Gears of War 2 is official

Epic Games has officially unveiled Gears of War 2 and says it will be released exclusively on Xbox 360 in November 2008.

Cliff Bleszinski revealed the news after ripping through the side of the stage with a replica chainsaw bayonet at the Microsoft GDC keynote just moments ago.

"Gears 2 is going to be bigger, better and far more badass than the first one," promised Bleszinski, hair swaying as if it were out of a shampoo advert.

He went on to say Gears of War 1 was a "total set-up" and "designed to make Gears of War 2 amazing". Then he went off to "kill some Locust".

All we saw of Gears of War 2 was a rendered trailer showing Marcus Fenix clash chainsaw bayonets with a Locust before pulling-off a deft manoeuvre and chopping his enemy into pieces.

Marketing blurb confirms it will be Marcus Phoenix and the Delta Squad returning to face increasingly desperate odds using just their steroid-injected arms, swollen monster feet and manly grunts to prevail.

However, Epic Games technology-wizard Tim Sweeney swaggered onto the stage earlier in the show to talk about the significant improvements to Unreal Engine 3; indirectly giving us an idea of what to expect.

In layman terms this means better dynamic shadows, much more definition, more advanced character lighting and lots more things on-screen - he showed a Gears of War demo with 100 Locust enemies running around.

There will be better splashes (of blood, hopefully), better sound effects, integrated cinematic creation software, and Ageia soft body physics technology that allows objects to appear gelatinous and sticky when touched, or fluid balls to have viscosity and so forth.

And last but not least, scenery is now destructible - demonstrated by a Torque Bow arrow sticking into a wooden fence then blowing it to pieces.

Which all sounds very exciting indeed.