Play Gears of War 3 in 3D

EXCLUSIVE TO the Xbox 360, the upcoming Gears of War 3 (GOW) will support stereoscopic 3D displays.

The third person shooter will not only be the first in the GOW series to support 3D but the first title from maker Epic Games to do so. Gears of War 3 will join a small number of games on the Xbox 360 that support 3D such as Crysis 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Rod Fergusson, executive producer at Epic Games told Eurogamer, "We asked, could we do it?"

"It felt like something we wanted to have. It was a feature we didn't want to be deficient in. When you look at Gears 1, it was what people used to demo HD at the time.

"It's still fledgling technology. It's still a niche feature. But it was something we could support, so we felt, why not?"

There is a downside, which is that the game won't play in traditional HDMI 1.4 3D like the Playstation 3 outputs. Instead the Xbox 360 uses a different method that outputs a lower resolution where two images are output in one HD 720p image.

Fergusson added, "It's a little bit jaggier in certain areas. Instead of 720p you're at five something,"

This is set to improve at some point in the future, as Fergusson said, "As you look forward, in the next XDKs [Xbox Development Kit] coming out of the Xbox, it'll have more support for 3D or more higher quality for native support for 3D."

The game hasn't been made for 3D from the beginning of development, so don't expect the most astounding 3D effects when the game comes out on 20 September. µ