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It is great to be part of the 1Up Network. You know why? Because tomorrow, 1UP’s GameVideos will be the very first place online you’ll be able to see new footage from Gears of War 2 in all of its HD glory. According to 1UP, “you’re going to be blown away”. Sounds great if you are a GoW fan and are looking forward to the next installment from Cliffy B and the rest of the folks at Epic Games.

The new footage is expected to hit the net around 10:30 pm PST - so for those of us in the EST zone, that is 1:30 in the morning. Sorry, but I just can’t stay up that late to watch it - maybe if it was something I was truly excited about I could possibly do it, but even then, I prefer to get my beauty sleep and trust me - you, dear readers, benefit more from it than I do. There is nothing worse than a cranky Stephany - except maybe a rabid badger.

Thanks: 1Up

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Sure, that pre-rendered trailer for Gears of War 2 was pretty awesome, but seriously, I just want to know what the actual gameplay looks like. Luckily, Epic plans to reveal just that in a little over two weeks. On May 9th, the developer will finally reveal some gameplay footage for this hotly anticipated sequel. GameTrailers TV has apparently secured the footage, which is set to air at 1 AM that day. The video will also apparently include an introduction from game designer Cliff Bleszinski (a.k.a. “Cliffy B”). So we’ve only got just a little more waiting ahead of us before we get to find out just how different this game is from the first.

Via Kotaku

Are you holding out for a Wii version of Gears of War, complete with chainsaw motion controls? Well, I wouldn’t hold your breath. According to Epic Games’ president, Mike Capps, the developer will never make a game for the Wii. When asked about it, Capps stated, “No, we go forward, not back. It makes more sense for us to invest in the next-generation tech.” He then went on to discuss why he thinks the Nintendo’s machine has been so popular:

It’s a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they’re like, “Oh my God that’s so cool, I’m gonna go buy it.” So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they’ve showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there’s a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I’m still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

Wow, it’s like he was specifically talking about me and my Wii-owning friends. Mine’s been collecting dust for awhile now, in fact. So I guess you can take this news for what it is though. In the debate of whether graphics truly represent the next-generation of gaming, Epic would apparently argue that they do.

Via MegaTonik

While this may not come as a complete shock to most folks, alas, the news is slightly grim for those who want to try out Gears of War 2 before laying down their hard earned cash on a cold, unfeeling retail counter.

According to Tanya Jessen, the associate producer of the game, Epic is not planning on releasing a demo for the highly anticipated sequel to the fan favorite Gears of War. Well, at least in ADVANCE of the title’s November release - what they plan on doing after the release is unknown except to psychics, ghost-whisperers and Cliffy himself.

Tanya had this to say about the demo:

“[There are] no plans for a demo. The reason being that it’s been such a fast turnaround. A two year production cycle, for a game of this caliber, is really short. Our focus is always on putting out the best possible game we can. Whenever you do a demo, you have to basically ship a whole separate product. As far as our plans after we ship, I can’t really speak to that.”

Despite gamers not being able to get an idea of what to expect from the full title, I am sure this will still sell very well - because you have to remember that the original did not have a demo released beforehand and it went on to sell over 3 million copies anyway. So demo or no demo, it won’t make a bit of difference either way - gamers want it, therefore they will buy it.

Thanks: Shacknews

Epic Games has really been dancing around announcing the release date for Unreal Tournament 3. They told us it was coming along nicely and what “exclusive” content 360 owners would be treated to, but they kept avoiding the topic of a release date. Today they took one baby step closer to finally revealing it, as they announced that the game will be released this summer.

As I said with those “exclusive” maps – they amount to being extremely insignificant if the 360 version doesn’t have mod support. (And all signs are pointing to no on that subject, thanks to Microsoft.) But, in fairness, Epic’s hands are tied, after all, so at least they’re trying to provide something of substance that wasn’t delivered in the PC or PS3 versions.

We’ve got a new trailer for the game up on FileFront, but it’s behind an age gate, so click here to check it out.

DC seems to be all over the video game industry these days. Just this week they’ve announced a comic book series for Prototype and a game featuring their beloved superheroes battling the Mortal Kombat crew. Well, now you can add “Gears of War” to the list of tie-ins, as they’ve now announced a new comic books series based on the popular shooter. The book is set to debut through DC’s Wildstorm label in October. And, like the Prototype comic, that’s pretty much all we know at this time. Wildstorm did however mention that the comic will fill in the timeframe between the first and second game:

“Big guns and monsters — what a perfect comic book for WildStorm! We have an opportunity to work closely with Epic to add to the canon of the Gears of War mythos, so you can imagine how excited we all are, said Hank Kanalz, VP – General Manager, WildStorm. “Epic sets the bar very high, in graphics, story, and gameplay — and expect no less from our series, starting with our lead-in arc that fills in the gaps between the first game and the upcoming sequel.”

