It's been quite awhile since we've heard anything about the Silicon Knights and Epic Games lawsuit -- we last reported on it in January 2008 and were all prepared to make jokes about the lawsuit being on the cusp of vaporware like Duke Nukem Forever is and Too Human was. Thankfully, our curiosity has been rewarded; on the eve of the latter game's launch, Silicon Knights President Denis Dyack managed to put the legal proceedings back into the limelight.

In an interview with Develop, Dyack said that the trial is proceeding and that he was confident in his claims. "We're hopeful that justice will be done. We all feel really strongly that [Epic Games has] defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry," he said.

To recap: In late July 2007, Silicon Knights filed a lawsuit against Epic Games over what it felt was inadequate support for its Unreal Engine 3, thus harming development of Too Human. Epic responded and filed a countersuit. In November, Epic's motion for dismissal was denied. In January 2008, multiple subpoenas were issued to other UE3 licensees. As for Too Human's involvement, we'll be keeping a mental tally of how many reviews mention the lawsuit.

High Moon, the developers behind the upcoming book-gone-movie-gone-game title, The Bourne Conspiracy, is on the ever-growing list of teams struggling with the Unreal Engine and PS3. Their VP, Paul O'Connor, spoke to Gamasutra about PS3 and how the Unreal Engine was working out for them on the platform. He admitted: "We needed a lot of support on Unreal to make it run on the PlayStation 3. We got caught in the same crunch as everybody else when [Epic] finalized Gears Of War, so that definitely slowed down the PS3 support at the time."

It's not all bad news, as he goes on to praise what the team has managed to do with the PS3 and says the game is about ready to go through the pipeline. High Moon had to use a lot of their own toolset, though, saying while the Unreal Engine 3 is a great toolset, for the PS3, they needed to bring out their own stuff as well. This problem has been plaguing many Unreal developers, and is at the root of a lawsuit brought on by Too Human developer, Silicon Knights.

Remember that video of the Contour facial capture technology we posted the other day? We sent out the Mahalo Daily crew – and their host, the lovely Veronica Belmont – to speak with Steve Perlman, founder and president of Mova, the creators of Contour. Catch up on Contour at Mahalo, and check out their GDC presentation after the break.

Despite the issues some developers may be having, Epic keeps finding customers more than happy to stuff the engine maker's mattresses with hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars for an Unreal Engine 3 license. Epic's cash deluge continues today with 2K Games' announcement that it's entering into a licensing deal to use UE3 for various unannounced games.

2K Games' president stated the company has been happy with UE3 because it "enables games to perform exceptionally well on both console and the PC" and that, with Epic's support, they plan to continue producing "world-class" titles. While there's no word on what these unannounced games may be, 2K is currently on a development bender with Mafia II, Prizefighter, some sort of BioShock follow-up, the mysterious project at 2K Marin, and a few others in production

How are you enjoying playing Turok? (Don't answer that truthfully, peoples' feelings could be hurt!) Were you aware that you were supposed to be playing it around November of last year? That's when it was originally scheduled to be released, at least. Unfortunately Propaganda Games had some trouble getting the quality of the PS3 version up to scratch, so the game was delayed to earlier this month. Similar delays occurred with other UE3 powered games last year, though none were pushed back as far as 2008.

We're expecting Sony to receive a nice "Thankyou!" hamper from Turok's developers any time now. All joking aside though, with the amount of games that were released during the last quarter of 2007, especially shooters, Turok would've been swallowed up and ignored. No doubt the game is receiving far better sales now than it could have in November, considering it has the entire month of February to itself with regards to the first person shooter market. Epic have gone on record to say that the engine is now fully optimised for the PS3 (and has been since UTIII was released, so this should be the last delay of this type that we see. Hopefully.

[Via Joystiq]

We're not sure what it is about American McGee that makes him so fascinated about putting dark spins on Western tales. The former id Software developer and Electronic Arts' consultant found his niche in 2000 with Alice, though since that release he's done little to make us believe that his name slapped on the front of a game's box carries any more weight than the UPC code on the back.

His latest project is a morose 24-episode take on the Brothers Grimm in development at McGee's Shanghai studio Spicy Horse, a project that according to a blog post by McGee is halfway completed. Excited, the developer has let the proverbial cat out of the equally proverbial bag by confirming work on another project. While details are light, McGee writes that the game will be built on Epic's UE3 engine, and is a "big publisher, multi-platform, twisted tale project." This of course makes us think that McGee will once again be paying a visit to the children's section of the local library in search of inspiration. Might we suggest Winnie the Pooh, as nothing is quite as frighting as a vicious bear that's rumbly in his tumbly.

