Ugh, I knew I would come into this thread to find a stream of comments decrying the move purely because this guy worked on Gears, and because that game is used in oh so hilarious comparisons by ME's detractors. I knew it, and I was dreading it.
Guys, seriously. Just because one developer of many who worked on one series moves to become one developer of many on another, does not mean he intends to make the new game into a carbon copy of the old. Yes, he's been given the vaguest of vague middle management titles (does anyone have a clue what 'Senior Development Director' actually means?) and so therefore will have a little more than average say on the game's direction, he's not been handed Casey Hudson's maniacal, megalomaniac's reins.
And have any of you considered the possibility that he jumped ship because he's tired of making the same game? Maybe he's always wanted to work on a big RPG and do some real story work, and maybe that's why he decided to leave Epic and get himself in with Bioware.
Even if that's not the case, even if he does intend to bring some GoW mechanics into Mass Effect, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Seriously! GoW is, mechanically speaking, a very tight game. I've never found the visuals, setting or utter absence of character to be worth investing in, but I have played the first game and the shooting is, despite everything, a ton of fun. If new Mass Effect had the story, character and heart of the first ME game, and married it to shooting mechanics as well thought out, tight and enjoyable as GoW it would be a great game.
All this fucking pessimism really pisses me off.