Via Press Release

There’s still no release date attached to Unreal Tournament 3 on Xbox 360, but Epic is already telling people what they’ll find in this version of UT3 that they won’t get elsewhere. Five new exclusive maps that aren’t in either the PC or PS3 versions of the game, two new characters, and support for two play splitscreen play. You’ll also find the free downloadable content Epic released a few weeks ago on the disc right form the get go.

That’s all well and good, but it’s not going to matter much if Microsoft doesn’t allow Epic to enable mods in the 360 version of the game. All the exclusive content in the world doesn’t mean squat when modders can easily recreate both the maps and characters for the PC and PS3 versions of the game.

Epic’s Jeff Morris talked about how UT3 is a twitch shooter, and is just what people need that have tired of the more tactical shooters on the market. While he might have a point about that, it’s still going to leave a lot of people in the dark on a feature that has been a mainstay of this series since its inception.

via Joystiq

NECA has unveiled the first series of Gears of War figures that they will be releasing soon in their finished and packaged state. Series 1 will include Marcus Fenix, Cole “Train,” a Locust Drone, and a Locust Sniper. NECA is pretty well known for their attention to detail, and it looks like these figures are no exception. Series 2 should also bring Baird, Dominic, and a couple more varieties of Locust to the fold. This first wave of figures shold be appearing at certain retailers in the coming weeks.

Via NECA

We keep hoping that Microsoft will come around and let user created content and mods become a feature of Xbox Live. Or, at least, allow third party games like Unreal Tournament 3 to support them. But if Chris Satchell, group general manager for Microsoft’s XNA initiative, is any indication, Microsoft isn’t exactly on the verge of making that happen. In an interview with Eurogamer, Satchell touched upon the concept of allowing mods onto the 360. He claimed that, aside from IP infringement, security is a huge concern when allowing mods to run rampant.

“I’m a little disturbed when I think about other systems and people using what we call native code - code that goes right down to the metal - and then allowing people to run script mods on top of that without the right security measures. It could be really dangerous.

“We’ve drawn a hard line because we very much care about security, and it seems like some other platforms don’t seem to care quite as much. That kind of worries me for consumers. But all I can control is what we do on our platform, so that’s where I’m going to focus - we’re going to keep you safe because that’s really important to us.”

It was quite clear that Satchell was pointing a finger at Sony and the PS3. When Eurogamer mentioned that, Satchell explained that it’s a problem faced on any platform that allows for people to use native code. He explained, “There’s a lot of people out there that just want to prove they can screw things up.

“I think there’s very mature, sensible hackers who just want to prove how good they are, and they don’t cause harm, and there’s malicious hackers, and any platform that let’s you do that, and doesn’t have the right security measures in place - whether it’s Sony, whether it’s Nintendo, whether it’s Apple, whether it’s anyone - you’re inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it.”

So, that’s apparently Microsoft’s reasoning for not allowing mods. Is that a satisfying answer, though? I imagine most people would say, “Screw security!” immediately upon hearing Satchell’s claims, but they might not be quite as happy if their credit card or Live ID information were somehow stolen. That isn’t to say I think Microsoft should continue their policy. I see this as a challenge that Microsoft has to face — not something they should ignore because of the problems it presents.

If you’re expecting Epic Games to roll out the next iteration of its Unreal Engine any month now, you might want to consider rethinking that.

“It’s just a research project today,” Epic VP Mark Rein told Eurogamer. “Our plan is that it will be aimed at the next generation so it is many years away.”

For those who haven’t been keeping track, Epic’s CEO, Tim Sweeney, explained last month that Unreal Engine is tied to the console cycle. As the next generation of systems roll out, that’s the period when you can start imaging what sort of squishy meat cube physics it’ll include.

Electronic Arts and Epic Games recently announced that EA had expanded its license to use Unreal Engine 3 in at least five unannounced games that are currently in development. Their original agreement was made in 2006, and has been used in several EA produced games, including Army of Two. There’s more significance to this deal than meets the eye, at least to Epic. Mark Rein, the company’s VP, called the deal “one of the biggest we’ve done,” speaking with videogaming247.

“It’s significantly more than five more games,” said Rein. “It’s pretty important, yeah. I think it’s one of the biggest engine license deals we’ve done.”