[via Gamasutra]

Shacknews reports that subpoenas have been served to several Unreal Engine 3 liscensess in a lawsuit against Epic games, filed by Silicon Knights last year. The subpoenas have been served in order to acquire the liscensees' engine contracts as evidence in the upcoming trial. Specific liscensees are not named, though known liscensees include Square Enix, Ubisoft, 2K Boston/Australia, EA, and the US Army.

Mark Rein, Epic VP, stated, "I'm leaving the litigation to the lawyers but, if this is the case, I'd like to apologize to any of our licensees who Silicon Knights have inconvenienced." And inconvenienced they may be. If submitted as unsealed evidence, the contents of the contracts could become public record, allowing anyone access to the trade secrets therein. Epic's lawyers can move to seal the documents if this turns out to be the case.

The lawsuit was filed last July, with Silicon Knights claiming that Epic did not deliver final code for the Unreal Engine 3 on time, thus hampering the development of Too Human. The company further asserted that Epic purposefully sabotaged UE3 liscensees while promoting its own products such as Gears of War. Epic later filed a counterclaim and a motion to have the case dismissed. The motion was denied in November last year and both suits will come to trial.

[Via Joystiq]

Can't we all just get along? The lawsuit between Silicon Knights and Epic heats up again as the Too Human developer has filed a motion to dismiss Epic's counter-suit. In the paperwork obtained by Next-Gen, Silicon Knights' attorneys take apart piece by piece Epic's counterclaim that Silicon Knights stole Epic's technology from the Unreal Engine 3 to create (well, technically we should say develop 'cause it isn't done) Too Human.

SK's lawyers say that Epic's interpretation of an "operable" engine under the license they signed is that Epic could deliver nothing in return for SK's payments, which is what they alleged happened. They also say that Epic's claim that it's in their best interest to support UE3 licensees is a fallacy because "the profits Epic assured for itself by having Gears of War as the marquee title for the Xbox 360 dwarf any gain Epic would receive from Silicon Knights purchasing a subsequent licenses for the Engine." No word yet when a judge will rule on the motion to dismiss.

It's all looking too bad for SK really. The success of BioShock and Ken Levine's own words on the matter of the UE3 show that working with a cutting-edge engine is tough, but that's the path you walk with (at the time starting development) an unproven engine. Epic may have screwed SK, but as more games come out using the UE3, it just seems to highlight SK's ineptitude to manipulate the technology like everyone else seems to have had to do.

If any company is going to benefit from the success of BioShock, beyond 2K Boston and Take-Two, it's Epic with their embattled Unreal Engine 3. BioShock has brought very public redemption and good press to the UE3 due to 2K Boston's phenomenal use of the tech. This hasn't gone unnoticed by Epic's Mark Rein who says, "We like to think we set a high bar with our own games, but more importantly we give our licensees the opportunity to take what we've done and do something even better with it ... There are a lot more great titles coming from our licensees as well and we're very proud of what is being accomplished and the helping role we get to play in their success."

2K Boston's Ken Levine didn't wimp out on talking about their issues with the UE3 during our interview with him. Levine said, "Of course, it's an engine, engine's are always a bear. Developing games is really hard, I think the mistake that a company like Epic might make is to say, 'Oh yeah, it's simple, we give you the engine and you go do it fellas, it'll be a breeze.' Development is hard, it gives you a leg up, but if you don't have a great technology team you're going to run into trouble. Even if you have a great technology team you can run into trouble." Although the exact contractual issues regarding Silicon Knights' license with Epic are something for the court to decide, SK's inability to get Too Human working with the UE3 looks pretty awkward in the court of public opinion in the wake of BioShock.

There will be a PC demo for Epic's Unreal Tournament 3 before the game's release in November, but the PS3 version is just out of luck. Epic VP Mark Rein told Eurogamer that it's like what they told Microsoft when they wanted a Gears of War demo, "You've got a choice - you can have the demo this year or the game this year."

Rein emphasized once again that Epic is not a huge company, a reason given by Sony for sending in their ninja engineers to help get UT3 out the door on time. Rein say the PC demo will end up being a beta, giving programmers feedback to fix the game before launch. The Xbox 360 version is expected early next year -- it'll definitely be interesting to see how the whole multiplayer situation looks between PSN and Xbox Live. We're definitely expecting some phenomenal complaining about which handles multiplayer better regarding ease of use. Unless the Xbox FPS fanboys are still focused on playing Halo 3 multiplayer at that point.

Earlier we posted some choice moments from our interview with BioShock's Lead Designer Ken Levine. Below is the full interview. There's more depth on the tech issues Irrational experienced, Levine's ability (or lack of) to harvest Little Sisters, their experience with the Unreal Engine 3 and an awkward moment about BioShock 2.

OK, so what did you want to talk about today in regards to these PC issues on BioShock?

