Author Topic: Gears of War PC goes gold  (Read 5241 times)

Offline idolminds

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Gears of War PC goes gold
« on: Friday, October 19, 2007, 09:42:18 AM »
Releases Nov 6th

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The Windows iteration of the massively popular and critically- acclaimed Xbox 360 blockbuster draws nigh; set to hit store shelves November 6th in North America.

Microsoft Game Studios announced today that the eagerly-awaited “Gears of War” for Windows has gone gold and will hit retailers throughout North America on November 6th.

With the Xbox 360 version of the game selling more than 4 million copies to date, “Gears of War” has been lauded by critics for its gripping campaign and fast-paced multiplayer action. Windows gamers can look forward to the “Gears of War” experience for the very first time, and will get to choose between doing battle via mouse and keyboard, or using the Windows-enabled Xbox 360 controller. From renowned developer Epic Games, “Gears of War” for Windows will engage gamers in hyper-realistic combat, allowing players to fight for survival against the Locust Horde, a nightmarish race of creatures that surface from the bowels of the planet.

In addition to retaining all of the content from its Xbox 360 counterpart and all previously released downloadable content (seven multiplayer maps and the Annex game mode), “Gears of War” for Windows will feature exciting original content, all-new Achievements to unlock, and ultra-high resolution visuals. Five new campaign chapters expand upon the riveting story (including an epic battle with the fearsome Brumak), and the action-packed multiplayer offering is bolstered with three exclusive multiplayer maps, a “King of the Hill” game type, and Games for Windows – LIVE support to deliver online matchmaking for Gold members. A new game editor will allow users to develop an unlimited number of user-created levels with complete access to the Unreal Editor.

Players can get their hands on “Gears of War” for Windows for the estimated retail price of $49.99 “Gears of War” for Windows is rated M for Mature. For more information, please visit http://gearsofwar.com/news/.

I'll probably wait for a price drop since I already beat the 360 version in co-op and not sure how well it'll play online for me.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #1 on: Friday, October 19, 2007, 01:38:49 PM »
I can't wait for this, yet I can wait.


Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #2 on: Friday, October 19, 2007, 02:24:44 PM »
I couldn't wait to read D's response to this thread, yet I could wait.

:P

Offline MysterD

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Offline idolminds

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #4 on: Friday, October 19, 2007, 06:45:49 PM »
Uh, thats just a rumor article. And Quarterman from EGM gets a lot of shit wrong.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #5 on: Sunday, October 21, 2007, 01:40:29 AM »
Cool! Now I got a birthday gift plan for me :D

Offline idolminds

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #6 on: Friday, November 02, 2007, 11:46:26 AM »
Well, this sucks:

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Packaged alongside the entertaining gameplay is an impressive feature set, particularly the option for online co-operative play. To make full use of it, however, you'll need a Live gold account, which costs money. Though Gears is entertaining, we can't say it's worth signing up for yet another service when so many other titles out there offer full access to their online features with no additional cost. If you sign up for a Live Silver account, which is free, you can still play in non-ranked multiplayer games, though your experience is feature-limited. Assuming you already have an account, don't care about the additional cost, or are content with having limited access to the online functions, then there's plenty here to enjoy. You get five multiplayer modes and 19 maps, which should provide for lots of entertainment.
God damn Microsoft and their GFW Live bullshit. No co-op unless you pay. Free online is "feature limited". Do they really expect people will just jump at this shit?

Looks like I'll buy GoW when I find it for really cheap then.

Offline scottws

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #7 on: Friday, November 02, 2007, 12:04:01 PM »
Yeah I hate how MS is trying to grasp control of PC gaming and make money off it.  On the 360, I don't care... it's their console.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #8 on: Friday, November 02, 2007, 12:08:35 PM »
Well, little update. Just after I posted it seems like you can play those mores, you just dont get matchmaking, rankings, and other dumb stuff like that. If thats the case, then thats a little better...but I'm going to wait for some official confirmation either way.

