If you think Unreal Engine 3 games feature too much gray and brown, laden with "pillars and girders," all being stomped around on by bald space marines, Cliff "Young Clifford" Bleszinski wants you to blame the tech. Speaking with Develop recently, the man that birthed Marcus Fenix said, "The technology of this generation just happens to be very good at rendering metals and stones and dramatic lighting." He argues that "translucent effects" are much harder to pull of with the technology given and as such, "the tech is good at showing off armor and it's not that good at doing hair ... that's why we have bald space marines."

Though we'd argue that there are lots of bald men in our lives who happen to not be space marines -- CheapyD and Dr. Manhattan prime among them -- we can appreciate how Marcus Fenix may be more equipped to take down the Locust than an omnipotent blue man. Wait a minute! Interestingly, Bleszinski also notes during the interview that he's got "like five projects going on right now" -- we're counting Shadow Complex and another (still unannounced) Gears of War, which leaves three unannounced projects? Something is afoot at Epic Games. And it almost certainly involves bald space marines.

To celebrate Independance Day, the folks at Epic Games are going to liberate (see what we did there?) Gears of War 2 from some of its nastier afflictions, through another title update. The latest update should drop sometime before this weekend, and will bring some changes to Horde mode. We'll be sure to let you know when the update is ready.

On top of that, it's also going to be another Gears-themed weekend, as Epic has turned on the XP firehose. During ranked matches on the public playlist, everyone will receive double the XP, and the winning team will also walk away with an additional 500 XP (plus, you know, their lives). Epic has also added some of its own brand of fireworks to Horde mode as an homage to our own firework-shooting, independence-celebrating festivities planned for this holiday weekend. In every wave of the Horde, there will be added Tickers, and on every 10th wave of every Horde match, there will be only Tickers.

The festivities start on Friday morning, and will run until Monday, July 6.

[Thanks, Alan!]

If you're wondering what to do on a cold night, while snuggling next to a warm fire ... may we suggest, reading? Of course, in this scenario, all electricity is out and video games are no option for you. So, if that's what it takes for you to pick up a book (we kid!), you might be interested in something with a little video game flavor.

Coming to bookstores on July 28 is Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant -- from best-selling sci-fi author Karen Traviss (of Star Wars novel fame!).

Jacinto's Remnant begins moments following the end of Gears of War 2. It's really hard to tell you what the novel is about without spoiling the ending of 2008's Epic Xbox 360-exclusive, but from what we've seen so far, the book looks to paint a picture of humanity's struggle for survival against a new kind of enemy -- itself. Sounds interesting, so far. Excited?

Epic Games has opened a new subsidiary in Seoul, Korea, with plans to provide licensing services and support resources to development teams using its Unreal Engine. Epic Games Korea will be led by Ray Park, formerly the business and strategy development manager for Microsoft's in-game advertising company, Massive, Inc.

While Epic Games has provided its Unreal Engine to teams in the territory for over five years, Park states the opening of a Korean subsidiary signifies Epic's "desire to collaborate more closely with the [local] game development community." Jay Wilbur, Epic Games' vice president of business development, noted Epic Games Korea would serve as "a hub for Unreal Engine access, knowledge and support in the Korean marketplace."

Rumors of developer Silicon Knights moving to Korea in search of the support it claims to have never received from Epic Games could not be confirmed ... because we made it up for the sake of a bad joke.

The organizer of SIGGRAPH, an annual gathering of digital visual artists, has already implied that gaming will have a larger presence at 2009's conference than in previous years; there's even going to be a keynote address by SimCity creator Will Wright. It's now been announced that a session focusing on real-time computer graphics will explore the creation of visuals for EA Sports' newly released Fight Night Round 4 and Epic Games' not-so-new (but still mightily pretty) Gears of War 2.

Titled "Big, Fast, and Cool: Making the Art for Fight Night Round 4 & Gears of War 2" (that title is neither small, quick or cool, by the way), the session is being offered for CG artists because, as SIGGRAPH 2009 real-time rendering chair Evan Hirsch says, "So much of what makes today's videogames so great are the responsive graphics and the stories that unfold during game play." It's a shame about that "during game play" bit; otherwise the entire thing could be called "The cinematics of Metal Gear Solid 4: Watch and Learn." Next year, Kojima. Next year.

There are some rumors circulating around the internets that Gears of War 2 could make a belated arrival on the PC platform, just like the first title. IGN points to Beantown Games, the originator of this vicious little rumor, which posted details from a supposed unreleased press release for the game, along with supposed box art shots featuring the Games for Windows logo.

IGN then gave Kotaku the nod, who went to work checking into some of the stuff Beantown Games posted. The blog found inconsistencies in the Beantown post, with the supposed leaked press release being a near carbon copy of the original press release for Gears of War 2 on Xbox 360. Then, there's the UPC codes, which apparently all point to The Golden Compass. It's odd, to say the least.

