One of the major failings of many console to PC ports is the lack of attention paid to the control scheme, but Cliff Bleszinski, aka "CliffyB," lead level designer at Epic Games, has promised the controls on the PC version of Gears of War, coupled with the extended story and updated graphics, will make it feel like an all-new game.
In his latest blog, CliffyB talks about the key differences between keyboard-mouse game play versus game controller game play and the lengths Epic Games went to during the porting of Gears of War to try and retain the soul of the game and still make it new and challenging for PC gamers.
"Simply put, when a player can aim and move that freely, the pace of the game often needs to keep up in order to remain challenging. Enemy AIs need to respond in a fast and accurate manner in order for things to stay interesting, and thus games are often built for a run-and-gun mentality.
"First and foremost, Gears is a cover-based shooter, and we wanted players to feel that cover is accessible — just a button press away. On an Xbox 360 controller, the most valuable buttons are the triggers and the A button as they’re the easiest to reach.
"Obviously, on a keyboard, the largest and most accessible button is the spacebar. In most shooters, the spacebar functions as the "jump" button, but in Gears the closest thing to that is evade/run/acquire cover. Hence, it made sense to put this functionality on ‘space.’"
It’s good to see that Epic’s experience with the UT series on the PC has shown them that the keyboard and mouse combination is much faster and more accurate in a first person shooter when compared with a controller and that they’ve changed the game accordingly.
It’s also good to see that Epic is actually looking at what parts of the keyboard are used the most to determine the best setup instead of just blindly smattering the WASD area with random commands which is the fate of many console ports.
CliffyB then goes on to talk about the expanions of the singleplayer campaign. "Now that we had the controls and visuals as solid as possible, we knew we wanted to expand on the original roller coaster campaign. When we originally shipped Gears, we knew in our guts that we really wanted to fight and defeat that giant Brumak beast that had been stalking Delta Squad for so long.
"What happened between the moment the Gears left Adam’s house and arrived at the train station? As fate would have it, a heck of a lot, and it involved a lot of Locust and one four-story-tall, pissed-off beast — with a trunk full of firepower."
Gears of War (reviewed by Billy) is out for PC on November 6th in the States and November 9th everywhere else.
[via 1UP]