Doesn't really matter, though. As seen here, theres no dedicated server anyway.

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<Brizz>   2) Is there a dedicated server package?
<[Epic]Entropy>   I don't remember where we ended up with that, sorry.
<[Epic]Entropy>   one sec
<[Epic]Entropy>   no dedicated server, yet. possibly later
So I'd only get GoW for SP anyway. Since I've already played 90% of it...I can wait till its cheap. And hopefully there will be some new SP mods and maps by then.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #9 on: Friday, November 02, 2007, 12:16:07 PM »
This is why Epic were seemingly ticked.

Offline scottws

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #10 on: Friday, November 02, 2007, 12:46:34 PM »
GoW multiplayer sucks anyway.  Well, the co-op is good but the TDM and DM is lame.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #11 on: Sunday, November 04, 2007, 05:41:03 PM »
9.3 from GameZone for the PC version

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One of the first big differences between the 360 version and the PC version are the controls.   As with any PC shooter we get the standard keyboard and mouse controls with the PC version of Gears.  For me the keyboard and mouse controls felt great and help during gun combat.  The precision you get with a mouse and keyboard felt perfect when playing Gears of War.  Hitting enemies peaking out or hiding behind the cover just felt easier using the keyboard and mouse instead of the controller.
Gotta' love the good ole KB/mouse....

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Yes if you want to use the 360 controller for Windows you can on the PC version of Gears.  The same button layout as the 360 version is present which works great as well.
It should, since it was made already for the X360 around the controller -- makes sense.

Other games released for BOTH the X360 and PC, like say Two Worlds PC, take notes -- if you make a X360 controller-based game and also have it out on the PC, allow for support for on the PC BOTH KB/mouse and X360 controller!!! It shouldn't be TOO hard to figure out... :P

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The majority of the PC version is still the same as the 360 version but with some new additions.  The single player game includes five new campaign chapters that pick up the game after the original ending.  Thankfully the game lets you jump right to the fifth campaign chapter so you don’t have to play through the entire game to get to the new material.
That's good for gamers who don't feel like starting from scratch, that already played through the X360 version.

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Additional new features are the three new multiplayer maps and a new multiplayer game type.  All of the multiplayer maps from the 360 version are included along with the three new maps.  The new multiplayer game play mode is King of the Hill, where you have to control capture points on the map and maintain control of the capture points.  The longer you control the capture points the more points you will earn.  The team with the most points will win the game.   Another huge feature, that wasn’t in my version of the game, will be a Game Editor which will allow you to mess around with the Unreal 3 engine to build your own custom maps for the game.
Yay for SDK's!

This sounds like how console game -> PC port SHOULD be a done.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #12 on: Monday, November 05, 2007, 12:02:38 AM »
Sounds great so far!

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This sounds like how console game -> PC port SHOULD be a done.

True, though Epic's original platform was PC so they know how to do it ;)

Offline gpw11

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday, November 06, 2007, 07:26:14 PM »
Anyone see the gamespot video review?  Fucking horrible.  Wasn't even really a review at all.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 11:06:16 AM »
Just got it. Crashes every few secs, randomly. That sucks.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 01:29:34 PM »
Go back to a real operating system.

*Runs and hides*  :-[

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #16 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 01:44:26 PM »
Well, I'm using WinXP SP2. I'm not even gonna consider Vista before SP1. I've got it on my work laptop and honestly it feels bloated more than anything else.

I still wish all games ran on Linux and that it had full driver support.

Anyway, I looked into the problem I'm having and apparently I'm not the only one. A lot of people seem to be suffering the same issue and they're all begging for a patch or a fix. I'll include myself in the bunch now.

The game crashes about 30 sec to 2 mins into it (completely random it seems). Doesn't matter if I'm in a menu, it's loading, or I'm signing into my Live ID.