As much as all of this seems like malarkey, one shouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of Gears of War 2 on the PC. The first game released on PC in November of 2007, a full year after the release of the original Xbox 360 game. Since the sequel released on Xbox 360 in November of last year, we wouldn't put it past Epic and Microsoft to crank the game out on PC some time in 2009. Though, when we contacted Microsoft, a spokesperson said "We have no plans for Gears of War 2 on the PC," so take it as you will.

Source - Beantown Games [Via IGN]
Source - Kotaku

We first heard about some changes coming to Unreal Engine 3's backend way back at GDC, where the tech was first demonstrated for developers. At last week's E3, Epic was kind enough to give us a demonstration of some of the changes coming to its famous engine, and we have to say they're pretty spiffy. Nothing is jaw-dropping, but with some tweaks under the hood, the development process and post-release analysis can help developers utilizing Unreal Engine 3 in many surprising ways.

While checking in with Epic's upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title Shadow Complex again today, we were given a nice little tidbit of info from Epic programmer Rob McLaughlin. While playing through the game's introductory level, we casually asked about a price for Unreal Engine 3-fueled shmup, to which Rob replied that the title would likely not see price point below $20. We grilled hm for more info, but, sadly, he couldn't accomodate us.

Let there be absolutely no doubt that Chair Entertainment's Shadow Complex is heavily inspired by 2D exploration games of yore, namely Metroid and Castlevania. The Xbox Live representative that guided our hands-on demo used the word "Metroid" no less than 437 times (slight exaggeration). The game is 2D, it doles out power-ups gradually and contains plenty of exploration and action. Let's be clear about this: That is absolutely not a bad thing.

When Epic's Cliff Bleszinski hit the stage sans Lancer at Microsoft's E3 keynote, many at both the Microsoft keynote and here at the Joystiq mobile HQ wondered what Epic was up to. Then, we noticed he was accompanied by Chair Entertainment's Donald Mustard, and we caught our first glimpse of Shadow Complex, a game with heavy amounts of influence from 2D titles such as Metroid and Contra, with a splash of its own unique 3D action, making this a project all its own. For an XBLA title, it has an incredible amount of polish, and we're sure the price will reflect that when it releases this summer.

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski just took the stage at Microsoft's E3 keynote and revealed Shadow Complex, a new game for Xbox Live Arcade in collaboration with Chair Entertainment, the folks behind XBLA title Undertow. Mixing elements from titles such as Contra and Super Metroid, the game is a 2D title infused with slick 3D graphics. Big guns and big enemies are the name of the game here, as Bleszinski promises big boss battles and a summer release for the title.

We finally know why 'All Fronts' started vanishing from online retailers. In speaking with IGN, Epic's Rod Fergusson said that the feedback from fans on the original 1600 ($20) price for 'Dark Corners' and the retail release of 'All Fronts' wasn't, well ... favorable. So, Epic decided to mix things up.

Dark Corners will now be offered at a much cheaper price of 1200 ($15). As for 'All Fronts,' it's ditching its planned retail release for an exclusive Xbox Live Marketplace stay, where fans will be able to download the content for 1600 ($20) at 12:00am GMT on July 28.

[Thanks, surinder!]

A tipster sent in word that GameStop had pulled all pre-orders for Gears of War 2 retail compilation 'All Fronts', and lo and behold, it has. So we did some snooping, checking out Best Buy, Target, GameCrazy, and Amazon, and found each also have pulled it.

So, what does this mean? It's anyone's guess at this point, but, to clarify, we've put in word to Epic and will be sure to update you all as soon as we hear back.

[Thanks, Urza!]

Just over a month ago, Joystiq talked to Epic Games' Mike Capps about crunch times in game development cycles and how many hours his employees are expected to work throughout the development of a game. Interestingly, Develop put the question of crunch time (among other things) to "over 350 industry professionals" via a poll and found that nearly 98 percent of respondents received no overtime pay for crunch work.

When we spoke with Capps, he pointed out that, for his company, crunch isn't a matter of force but that employees understand its necessity. "Our guys vote on how they want to crunch and last time they chose having weekends off ... I had one or two that were, wow that went too long, we had a rough time, we made some mistakes in planning but that's not to say that crunching is the wrong thing to do," Capps told us. He also noted that while crunch can hurt, employees (at least at Epic) are able to take a few weeks off between projects after a crunch so as to recharge, saying, "If you scoop someone off the front lines of Afghanistan and fly them to Iraq and you put them back out and you keep doing it, performance is going to suffer."

It seems to us that, like most things in life, generalizing -- for instance, about the gaming industry as a whole -- doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 98 percent of those polled may not receive overtime for crunching on a project, but they may very well receive large bonuses after the product ships, or a long vacation, or a variety of other incentives. One thing's for sure: 100 percent of Joystiq writers make no overtime pay.

Microsoft is sending a special Gears of War Xbox 360 bundle (depicted above) to our friends in Australia. Included in the bundle are copies of the original Gears of War and Gears of War 2. Sadly, the console itself isn't as special as the box it comes in, for it's of the plain white Pro variety.

The new bundle will hit Aussie store shelves on June 4 and retail for $449 AU.

[Thanks, Josh]