Cliff Bleszinski AKA CliffyB, lead designer for Epic Games' Gears of War and Kotaku reader, shot me an email the other day about an article he read on the site.

After a couple of email exchanges, I asked if he would be willing to be interviewed for my Xbox 360 story for the Rocky Mountain News and perhaps do a short Q&A for Kotaku.

As busy as he must be, CliffyB said he was down for it and I shot him five questions with the understanding that we would run the entire questions and answers unedited.

So without further ado:

Kotaku
What do you think of Nintendo's newly announced strategy of Blue Oceans? (This is the strategy that says you don't need to be in a bloody competition to win and that Nintendo can take its own path to victory.)

CliffB
Nintendo has a legion of fans that love and respect everything they do. (I am in that fanbase; remember, my name IS in the first issue of Nintendo Power as well as a few old Fun Clubs for Mario high scores!) I quiver when I hear about a new next generation Mario game. There's always going to be a great place for a company with beloved intellectual properties who focuses on interesting new types of interactivity within those IPs.

Kotaku
What is the next big thing in gaming?

CliffB
Games like Half Life 2 started to really recognize and then realize the coolness that physics can bring to a game. Why do people love to watch football and car racing? Momentum, crashes, gravity, all of it.

Kotaku
Gears of War is certainly one of the most anticipated games for the 360, what gaming innovations do you expect it to bring to the next generation of gaming?

CliffB
I believe that "Gears of War" will be the first game to really establish the "Cover Shooter" as its own legitimate genre. In the past games such as Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid established the stealth genre.

Were those the first games to have stealth as a primary element? No, a game like "Thief" was the first title (that I know of) to really REQUIRE stealth but it was too far ahead of its time; ultimately it wound up being more of a cult hit. Games like MGS and Splinter took that idea, put it in a contemporary setting, marketed the hell out of it, and brought it to the mainstream and voila! - we have a new genre.

You can take a director like Darren Aronofsky who innovates with his style and camera work - all the way back to "Pi" and we now see these techniques (such as the chest mounted "vomit camera") in shlock like "World's Scariest Places". It's audience evolution and it takes time to happen.

Is Gears the first game to feature cover? No. But it's going to be the best implementation you've seen and it will be supported by a publisher who will know how to bring the idea to a legion of gamers who maybe...maybe are be a bit tired of running around deathmatching like chickens with their heads cut off. Gears is to the shooter genre as Tekken is to the fighting genre.

Kotaku
Do you have a favorite 360 title yet?

CliffB
It's a toss-up between "Condemned: Criminal Origins" and "Call of Duty 2." (Which, I suppose, is to be expected as "Gears" combines elements from both into a fresh gameplay experience.)

Kotaku
Do you think the 360's Xbox Live Arcade is going to have a significant impact on the independent game development scene?

CliffB
VERY much so; Live Arcade is one of the 360's features I'm extremely excited about not only as a gamer but as a developer. I want the indy guy to be able to have his work exposed to a broad audience! Besides, with the next generation of systems I ve found that there s a serious drought of 30 second fun games dirt simple shooters, puzzle games, etc How s about a physics based Jenga style game that you can play onscreen with proper physics? An update of Frogger or Asteroids only in HD with insanely hot graphics and stat tracking? Look, at first I know it sounds silly especially to a hardcore gamer - but these games are the gateway games for casual gamers to eventually evolve into playing a Grand Theft Auto, Splinter Cell, or Gears of War!

-B

Thanks Again to CliffyB for taking the time to answer those questions earlier this week.

Check out our full Xbox 360 coverage here or you can read my Rocky Mountain News review of the sytem here .

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