Cliff Bleszinski announced that Gears of War 2 will use linked achievements at Comic Con 2008 in San Diego. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, achievements from GoW will unlock GoW2 content. Here are the particulars courtesy of Xbox360Fanboy.

• Unlocking the “Completed Act 1″ achievement in GoW unlocks Anthony Carmine in GoW2 multiplayer.
• Unlocking the “A Dish Best Served Cold” achievement in GoW unlocks General RAAM in GoW2 multiplayer.
• Unlocking the “Time to Remember” achievement in GoW unlocks Minh Young Kim in GoW2 multiplayer.

The contents of the $130 “Collectors Edition” of Gears of War 2 was also announced. For this astounding fee, gamers will get a scaled down model of the Lancer.

via Joystiq

Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, revealed Unreal Engine 4 will coincide with the next generation of consoles expected sometime between 2012 and 2018. The next iteration of the Unreal Engine is decidedly console focused.

“We’ve got Unreal [Engine] 4 in production right now… it’s going to be in the next console generation – our rough guess is 2012 [to] 2018.”

Capps statement confirms what Epic’s technical mastermind Tim Sweeney told TGDaily in a March interview:

“Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft’s successor for the Xbox 360, Sony’s successor for the Playstation 3 – and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that.”

via Gamasutra

There’s an in depth review available of a retail ready model of OCZ Technology’s Neural Impulse Actuator. The NIA is a brain-computer interface that can be used to control computers and play video games; in this case Unreal Tournament 3 and Counter-Strike: Source.

The article compares learning to use the NIA to touch typing. Actually learning how to use it takes only a week or so, but mastering the device can take months. However, once mastered controlling the NIA is as effortless as controlling your own body minus the physical feedback.

Exactly how the special headband picks up and interprets the body’s natural biosignals generated by your brain, facial muscles and eye muscles is fully explained. The article also covers setup and software and configuration.

Of course the fun part of the article is always the saved for the big finish. The reviewer talks about his experience using the NIA to play UT3 and CS:S. Whether you’re fascinated about all the details or just want to skip to the video game control part, checkout the full article on HotHardware

With E3 2008 a fading memory, the games industry is looking forward to the Games Convention Developers Conference. This year’s keynote speaker will be David Perry, co-founder and chief creative officer of Acclaim Games. He joins Epic Games president Michael Capps in addressing the Leipzig event, which is scheduled for August 18-20.

Perry has planned a talk on his vision for the future of games based on his experience developing more than 100 games for 29 different platforms.

“I’m involved in a lot of different things right now and will be bringing a lot of different perspectives together in my talk,” he said of the keynote.

GCDC project director Frank Sliwka is pleased with Perry’s acceptance and is looking forward to his presentation.

“David Perry has helped shape the history of videogaming having worked on some of the industry’s best-selling titles over the past few decades.

“His keynote is definitely going to be one of the big highlights of this year’s GCDC and we look forward to hearing his perspective on the global games market.”

This year is also the beginning of GCDC’s partnership with the Nordic Games conference. The alliance was forged to promote Europe-based developer conferences. The head of the Nordic Game Program, Erik Robertson, will be speaking at GCDC about the event’s campaign and results to date.

via GamesIndustry.biz

A few months back, Epic announced that a Gears of War novel was slated to be published in August that would act as a prequel to the first game and be written by Steven L. Kent. I don’t know what’s going on with that project, but now it looks like Epic has a full trilogy of novels in the works to continue the Gears saga. The first of these will be titled The Battle of Aspho Fields and will be penned by Karen Traviss, who is known for several bestselling Star Wars novels. The story will apparently involve an old friend of Marcus and Dom’s reappearing at a crucial time in the war against the Locust:

In GEARS OF WAR: THE BATTLE OF ASPHO FIELDS, the last human stronghold on Sera braces itself for another onslaught from the Locust Horde, as ghosts come back to haunt Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. For Marcus — decorated war hero, convicted traitor — the return of an old comrade threatens to dredge up an agonizing secret he’s sworn to keep. As the beleaguered soldiers of the Coalition of Ordered Governments take a last stand to save humankind from extermination, the harrowing decisions made at Aspho Fields have to be relived and made again. Marcus and Dom can take anything the Locust Horde throws at them — but will their friendship survive the truth about Dom’s brother Carlos?

The books will be published by Del Ray, but there’s no word yet on who else will be writing the second couple of novels. And I guess we’ll have to wait until August to see if that prequel book is still making its way to store shelves soon.

Via Press Release

GameStop has listed the Gears of War 2: Limited Edition set on their site, and it includes the following bonus materials:

• Collectible SteelBook DVD case
• Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2, a 48-page hardbound book including character profiles, exclusive concept art, and foreword by Design Director Cliff Bleszinski
• Bonus DVD including exclusive making-of-the-game video footage, design galleries with audio commentary by Epic Games, and promotional videos including the E3 2008 trailer, “Rendezvous.”
• An exclusive gold-plated Lancer Assault Rifle available during online play

The pre-order ships November 7th and if you want it, it’s going to set you back $69.99.

In the Gears of War 2 trailer above, you get to check out the new levels, weapons, co-op play, meat shields, flamethrowers, boomers with grenades and other enemies in this demo by Lead Designer Cliff Blezinski from E3. The main trailer “Rendezvous” is posted below.

November 7th is the release date set for the Xbox 360 exclusive, and the news yesterday about GoW2 having five-player co-op ‘Horde Mode’ is pretty exciting if you are a fan of the game or just chaotic and grueling shooters in general.

The new site for the game has been revamped as well and you can check it out here.

Enjoy the trailers.

As I am sure you are aware by now, our industrious E3 team is hard at work gathering scraps of info for your perusal. We’re adding something a little different this year for your enjoyment: a nightly podcast wrap-up of the day’s events.

Wondering what’s in this episode? In the words or your immortal host, Shawn Sines, “E3 2008 Day 1: Microsoft & EA talked a lot, we’re talking about their talking.. only with opinions, innuendo and veiled sarcasm. Will the new Live! changes make sense? Is Dragon Age the most disappointing trailer of the show? Listen and find out what we think about Day 1 (sort of) of E3!”

We’ll have a podcast coming your way from E3 every day this week, so make sure you check it out.

You can grab the pocast directly from this link.

As always, you can send comments, suggestions, or snide remarks to podcast@filefront.com. Our back catalog of episodes is available at http://podcast.filefront.com. The File-N-Forget Podcast is also available on the iTunes Music store.

Microsoft kicked off E3 with a press conference not unlike a firecracker that has been dipped in water: it starts off exciting, but then the fuse runs out and all you get a a little “pop” if you’re lucky. Similarly, they brought out the big guns for an opener, leaving everything but the last few minutes pretty unsurprising. Read on for a play-by-play of Microsoft’s big E3 announcements. Read the full article »

If there’s one thing online gamers are good at, it’s examining every bit of information from a game for possible hidden clues. Now it looks like some eagle-eyed Gears of War fans may have discovered a clue to the sequel’s release date. It all stems from this splash image on the game’s website (and above) that shows a COG soldier holding a dog tag (or “COG tag,” I suppose). The dog tag in the picture reads “033-116-117-126-071″ (as does the image’s filename). Apparently, if you run that through an ASCII Table, you get the message “ESC NOV 9.” Anyone with a keyboard in front of them can probably guess that could translate to “Escape November 9.” That’s a bit too specific to be just a simple coincidence.

Via Epic Forums