Cliff Bleszinski and Kudo Tsunoda Interview

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Gears of War 2 lead designer Cliff Bleszinski is relaxed, but animated. He's relaxed because he thinks Gears of War 2 is going to be "hands down" the best game out this Christmas, never mind just on Xbox 360, and because he reckons the Internet reaction to the first trailer was 85 percent positive. He's animated because he's Cliff Bleszinski, and he gets excited - no more so than when he's talking about his game. Remember the GDC unveiling? All he had to do was introduce a trailer and he turned up with a chainsaw.

If Bleszinski's to be believed, Gears of War 2 has also got "the best cover system ever seen in the videogame industry", and the level we've just been shown, Assault, is going to be "the ultimate watercooler level" when it's finished, but still "just the tip of the iceberg" in terms of what the game offers. You can read more about Assault in our Gears of War 2 preview from Microsoft's spring showcase event in San Francisco, which talks you through what we were shown. It's got Brumaks in it, and Derricks, and even the odd Nemacyst.

Once you're done there, though, you can read through Bleszinski's thoughts on the game in our full text interview below, and as a special treat we've been burning the midnight XVIDs to bring you excerpts of the Bleszinski interview spliced together with the views of Kudo Tsunoda - Microsoft's man in charge of "the Gears of War business", among other things - who also has a lot to say on the subject of Xbox 360's biggest game of 2008 from behind his permanent sunglasses.

Between them, they reckon it's going to be stunning. Let us know how they get on convincing you.

Cliffy! Kudo! Brumak!View this video on EGTV

Eurogamer: So we've finally had our first look at Gears of War 2. How have you found the feedback so far?

Cliff Bleszinski: I feel really good. Being able to show the Assault level to journalists today and give them a full dog and pony show of what that level is, it's just been extremely encouraging. When we were building this level, we wanted to create a scenario where it was just one thing after another - to build the ultimate watercooler level. So many of the levels in Gears 2 are like that, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I think people are responding really nicely.

Eurogamer: What about the feedback on the Internet for the trailer you released earlier this week?

Cliff Bleszinski: I think it was about 85 percent positive and 15 percent hating, which I think is a really good ratio. Any time you have people on a message board saying, 'That was amazing, that was amazing, that was amazing,' someone has to come in and be like, 'I didn't think it was that cool,' yadda-yadda-yadda. I think it was an incredibly positive response, and I think gamers are stoked for Gears 2.

Would you wear that helmet after what happened to the last red-shirt who did?

Eurogamer: But going back to that 15 percent - how much notice will you take of that? Will you take that criticism on board, and will it change the design of the game at all?

Cliff Bleszinski: I don't know if it'll change the design a lot. For instance, a lot of gamers were somehow expecting Gears 2 to suddenly come out and have big bright purple flowers and rainbows and unicorns coming out of my ass or something like that. It's just not that game. It's not a very saturated colour palette, but we are going for large, beautiful open vistas this time around, much larger scale of battle - so it's not just grey pillars, right?

You know, as much as it saddens me to read those 15 percent of gamers not liking what they see, I still want to win them over, and I want everyone out there to play the game and enjoy it.

Eurogamer: So you can confirm there will be no unicorns coming out of your ass for Gears of War 2?

Cliff Bleszinski: Well, not for Gears 2, but there might be other projects coming out of Epic in which I may have a torrent of unicorn leakage from my ass. The horn's the hardest part, really.

Eurogamer: The first Gears of War still stands out as one of the best-looking titles on Xbox 360. Were you hoping that by now other titles would be matching up in the visual stakes?

Cliff Bleszinski: When a new game comes out I'm not really hoping anybody kicks our ass, I'm hoping we can still be the leading edge development studio we are. I just think it's the combination of the talent we have at the studio - we have amazing design, wonderful coders and some of the best artists in entertainment, period. I think we all work very well together. I want the competition to keep stepping up and hopefully they'll license our technology to do so. There's a pure Mark Rein moment for you...

We reckon Marcus's top must be quite sticky by now.

Eurogamer: The characters in Gears 1 were criticised by some for being so over-the-top macho...

Cliff Bleszinski: Originally we experimented with EMO characters that cut themselves and listened to bands like Shiny Toy Guns, but the useability just didn't respond that well to it. The pendulum swung the other way, and you know, maybe it swung a little bit hard. But honestly, we make our characters big and beefy so they're visible in gameplay. If they were all skinny 150-pound white guys, they wouldn't show up. So that's why we make them like that.

Honestly, we didn't want 40-minute cut-scenes where we paint the nuances of who these guys are. We want a minute-long cut-scene, get to the action and let players experience the amazing interactivity of the game. So we paint with very coarse brushstrokes with these characters.

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