For those of you who’d rather view your trailers online, the first look at Gears of War 2 “Assault” trailer is streaming on FileFront. As Gaming Today laid it out this weekend, Cliffy B talks about the new threat of Locust Horde forces that can drag entire cities down into emergence holes. You’ll have to pass an age gate to view the trailer, but it’s well worth it. Chainsaw dueling… need I say more?

via FileFront

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I won’t bother you with any teaser text: go here to download the first real trailer for Gears of War 2.

With that out of the way, those of you who are of age are in for a treat after downloading the trailer, which shows off the game’s usage of an upgraded Unreal Engine that looks terrific. There’s also a preview of a number of new game mechanics, such as being able to grab an enemy and use him for cover and chainsaw duels. Head over to GameVideos for an in depth analysis of all the details those folks were able to pull from the trailer.

As for my thoughts; it certainly looks great, there’s no denying that. I wasn’t blown away by the trailer, but that’s the nature of seeing gameplay versus a teaser trailer. And in all actuality, while it doesn’t have the same effect that a teaser would have, this is much more satisfying, as we can actually see the game in motion. I’m not sure how to feel about the chainsaw duels — it seems like an improvement from the first Gears, but I’m not sure that mashing B (which may or may not be all there is to it) is really the most elegant solution to the problems with Gears‘ chainsaw. Cliffy B is right, though. The game looks pretty badass.

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

Ray Nakazato, president of the AQI-owned feelplus recently talked with Gamasutra on developing Lost Odyssey and the creation and dissolution of the game’s development team. He also speaks with an insider advantage about the Xbox 360 and Japan.

Nakazato goes into detail about the difficulties involved in using the Unreal 3 Engine for Lost Odyssey. Meshing the engine with developers with a mindset geared towards developing Japanese RPGs was difficult, as was trying to keep up with changes to the engine with few English-speaking engineers. He also spoke of the uncertainty over the use of the Sound Novel concept for the game’s flashbacks.

In Japan, there is a genre called the Sound Novel. It’s like a novel; it’s all text messages. And we were, how do I say — we weren’t sure if it would be accepted well, but it actually was accepted very well, because that writing was very beautiful, and it translated well to other languages.

Feelplus is currently working on Blue Dragon Plus with Final Fantasy and Lost Odyssey creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. According to Nakazato, the company has several smaller projects in the works and hopes to have a more robust offering to announce next year.

via Gamasutra

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The company behind Guild Wars and Lineage can now be added to the list of developers making use of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3, it was announced today. NCsoft had made previous use of Unreal Engine (albeit Unreal Engine 2) for both Lineage II and Exteel.

“Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems,” said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft. “Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables designers to easily prototype concepts without the need for programming.”

“NCsoft pioneered online game development using Unreal Engine, as evidenced by Lineage II, one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular online games in history,” said Jay Wilbur, vice president of Epic Games. “We are thrilled to take this next step with NCsoft, and are fully committed to supporting their projects.  We expect to be completely wowed by what they do with our latest technology.”

I can’t imagine Guild Wars being developed with Unreal Engine given how long it’s been in development, but could NCsoft’s PlayStation 3 project take advantage of the middleware engine? We really don’t have any clue, but expect further details in the coming months.

Two new Epic Games/Gears of War 2 related videos are now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. (Or you could save yourself the effort of moving and watch them on FileFront.) The first is a very brief look at the unveiling of Gears of War 2 at this year’s GDC, featuring Mike Capps and the Lancer-wielding CliffyB.

The other is much longer and features a demonstration of many of the newer features of Unreal Engine. The first thing of note from the video is that I really wish I could have someone announce my arrival at a location, to be followed up with music from Unreal Tournament as I walk out. Sure, we’ve seen the tech demo before, but anytime you can feature a cube of meat, you take advantage of it.

Takeovers and acquisitions have been a hot subject over the past six months between EA’s attempt to land Take-Two and their successful acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic. There had been rumors that Microsoft was looking to buyout Epic Games which would have much larger implications than what platforms Unreal Tournament and Gears of War would be released on – what would happen to Unreal Engine and its usage on PlayStation 3?

Epic president Mike Capps downplayed rumors of a Microsoft buyout, but did acknowledge that the uncertain future of middleware access is very real. EA’s purchase of Criterion and their Renderware engine is just one example of that reality.

“To be frank, the Midway guys were a Renderware shop through and through,” Capps told GamesIndustry.biz.

“And Renderware kind of fell out from under them right when they were making their decision for the next-generation of technology. So they had the code and they could have keep going that route, and they were really scared that if they went with [Unreal Engine] that they would have that same problem.”

Midway did ultimately opt to use Unreal Engine, but Capps said, “I can’t force my guys to keep working on the engine. Someone could start a really cool shop next door and take them all.”

“Our contracts don’t promise the future - it is what you get now. And then, of course we keep adding stuff, because it is good business.

“And we give all the source code - every line of source code - and that’s crucial. Because we require it from our own middleware partners.

“When it happens, and it always does, that we’re right about to ship and there is one bug in the code, we want to be able to fix it and go.”

