14 DAY TRIAL // Doesn't the Gears of War multiplayer sound all that appealing to you anymore? If you're tired of Min Young Kim, Carmine, Marcus Fenix and his best friend Dominic Santiago, Epic can't help you, but if it's the maps that have started to get to you, the developer has just come up with four new ones. They are Bullet Marsh, Garden, Process (not Garden-Process, see the comma) and Subway.
Now, if anyone remembers, in an interview with Epic's lead developer Cliff Bleszinski, he said that three games were the primary influences in the game's design including the third person perspective from Resident Evil 4 and the tactical-cover system from kill.switch. Thus, Gears of War focuses mainly on sound team-based and cover-dependent tactics with limited weapons rather than brute force. These four new maps will make perfect use of the implementations mentioned above, as 1UP reports that the environments are surprisingly interactive, like for example "in Garden, there is a working pesticide system and the air needs to be vented."
Hidden Fronts is set for release this Thursday and is available for download via Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft Points. That's ten bucks. However, if you're not in that big of a hurry and still enjoy cooperative and versus mode on Sera's current settings, you should know that on September 3rd, Hidden Fronts will be a free download map pack.