Given the internets and what they are -- with their tubes and all -- I want to sort of talk about the concerns people have. We take the concerns people have very seriously. There's been some concern like, "What happens if it's three years from now, or ten years from now, when I want to play this game. And, you know, Irrational Games has been hit by a meteor?" We will unset the online activation at some point in the future -- we're not talking about when. If people have concern about that they shouldn't be worried about that. This activation is for the early period of the game when it's really hot and there are people really trying to find ways to play the game without buying it. Of course, there are a lot of people who are legitimately trying to play it. We're not trying to be Draconian, we're trying to find a balance.

Now, let's see if we can put this in the simplest terms, this screen thing has taken on a whole life of its own. The game was designed for widescreen. Instead of doing the normal thing and just chopping off the sides for full screen, you actually added more to the top and bottom so full screen people wouldn't lose anything from the sides -- a very nice thing to do actually. Thus, infuriating the PC owners and almost anyone else with widescreen because how dare you not give them more to see like they're used to. So, now this patch will add in the stuff to the side of the full screen. So, in essence, to use a visual term, this patch just zooms the camera out a little bit to appease PC widescreen owners to give the option of increased field of vision?

We started the game widescreen. We primarily designed it for widescreen. Then we had to ask, "How do we make it full screen." Your options are to put black bars at the top and bottom, keep same width perspective. Or you allow to ... add pixels to the top and the bottom if you can afford the frame rate -- we could. So the call was made to show those few more pixels. Now this is one of those things when you're making a game -- like I was making a game -- honestly, if somebody came from the future and told me this was an issue I would have laughed at them. I would have said, "Are you kidding me?" But that's what's interesting about gamers, they're an interesting and diverse group. Now that I know that there's this huge contingent out there that actually really cares about this, I wouldn't have laughed at them because they're stupid, I would have laughed because I couldn't have imagined that people are passionate about this. And now that we know they're passionate, we have a responsibility to respond to those people and give them what they want. It's their game, they paid money for it, they should be able to play in the way they want to play. We may disagree with them aesthetically, but sure, we'll make a patch and make if work for them.

After watching developers trying to get BioShock up and running (pictured) at the launch party, and listening to a fair share of Vista complaining -- this BioShock copy protection issue is just another straw on the camel's back of fear in meddling with anything that requires a beyond up-to-date PC rig in the Vista era. 2K has calmed the copy protection issue saying simply "the only people who will be concerned about any of these security measures are those who are rapidly putting BioShock on many PCs."

Another little tidbit found is that the PC version of BioShock mentions the PS3 in the PC demo code. Currently the game is only confirmed for the PC and Xbox 360, which we're sure sits very well for Microsoft given the buzz and acclaim. We also know that Microsoft isn't afraid to buy exclusive content, specifically with Take-Two. So even if this is leftover code for a PS3 version, that project may have been unceremoniously squashed many fathoms ago -- but there is no way to know at this point if this code is leftover by 2K Boston or Epic in their Unreal Engine 3. Take-Two will not even comment on this issue, and it's a special kind of no comment too. They won't comment to the point where there's not even an official "no comment" to the question of what this coding means.

Read: 2K responds to copy protection issue
Read: BioShock PC config file hints strongly at a PS3 version

Epic isn't letting their courtroom tiff with Silicon Knights slow them down as they continue to push forward, investing a majority stake in independent developer, People Can Fly. Best known for their work on the 2004 first-person shooter, Painkiller, PCF have been working on a multi-platform project utilizing the Unreal Engine 3 for the past year.

Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games, was particularly impressed with PCF's work saying, "[They] showed us their early prototypes within only a few weeks and we were totally blown away." On the other end of the deal, PCF co-owner Adrian Chmielarz sounds just as excited: "To be able to work with the best technology company in the business and collaborate on making amazing fantastic games is an offer you just can't refuse."

What could possibly be better than making amazing fantastic games? Tasty delicious cake would be our guess, but we'll settle for an amazing fantastic title.

GameDaily BIZ has been following the back and forth between Epic and Silicon Knights regarding their dueling lawsuits over the mess that is Too Human and the "inadequacies" of the Unreal Engine 3. Silicon Knights' lawyer has spoken out against Epic's claims that Silicon Nights stole their tech saying SK has now built a "better" engine. The nit-picky part becomes how much of that engine is based of the Unreal Engine 3 tech?

Silicon Knights' attorney, Christopher T. Holland, of a law firm with way too many names, says they'll stand their ground. He says the counterclaim has no merit. Epic is asking for $650,000 in their counterclaim while SK wants "millions of dollars more." Holland also points out that the suit will have no effect on Too Human and that the compensation they are seeking is "based on substantial delay and damages that Epic caused." He goes on to say that the game will come out in a "timely fashion." You know, ignoring the whole two year delay.