War: The Pendulum Wars–The Battle of Aspho Fields. Amazon UK says the book will release February 26, 2008, and will have 352 pages, in the UK region. The book will be published by Del Rey Books. Wal-Mart’s website states the book will be out in August, and will cost a cheap $8.94. The book is said to take place a year before the game’s storyline, and will follow Marcus Fenix during the Locust-Human War.

[Via GameSpot UK]

The guys over at the Gamerscore Blog have made another video about the uniqueness of working at Microsoft (you may remember the previous one about Portals), this one showcasing the annoyances of working in the same place as the COG from Gears of War. However, fortunately for the Microsoft employees now that Gears of War for Windows is out the COG have something to do again and are too busy curb-stomping locusts to shout at them aggressively.

In an interesting post over at Kotaku, Marky Mark Wilson explains how Epic Games president Mike “No Good Ideas” Capps almost made a couple of decisions that would have completely ruined Gears of War. When interviewed on the subject, Capps said:

I was going to cut multiplayer from Gears because I thought it wasn’t coming together fast enough…The day before E3 I’m like “no guys, it’s not pulling together”. And they made it, they pulled it together, and then we won every award.

Yikes. It’s a good thing that this guy isn’t the head of any major company or anything. I’m really happy that in being employed in Epic’s mailroom, he has no say as to what happens with the games that Epic creates. But Capps didn’t stop there. While commenting on the commercialization of his future blockbuster, Capps had this to say:

So, you know I thought the Mad World music, for the commercial that’s won so many awards, I thought it was stupid; I was like “what are you thinking? Nobody knows Donnie Darko any more.

Two almost debilitating decisions for the price of one? That’s too good to be true! Who let this guy become president? Looks like Mr. Bad Decisions over here has a lot of thinking to do for the upcoming Gears of War sequel, scheduled to drop sometime around the holiday season next year.

There are times in games when you are just taken aback by how amazing a certain part is. An incredible moment that blends design, graphics, gameplay, story, and audio perfectly. A brilliantly executed moment that is the pinnacle of that game, and even gaming in general. Presented here, 5 of those such moments - but instead of just one writer’s opinion, each of us has selected the moment we remember most vividly as some of the best gaming we’ve experienced.

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That’s right, folks. Just as we reported earlier this week, the second Gears of War Map Pack, Hidden Fronts, is free starting today. The pack, which was previously being sold for 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live, contains such maps as Process, Bullet Marsh, Garden and Subway. In the very little time that I have spent with each of these maps, mostly at an all-too-willing-to-download-anything-Gears-related friend’s house, I can securely say that these are four solid maps, each of which offer a solid degree of replayability to the already booming Gears of War. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to become familiar with each of these maps, but due to my abhorid internet connection, I may have to wait an hour or so.