Epic experienced this themselves when Ageia was purchase by NVIDIA.

“It could have been really hard for us,” Capps said. “It turns out that they got bought by someone who really wants to keep them going and work with us closely, but that is a major dependency for us, so we make sure we’ve got the source code so we can protect ourselves.”

“So we understand how developers think, I guess, because we think that way.”

Epic Games has announced that a number of the top titles from their library (i.e. almost all the Unreal games) are now available to purchase and download over Steam. They’re now offering Unreal Gold, Unreal II, and all the Unreal Tournament games, including the newest Unreal Tournament III. That’s not so impressive. What is impressive however is that all of these games can now be bought together as the “Unreal Deal Pack,” which includes the entire Unreal collection for $59.99. There’s also a 10% discount running for a limited time on all the individual games as well as the bundle (so you can get it for $53.95 at the moment).

“Epic is a leading developer of game engine technology and has produced some of my favorite games of all time,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “It’s an honor to be working with them and offering their current and classic titles to the millions of Steam gamers around the world.”

Not a bad deal for some of the top games of all time. I wonder if Gears of War will end up on there eventually.

Via Press Release

If there is any one individual to talk to about the Unreal Engine at Epic Games, it’d be CEO and co-founder Tim Sweeney. He chatted with TG Daily recently after declaring that “consoles have definitely left PC games behind,” and while much of it covered technical details that’ll make your head spin, there are some things to take away from the interview.

Let’s talk about your game visions for the future and the next Unreal Engine? Where is EPIC going with the Unreal Engine 3.5 and 4.0?

The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle. We will continue to improve Unreal Engine 3 and add significant new features through the end of this console cycle. So, it is normal to expect that we will add new stuff in 2011 and 2012. We’re shipping Gears of War now; we’re just showing the next bunch of major tech upgrades such as soft-body physics, destructible environments and crowds. There is a long life ahead for Unreal Engine 3. 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.

Sweeney explained that work is underway on Unreal Engine 4, but that the team currently consists only of him, although that number will grow later this year. As that next console generation approaches, the Unreal Engine 3 team will transition over to working on the new engine. But, Sweeney still fully expects that updates will be made to Unreal Engine 3 three to four years from now.

So while Epic hasn’t exactly abandoned PCs, it’s clear that their focus is going to become increasingly console-centric in the coming years.

Joining his Epic Games colleague Cliff Bleszinski, Tim Sweeney – the co-founder of Epic – has stated in an interview that he believes the PC gaming market is being beat down by consoles, thanks in large part to the growing prices to build a high-end machine. With such a massive performance difference between low-end and high-end PCs (which Sweeney estimates to be “something like 100x”), he says it’s impossible to design a game for those high-end machines and then scale it down to play on what he calls “mainstream PCs.”

If we go back 10 years ago, the difference between the high end and the lowest end may have been a factor of 10. We could have scaled games between those two. For example, with the first version of Unreal, a resolution of 320×200 was good for software rendering and we were able to scale that up to 1024×768, if you had the GPU power. There is no way we can scale down a game down by a factor of 100, we would just have to design two completely different games. One for low-end and one for high-end.

That is actually happening on PCs: You have really low-end games with little hardware requirements, like Maple Story. That is a $100 million-a-year business. Kids are addicted to those games, they pay real money to buy [virtual] items within the game and the game.

Sweeney didn’t deny that there is a market for PC games, though  — quite the contrary.

… PCs are more popular than ever. Everyone has a PC. Even those who did not have a PC in the past are now able to afford one and they use it for Facebook, MySpace, pirating music or whatever. Yesterday’s PCs were for people that were working and later playing games. Even if those games were lower-end ones, there will always be a market for casual games and online games like World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has DirectX 7-class graphics and can run on any computer. But at the end of the day, consoles have definitely left PC games behind.

It’s a very insightful interview. He’s make some good points without bluntly proclaiming that PC gaming is dead. Integrated graphics are a major problem with PCs nowadays, according to Sweeney, and the fact that you can go buy a new PC and it be incapable of running a modern game is a serious problem.

Read the full interview here.

38 Studios has struck a deal with Epic Games to license the Unreal Engine 3 for use in it’s MMO. The developers will be using Unreal in conjunction with the BigWorld Technology Suite.

“38 Studios is uniquely positioned to deliver an unparalleled Online Entertainment Experience,” said CEO and president Brett Close.

“Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 is best-of-breed, empowering developers with superior content creation tools, extensive middleware integration, and exceptional visual quality and rendering.

“Epic gets what it takes to make great games, and its Unreal Engine 3 toolset will allow our development team to prototype efficiently and achieve the signature visual quality and excellence we are striving for.”

38 Studios is the brain child of baseball player Curt Shilling. Also in on the project are artist Todd McFarlane and author R.A. Salvatore.

The new IP will encompass multiple media formats as well as the MMO projected for release in 2010.

What I find interesting about this is using the Unreal Engine would give the developers the option to include destructible environments in the MMO. Unfortunatley, it will be a log time before gamers have a glimpse of the new game.

via Press Release