Luckily I managed to play for about 12 secs, right up until Dominic asks which path I'd like to take, then it crashed again. It was an awesome 12 secs though. The game was on the highest settings; it looked and ran smooth! I tried it on the lowest settings to see if it affects the bug but no change.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #17 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 02:30:28 PM »
Oh, sorry then.  I thought you had gone over to Vista.   :)

Offline gpw11

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #18 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 05:58:17 PM »
I'm really starting to think I might dual boot vista.  Or OSX. Probably vista.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #19 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 10:56:46 PM »
It works for me! I don't have to see Vista's face until I feel like playing Bioshock... which I haven't yet.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #20 on: Wednesday, November 07, 2007, 11:18:02 PM »
Oh, sorry then.  I thought you had gone over to Vista.   :)
Hehe I'm with ya man :)

Vista has some cool features, but the rest of it is just bloatware. I know that Microsoft can make DX10 for XP but they just won't!

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #21 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 12:11:58 PM »
Now I have two problems with the game: The random crash bug and after updating my Games 4 Windows LIVE crap it now refuses to connect. I was able to connect before, which is how I got a LIVE account in the first place.

Well, the good news is I have found a work-around for the random crash bug! When the bug happens and the error message appears apparently I can just alt-tab and the game comes back up. I can actually continue and play!

Thanks to the LIVE bug I can only play with a local profile, which means no achievements and, more notably, no online multiplayer. So thanks for the extra complication Microsoft.

So far I like LIVE less than Steam.. That's not to say that I like Steam at all.

I'm just grateful I can actually play the game at this point.

Offline scottws

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #22 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 12:28:10 PM »
I like Live less than Steam by default for 2 reasons:

1)  It is run by Microsoft
2)  Features are locked out behind a monthly fee.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #23 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 12:29:18 PM »
Xessive, then what you're getting is an illegal memory access error of some sort which doesn't corrupt anything, most likely a read error.  This is a complaint I've long had about Windows terminating apps when they attempt to access memory that doesn't belong to them.  If it's a *read* request, then who cares.  Event log it and let the app keep functioning.  Bringing the whole thing down is ridiculous overkill, and can't possibly help the user.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #24 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 12:43:30 PM »
Confirm/Deny: GoW PC doesn't have split-screen co-op.

I haven't seen any report on this. Maybe its mentioned in a review, but I havent read any. But if you need to LAN or go online for co-op that really sucks. It would have been awesome to let my brother use my 360 controller while I use KBM to play some co-op.

EDIT

Nevermind, from the gamespot review:
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About the only thing missing from the translation is split-screen multiplayer, but you won't miss that one bit.
WRONG.

Offline scottws

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #25 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 12:45:00 PM »
Not only do you have to go online for co-op, but you have to have Live Gold to play it.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #26 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 01:33:48 PM »
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About the only thing missing from the translation is split-screen multiplayer, but you won't miss that one bit.

Why are journalists sounding like fucking unoffical representatives of games? Seriously, I never ever read Kasavin write that crap. It was always IGN, but now PCG and Gamespot try so hard to turn negatives into positives. It isn't your job to do that, just report the damn truth only.

It is one thing being optimistic, and another to put a spin on it.

The other day PCG had an article on Starcraft II.

They said something along the lines of,"Starcraft II won't have another race, but that's a good thing! This way they can concentrate on the first three and make them the best possible!"

Nevermind the fact that if on the other hand there had been another race, PCG would have wet themselves.

Then in the preview for The Witcher,"We have learned that the Witcher's US version will be censored unlike the European version. But I am even more excited about the U.S. version, because they said it will be optimized for the local market!"

Optimized for the local market? What the hell does that mean????

It is just a trend I am noticing in the past few years, and sadly it has been adopted by gamespot as well.

Offline scottws

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #27 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 02:12:22 PM »
Hell even the devs are spewing crap, like when Crytek said that DX10 won't do anything special other than graphics on the single player side but will enable special gameplay on the multiplayer side.

