GAME
Gatling Gears
Save the world guns blazing
Gatling Gears is a top-down action game in which you control a heavily armed walker and shoot everything in your path, in order to stop the Empire’s destructive campaign for resources and to save the world. Gatling Gears is released in a partnership with Electronic Arts and available on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC.
In this twin-stick shooter, players follow Max Brawley and his niece Zoe through the world of Mistbound, first introduced in Vanguard’s (then W!Games) previous title Greed Corp. They fight through vast levels with different themes, against a great number of varied enemies and enormous machines of destruction. Players can upgrade their walkers, improving weapons and armor, to create the ultimate fighting machine. The unique scoring system, in which players have separate scores but a shared multiplier and collect points from fallen enemies, provides for an interesting mix of competition and co-operation.
Responsibilities
I am one of around five designers that worked on this project, in an overall team of about forty people. Some of the tasks I’ve worked on are:
- Overall game design and its documentation
- Coordinating, supervising and executing enemy placement (creating core gameplay enemy opposition)
- Campaign and walker progression model
- Designing and coordinating the implementation of Achievements/Trophies
- Designing, scripting and communicating in-game events
- PR efforts
- In-game and menu texts
Links & files
Features
- Pick-up-and-play twin-stick controls
- 4 weapon types: gatling gun, cannon, grenade, screen cleaner
- 30 areas within 6 large levels in different settings
- Epic multi-stage boss fights, one at the end of every level
- Explosions Michael Bay would be proud of, both in number and quality
- Walker customization and upgrades
- Online and local co-op, with drop-in and drop-out functionality
- Unique and dynamic scoring system and Leaderboards for all separate levels
Critical acclaim
Gatling Gears did well in the 2011 Dutch Game Awards. The game won Best Visual Design and was nominated in the Best PC/Console Game category. That officially makes Gatling Gears one of the best games released in 2011 by a Dutch developer. These awards were handed out during the Control Industry Dinner on November 24 2011, as part of Game in the City in Amersfoort, The Netherlands.
Gatling Gears also got some great reviews. Here are some highlights:
"There are a few other dual-stick shooters on Xbox Live Arcade, but Gatling Gears is one of the best. It doesn't have much in the way of new ammunition - this is essentially a 1985 arcade game with the modern conveniences provided by Xbox Live. But it is a joy to play."
IGN: 8.5
"Gatling Gears sits comfortably at the upper range of twin-stick shooter quality on the consoles' digital platforms of today."
Destructoid: 8.0
"Despite lacking some gameplay depth of its predecessor, Gatling Gears dishes out the kind of frenetic action any good dual-stick shooter should, and it does so with great flair."
GamesRadar: 8.0
"Put simply, Gatling Gears is fun. It’s the kind of game that will practically force you to play it for longer than you planned. It looks great, it fits in to a long history of addictive games, and at five hours, it gives you your money’s worth while leaving you wanting more. As far as I’m concerned, Gatling Gears II can’t come soon enough."
Cheat Code Central: 8.0
"Many twin stick shooters put players in a box and send endless waves of enemies in their direction until they get hit and blow up. Gatling Gears is not one of those games. It contains a multi-chapter campaign filled with vast lands to transverse so you’re constantly pushing toward new frontiers rather than trying to beat some high score in the same repeated arena."
Game Informer: 8.6
Many more can be found on the Metacritic pages for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC version of Gatling Gears.