“I don’t want to overstate this deal. It’s not like they’re going to use it for every single game. But I think we’ve done pretty well. There’s still going to be horses for courses. There’s still going to be some situations where there’s going to be some technology that suits, and there are people still developing their own technology, but I think it’s just showing the value of licensing technology in general, and how important it is to maintain productivity and profitability and ship really good quality titles.”

What will be interesting to see, I think, will be how EA treats its customers when it comes to microtransactions and in-game ads when building games with the Unreal Engine. Yes, EA does of course have to regain the money they doled out in the licensing agreement, but what about the money they potentially save by avoiding the need to design a new game engine? That’s just wishful thinking, I suppose, but it’s still nice to imagine a world where you don’t have to pay for cheat codes.

Develop 100 ranks the world’s games development studios based on the revenues their products made at UK retail in 2007. This year, not surprisingly, the top honor goes to Nintendo and I have listed the Top 20 here for you.

1. Nintendo (£129.83m)
2. EA Canada (£68.78m)
3. Ubisoft Montreal (£52.17m)
4. Konami (£41.67m)
5. Infinity Ward (£39.6m)
6. EA Black Box (£37.31m)
7. Maxis (£36.84m)
8. Bungie (£31.45m)
9. Sega Studios Japan (£27.7m)
10. Traveller’s Tales (£27.06m)
11. Ubisoft France (£25.37m)
12. Yuke’s (£24.5m)
13. Amaze Entertainment (£24.07m)
14. EA LA (£22.49m)
15. Capcom (£22.3m)
16. Rebellion (£20.13m)
17. EA Redwood Shores (£19.99m)
18. Vicarious Visions (£17.56m)
19. A2M (£17.5m)
20. Hudson (£16.22m)

It was no surprise to see that EA took nine of the spots considering that they own many a gaming studio across the globe. Criterion, and BioWare which are also owned by EA were listed as well and maybe even a few that I missed. I expect EA to become the majority share holder for both Heaven and Hell eventually.

For the full list click here.

Ooh, man did I call it or what? After Master Chief and Samus Aran ended up on the PS3 courtesy of some fan-made mods for Unreal Tournament III, my next guess was that Old Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 would be getting the same treatment. As it turns out, a modder by the name of “genZ” has shown off some preliminary models for the character on the UT forums. So far, he’s already got the basic structure down; now he just needs to fill in the colors and textures. Soon the trilogy of console characters will be complete. Then the way shall be paved for the dark lord of the consoles to rise and rule over the gaming world! Or there might just be one really cool three player match. You know, one or the other.

Via UT Forums

EA and Epic Games have announced that they are expanding their license agreement with the Unreal Engine 3. The company has already used the engine in several title, including Medal of Honor Airborne and Army of Two. According to the agreement, EA will implement the engine in at least five new title currently under development.

“With the largest and most talented studio operation in the world, it’s critical for us to give our studio teams the best tools they need to make great games,” said Frank Gibeau, President, at EA. “This agreement reflects our commitment to Epic’s technology which, in combination with our own cutting-edge systems, allows us to create ground breaking hits.”

That just leaves us to speculate at what games EA could be working on that would involve this technology. My guess is that they’re all going to involve shooting stuff though.

Via Press Release

Responding to a thread regarding a rumored release date for Unreal Tournament in the latest issue of EGM, Mark Rein stated that there’s still no release date for the PlayStation 3 timed exclusive. He did, however, give a vote of confidence for the game’s development, stating, “The game is coming along really nicely.”

Of course, you wouldn’t really expect him to say anything else, would you?

While I’ve voiced my disappointment with Unreal Tournament 3 on these pages before, the recent release of Facing Worlds/Face certainly grabbed my attention. Between that and a LEGO mod I posted about in February, I’ve tempted to buy the game. This of course begs the question if Xbox 360 owners will ever see user generated content in this version of UT3. We can only hope the answer is yes, but I doubt Microsoft is ready to change its ways for one third party game.

Epic Games and Intel have partnered up to bring us the “$1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest.” The companies are asing aspiring game developers to come up with their own mods for Unreal Tournament III (PC version only; sorry PS3 owners) in the form of environments, gameplay, weapons, vehicles, and more; though full-conversion mods probably have the best chance. Winners will be selected in several categories with prizes including Intel Software Development Products and Velocity Micro PCs, as well as the grand prize of one Unreal Engine 3 license. Judging will begin in June with four preliminary phases until the grand final prizes are awarded in Fall of 2009.