How?  Where do they come up with this crap?

Offline idolminds

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #28 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 02:21:55 PM »
Not only do you have to go online for co-op, but you have to have Live Gold to play it.
Actually, that was later proven false. Voodoo3D had poorly worded that sentence. BeyondUnreal got confirmation that you can play co-op with a free Silver account.

Still blows that theres no split screen. Sure, it probably wouldnt be used a ton on PC, but why cut a feature that was already in the game?

Offline MysterD

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #29 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 03:54:33 PM »
Why are journalists sounding like fucking unoffical representatives of games? Seriously, I never ever read Kasavin write that crap. It was always IGN, but now PCG and Gamespot try so hard to turn negatives into positives. It isn't your job to do that, just report the damn truth only.

It is one thing being optimistic, and another to put a spin on it.

The other day PCG had an article on Starcraft II.

They said something along the lines of,"Starcraft II won't have another race, but that's a good thing! This way they can concentrate on the first three and make them the best possible!"

Nevermind the fact that if on the other hand there had been another race, PCG would have wet themselves.

Then in the preview for The Witcher,"We have learned that the Witcher's US version will be censored unlike the European version. But I am even more excited about the U.S. version, because they said it will be optimized for the local market!"

Optimized for the local market? What the hell does that mean????

It is just a trend I am noticing in the past few years, and sadly it has been adopted by gamespot as well.
I dunno' how it'll be "optimized for the local market", since both the US and UK Edition use THE SAME Patch -- Patch 1.1A works for either version.

Offline gpw11

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #30 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 06:58:19 PM »
I don't think they're actually journalists at all.  Lets not kid ourselves here:  the only qualifications is that they can write coherently, and they have opposable thumbs.

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #31 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 09:26:41 PM »
It looks like a XP-specific bug, thanks Cobra.

I haven't been able to confirm any of the multiplayer related stuff mainly due to LIVE being a bitch. However I do believe there are LAN options.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #32 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 11:15:45 PM »
Hell even the devs are spewing crap, like when Crytek said that DX10 won't do anything special other than graphics on the single player side but will enable special gameplay on the multiplayer side.

How?  Where do they come up with this crap?

lol they've spewed other crap as well, trust me.

Hey I wonder if you've seen this:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6182140/index.html

It compares Crysis XP (hacked to include the same Vista visuals) vs Crysis Vista. It also compares performance for interesting results.

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I dunno' how it'll be "optimized for the local market", since both the US and UK Edition use THE SAME Patch -- Patch 1.1A works for either version.

"...the games more mature aspects - like nudity and a dating minigame - may get excised from the U.S. release to avoid an Adults Only rating, but the good news is that Atari and CD projekt is spending extra time focus-testing and localizing, The Witcher to appeal to the North American market. But as long as he is killing monsters, he is already appealing to me.."

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I don't think they're actually journalists at all.  Lets not kid ourselves here:  the only qualifications is that they can write coherently, and they have opposable thumbs.

Yes, they certainly don't have the qualifications.

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Actually, that was later proven false. Voodoo3D had poorly worded that sentence. BeyondUnreal got confirmation that you can play co-op with a free Silver account.

Still blows that theres no split screen. Sure, it probably wouldnt be used a ton on PC, but why cut a feature that was already in the game?

Yes that sucks, but to be expected I guess.

Also I have to use Windows Live -- even if it is free -- to play LAN?

Offline Xessive

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #33 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 11:37:21 PM »
I just checked, LAN is completely independent of LIVE. I mean I had no one to connect to me, but I was able to host a LAN Coop game without signing on to LIVE. You only need a local profile. Anything involving online Internet gameplay will require LIVE however.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Gears of War PC goes gold
« Reply #34 on: Thursday, November 08, 2007, 11:56:21 PM »
Awesome thanks!