Gears of War: Judgement is Revealed! Character Classes in Multiplayer!

Epic Games and People Can Fly officially unveiled Gears of War: Judgment during E3 2012, and with the announcement came the first opportunity to not only see the game in action but also take the game’s 5-on-5 competitive multiplayer mode Overrun for a hands-on test drive.

Overrun is essentially Gears of War 3’s Beast Mode and horde mode smashed together with a sprinkling of class-based characters. For one round, we played as humans defending a power generator, and for the second, we played as various Locust variants trying to destroy the generator. Pretty straightforward stuff.

The classes add a nice strategic touch to the frenetic and oft gruesome gameplay, especially with the addition of class-specific secondary abilities. For instance, Baird is an engineer capable of dropping sentry turrets (pro tip: if you enter cover and then drop the turret, you can actually put it on top of whatever piece of cover you’re pinned to, giving the turret some added height and widening its viewing angle) and repairing damaged fortifications like barbwire fences. Cole is a soldier, and can drop ammo boxes. Sofia is the medic who drops a health-dealing gas cloud. Paduk, the scout, drops a beacon that reveals enemy positions on the map.

On the Locust side, you have a variety of gnarly beasts at your disposal, assuming you have earned enough cash to unlock them throughout the match that is. A lot of the characters appeared in GOW3, like the wretch, ticker, and kantus (no berserker though), and each one offers an entirely unique play style and ability. Seeing the chaos that ensues when the two teams collide is just ridiculous, especially when the fortifications fall and everyone just swarms into the central battle zone. Pure, bloody madness.

The gameplay is classic Gears, and the texture and sound work are about as pleasing as you could hope.

This article comes straight from G4 who is at E3 now.