But this is actually something for all of us PC gamers to pay attention too, whether we enter the contest or not. Why? Well the last time this contest was held, the winner was a game called “Red Orchestra,” which eventually made its way to retail and helped found Tripwire Studios. With a cool million worth of prizes at stake, you can bet some of the hidden best and brightest modders are going to start coming out of the woodwork. Besides that, since the prize is essentially the means to start your own development studio, the top ones are sure to be works of passion from the developers. And all the mods created for this competition will be made available online absolutely free. In other words, we’re probably going to start getting some good games next year for free. For more information, be sure to check out the contest’s official site.

Via Press Release

The New York Comic Con will be taking place April 18 – 20, at the Jacob K Javits Center in New York City and for those planning on attending, you might want to check out the gamer’s summit that will also be part of the festivities.

Attendees will be able to take part in roundtable discussions on writing for games, advice on how to break into the industry and gaming journalism. Michale Capps, the president of Epic Games and Gears of War writer Joshua Ortega will be there providing some information on Gears of War 2, and other titles such as Age of Conan, EVE Online, Iron Man and Warhammer Online will also be featured at the summit. Gaming publishers Konami, Namco Bandai Square Enix, and Ubisoft will also have exhibits for gamers to check out at the show.

Some other cool things to look forward to at Comic Con:

• The Premiere of Dr. Who Season 4
• An Evening With Neil Gaiman
• Autograph opportunities with Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, and Mike Mignola

If you live in the New York area or are in need of a fun little road trip the dedicated gamer’s summit is scheduled for April 20.

Via: Press Release

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that there’s a Gears of War movie actually in the works (probably because there hasn’t been anything really all that interesting announced yet). Still, ComingSoon.net decided to check in with producer Wyck Godfrey about the status of the film:

“We’ve got our script on and a director we’re about to attach. We’ll hopefully make that early next year for the summer of 2010,” said Godfrey.

So don’t start getting too excited just yet; there’s still at least a couple of years left to go before this film can even hope to make it to theaters. Hopefully the sequel being released in November builds up even more interest to get the production moving along.

Via ComingSoon.net

As Jonathan reported earlier, the new (free!) map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 is now available for download from the PlayStation Store. You’ll get Facing Worlds and two other maps I couldn’t care less about because Facing Worlds is the greatest thing ever, courtesy of Epic Games and Midway. That sure is awfully nice of them, and it makes me wonder if we’ll get to see a similar pack for free on Xbox 360 once the game gets moved over to Microsoft’s box.

Turok also is getting the downloadable content treatment today, although it’s not free. $4.99 will net you five new maps (although that statement might not hold true if you don’t view changes in time of day as constituting a “new” map).

$8.99 is the asking price of the new flOw bundle, which simply includes the full game and its expansion pack. Nothing new about the actually content, but if you want to take the plunge with flOw, this is the way to do it.

For the next two weeks (until April 15) you’ll find Warhawk on sale for just $29.99, $10 cheaper than it normally costs. You can use that saved money to buy some of the downloadable content that’s been released for the game since last August, or maybe you can just change paces and pick up that flOw bundle.

Videos, themes, Rock Band tracks, and an update to High Stakes: Poker Edition are also new on the Store. Hit the break for the full list of content. Read the full article

You might think that Microsoft’s lawyers are moving quickly to rob every penny from the individual responsible for creating the Master Chief character model in Unreal Tournament 3, but you’d be wrong. As it turns out, what serves as an homage to the Halo series is being treated just as that – not as an act of copyright infringement.

A Microsoft attorney that goes by the alias “DonkeyXote” writes on his Windows Live blog:

Many people are talking about the Master Chief mod for Unreal Tournament 3, that allows you to play in the character of the Master Chief on the PS3. Many people are surprised Microsoft is “allowing” this.

Actually it’s nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them. The developers aren’t selling the mod, they’re not monetizing Microsoft’s IP, they’re just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It’s a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community. And much though I love my friends at Epic, Unreal Tournament isn’t Halo. This will also remind people of just how great the Halo games are and remind them that if they’re done with the user-created faux-Halo experience, the real Halo is available only on the Xbox 360. And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform…

Aside from the annoyingly anti-Sony, Halo-is-the-best-thing-ever sentiment that he has, I’m glad to see Microsoft isn’t seeking to put a stop to this. One has t wonder what Microsoft would do if Halo levels were replicated in UT3, which seems like more of a “when” rather than an “if.” Writing that, I feel as if I’m about to be barraged with links to different Halo-inspired UT3 maps.