Gears 2 to have "best cover system ever"

By Tom Bramwell Published 14 May, 2008

So says Cliff Bleszinski.

Gears of War 2 has "the best cover system ever seen in the videogame industry", lead designer Cliff Bleszinski said in an interview with Eurogamer this week.

"I'd say about 90 percent of the time, it worked exactly how gamers wanted it to work. About 10 percent of the time, players were going into cover when they didn't want to," Bleszinski said of the cover system in Gears of War 1.

"We put some of those tweaks in a patch for Gears 1, we iterated on them for Gears PC, and now we're bringing it full circle for Gears 2. I think players are really going to love the system this time around," he added.

Key to the appeal of Gears' cover system were the game's claustrophobic level design, meaty enemy characters, entertaining melee combat animations and of course Active Reloads, which stopped things getting boring.

To see what else Bleszinski and his Epic cohorts have planned, check out our Gears of War 2 preview where we walk you through Assault, level two of the single-player campaign.

Alternatively, check out the rest of the interview with Cliff Bleszinski, which also features video of him and Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda and gameplay footage of Gears of War 2.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mikew1985 #1 4 years ago

    Must have adopted the one from R6: Vegas so... ;)

  • GamesConnoisseur #2 4 years ago

    Gear 1 was the first to implemented a very friendly cover system which is now widely copied, even Uncharted was seen by some as using Gears cover system as reference point!

    So any improvements should be a great thing for us gamers, and raising the standard of what we would expect in future games. Though I would prefer to play and see for myself.

  • Skooch #3 4 years ago

    Cover in Gears worked a lot better in campaign - it was when the furious fighting and running between cover in online MP that it went a little awry. GTA IV has an icky cover system when you get glued to surfaces which is frustrating. R6V2's system is good but holding the left trigger in for long periods isn't ideal, it does work well though.

  • login_name #4 4 years ago

    I preferred the R6: Vegas system to the Gears system, which was slow and clunky. It could get really irritating in some areas by locking on to the wrong bit of scenery and being just a split second too slow to attach/detach causing many cheap deaths from rushing enemies. Not to mention being pushed off by the shit team AI. R6 was faster, easier to use and just flowed much better in combat. I realise I'm in the minority but I could care less.

  • muscleblade #5 4 years ago

    The coversystem in Dark Sector is very good imo. They stole it from Gears though.

  • Grim... #6 4 years ago

    I'd quite like to see the use of cover that's at more that two heights - Marcus could dive to the floor to get behind a particually low wall, or something. The walls all being the same height seemed a bit 'convenient'.

  • r3n #7 4 years ago

    well it can't be any worse than the GTA IV one

  • Blockhead #8 4 years ago

    Hope they go for the Rainbow Six Vegas left-trigger cover system. Much better than any other.

  • DFawkes #9 4 years ago

    mikeyw1985 +1

    I know the intention is to have a button that does everything, but I (like many have said already) found the R6: Vegas system so more intuitive and flexible.

  • JediMasterMalik #10 4 years ago

    I love how Gears suddenly invented cover systems.

  • jonfon #11 4 years ago

    @Arbiter:
    Why are there 3 headlines from the same interview about the same game?

    Plus the interview too...

    Jesus, Slow day or what?
    ====
    Aye, its something Eurogamer seem to be specialising in. Have an article featuring interview with someone and then create a few other articles based on snippets from that first article to pad out your content.


  • Apologie #12 4 years ago

    Yes, Gears of War have indeed the best cover system ever made... but i must say that Uncharted copied that system perfectly, both amazing games..... i wish all 3rd person games had that smoothness.

  • DUFFKING #13 4 years ago

    I reckon the Vegas cover system is too slow and clunky for this type o' game.

  • GamesConnoisseur #14 4 years ago

    Agree that the left trigger cover system of Vegas is the best yet, so that is the motiviation for Gears team to do one better!

  • CARL05 #15 4 years ago

    I prefered the one button press of the gears system!
    It was alot quicker and easier in combat with the abilty to quickly change to the next cover, i know everyone else on here seems to prefer Rainbow 6 Vegas' hold down the left trigger but i found it a bit tedious.

    Although both system's work well to their genre, RB6 is more strategy driven meaning that swiching cover easily isn't the point, when people stop they stay there, if they are to get out of cover they would usually get shot in the face. where gears is all about the quick advancing and chainsawing the bastards back to hell.
    Edited by 1 at 14/05/08 @ 14:45

  • kangarootoo #16 4 years ago

    "even Uncharted was seen by some as using Gears cover system as reference point! "

    Really? The same button for going into cover and for jumping over it? The same huge pause after moving into cover before you could start shooting again? Not so sure about that.

    So many have said it already, but I add my 2p to the growing pile that recognises RB6:V as having a much better cover system than GEoW1. Sounds like the system in GEoW2 will be evolution rather than revolution, so I would be surprised if it was better than RB6. I would rather like to be surprised though.

  • kangarootoo #17 4 years ago

    "I love how Gears suddenly invented cover systems."

    Seconded.

  • kangarootoo #18 4 years ago

    "Why are there 3 headlines from the same interview about the same game? "

    Because some EG readers have trouble getting through a single large article? ;)

  • RazorObsession #19 4 years ago

    i thought gears lifted somewhat from kill.switch?

  • rhubarbandcustard #20 4 years ago

    Currently playing Time Shift which is much better than the critical mauling it got suggested.

    But, it doesn't have any cover system at all.

    All FPS must have cover systems as standard these days developers. It really does make a difference to gameplay.

    Gears Of War 2 will be Game Of The Year.

    Cliffy B is top dog. This guy knows how to make games.

    Bring it on Lucust muthafuckers.

    I'm cocked and loaded. Fuck yeah!

  • Lukus #21 4 years ago

    "I love how Gears suddenly invented cover systems."

    Strangely you seem to be the only person saying it..

  • captain-future #22 4 years ago

    given that Gears of the Year 1 already had one of the best "cover systems"... not a big announcement.

  • JediMasterMalik #23 4 years ago

    @Lukas - Everyone acts like it.

  • Lukus #24 4 years ago

    Do they?

  • Triggerhappytel #25 4 years ago

    Funny, I thought kill.switch had the best cover system ever and everything since has plagiarised it.

  • lordvitriol #26 4 years ago

    The only good cover system is a non existant cover system yay.

  • miiiguel #27 4 years ago

    er.. I don0t think so, any cover system is a good system, as long as it's not |Gears one. Meanwhile everybody plays Gears, and Kill something what is it?

  • Yaz #28 4 years ago

    JediMasterMalik wrote: "I love how Gears suddenly invented cover systems."

    Well to be fair, Epic may not have invented the cover system, but Gears was the game which gave it such a high profile, and therefore has inspired other devs to implement similar cover systems for their games. Imo, that's just as great an achievement.