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Epic's Mark Rein: No Gears of War 2 at Min-E3
If you're one of the thousands, nay millions, hoping that a Gears of War sequel is on the plate for Microsoft's super-secret Min-E3 plans ... you're just going to have to wait longer.Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, tells BeyondUnreal.com that they are not announcing a sequel to Gears this year at E3. He writes to them, "Did you see the update we just did for Gears of War last week? We're still working on the first one." Rein has been saying since GDC that there are no plans to announce a sequel, even though it's been no secret that many will eventually be released. This is the year of Halo for Microsoft, however next year...
Rumorong: Rein says Gears of War on PS3 is 'bull****'
Following rumors of Gears of War heading to the PS3, Epic Games came out with a statement shooting the whole thing down. Quite succinctly, Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games says, "This story is complete bull****. I emailed the site and asked them to take it down. We're very happy with our relationship with Microsoft. If it weren't for them Gears wouldn't be the huge hit it has become."Mark Rein has said it before and he'll probably have to say it again. In conversations we've had with Rein here at Joystiq, he says that Epic is very happy with their Microsoft relationship. Do they disagree about marketplace transaction fees? Yes. But, like Rein has said in the past, it's Microsoft's store. Seriously, don't expect to see Gears on PS3.
Next Gears update will bring more achievements
Epic's Mark Rein hopped on the official Gears forums to tell everyone that they are working hard on the next auto update and that they've included a few unexpected goodies. Not only are they tweaking the roadie run as promised, but they are adding some glorious NEW achievements to both the Annex gametype and the Hidden Fronts DLC, taking advantage of the new Gamerscore policy. Rein also goes on to say that the update will take care of random exploits and general housekeeping, but that they do not have a firm release date for the update yet.Brand new Gears achievements simply rocks! It's something that I have been vocal about and to my surprise is going to happen. Now, for those of us who've earned the Seriously achievement, we can milk Gears for even more Gamerscore points. Dreamy isn't it? It's almost as if the Gears of War angels (Epic Games) have flown down from the heavens and blessed us once again.[Via GamingTalkHQ]
Gears of War COG tag videos are the new horse armor
We are not amused. We are not amused, at all! Horse armor was ridiculous, Need for Speed irked us further, but these have clearly been replaced with the five videos on the Xbox Live marketplace, available for 100 MS points each ($1.25 USD), showing the locations of all the COG tags in Gears of War. With free resources like GameFAQS and YouTube already doling out this information to the masses, this is nothing but an unadulterated grab for cash, and because P.T. Barnum was right about suckers, there will be plenty of people who pay for these videos.Although Mark Rein of Epic Games previously told us that it's Microsoft's store and they can do what they want, in all seriousness, this is insulting to gamers, legitimizes the belief that marketplace is continuing to test the limits of micro-softly-raping-payments and hurts the reputation of Epic. Although these videos are produced by Brady Games, the average consumer is just going to blame Epic and Microsoft. This is exactly what the marketplace should never be used for.
CliffyB will executive produce Gears of War film
Gears of War creator CliffyB will serve as an executive producer to the film adaptation, according to Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games. Speaking to Game Invasion at Midway's Gamer Day, Rein also explained that it was Jay Wilbur, the other Epic Game VP, who worked with Creative Artists Agency to negotiate the deal.Having the creator of the franchise in such a prominent position is sure to satiate purists to the game, but so far we have seen only minimal plot that could not be stretched to a feature length. And CliffyB's production role may not give him too much influence, for better or worse -- after serving as executive producer for the latest film adaptation of his work, Frank Miller has decided to serve as director on his roles from now on.No director has been announced, but the treatment was done by Stuart Beattie, scribe of Collateral, which bodes well. New Line won the rights to create the film, but we're still hesitant to call it will still come to fruition or fall through the cracks like Halo did.[Thanks, Frank]
Epic retracts Gears sequel statement
In our report on Cliffy B's take on Jazz Jackrabbit and its potential for Xbox Live Arcade, he made a tongue-in-cheek remark about "potential sequels" for the Gears of War franchise. Some people took this and ran with it as confirmation that there "ToTAlLY iz a GEars sequaL!1!!". Mark Rein made an appearance on the official Gears of War forum and stated that Cliffy in no way confirmed the development of a sequel. Mark has also said that if popularity and room for innovation was still there, he saw no reasons to stop at three games. So, not that we're suggesting anything, but if there was enough story and progression in the gameplay mechanics, how far can you see the Gears franchise going?[Via Eurogamer]
Mark Rein apologizes for Epic's lawyers attacking artist
While Mark Rein was away, the lawyers did play. During last week's GDC a cease and desist order was sent to Emilio Lopez over a very well done one-time piece of Gears of War art. Lopez had created the Munny doll for his cousin. The lawyers requested all Gears of War trademarks be removed -- even though the assets used to create the doll were taken from a fansite pack Epic released. Epic's VP Mark Rein apparently got back to the office after hearing about this and typed out a statement of apology and clarification.Rein says on the Epic website, "Ugh. Our lawyers are trying to do their job and protect our trademarks but I guess they didn't realize this wasn't a commercial project and they fired off a standard form letter ... What we need to do is come up with some sort of permission letter for things like these so that we're properly protecting our future commercial rights but not stopping people from doing cool fan art like this. On behalf of Epic I apologize to Emilio and anyone who was offended by this."[Thanks Frost]
Epic apologies for the doll misunderstanding
The other day we reported that Epic's lawyers were demanding that Emilio Lopez remove all Gears of War related material from his custom Munny doll. You, our fellow fanboys, had varying opinions about the whole thing to whether or not Epic was overacting or if they were within' their rights to send Emilio the letter. Well, we've received some clarity on the situation as Epic's own Mark Rein posted an apology on the official Gears of War forums. Rein acknowledged that their lawyers misunderstood Emilio's work, because they thought it was an actual product for sale using the GoW trademark. Rein went on to say that their lawyers did act over zealously and they now see absolutely no harm in Emilio's Christmas gift, but reinforced that they pursue hundreds of individuals who try captilizing on their trademarks illegally. In the end, no hard feelings and everyone can go their merry way.We're glad that Epic came clean on this little situation and exposed it for what it was ... a misunderstanding. See, we knew Epic wasn't a corporate machine capable of doing such evil things ... we never doubted them for a second.
Mark Rein says no Unreal Engine 3 for Wii
The Wii is taking a beating this week at GDC by American developers. Between hushed conversations and public displays, it isn't pretty. Epic's vice president, Mark Rein, has never hid his feelings for the Wii. While discussing Unreal Engine 3 games in development for the Xbox 360, he was asked if they'd develop anything for the Wii's Virtual Console? "Ummmmm, well, this is kinda a high definition engine. Designed for a certain level of graphics card and certain amount of CPU. You know, I'm sure one of our licensees will squeeze it down into the Wii. The way Ubisoft squeezed Unreal Engine 2 into the PSP," he explained in a little bit more detail exactly why the Wii and Unreal Engine 3 won't become best buddies, "Unreal Engine 3 is designed for a high level shader architecture and the Wii doesn't have that. I mean, you know, it's just not what we've been aiming for, so it's not something we're looking to do or support."Rein wouldn't go into any details at the number of companies, or cost, to license the Unreal 3 Engine. He says the license is cheap, "We only saw a splinter of the money from Splinter Cell." Epic hopes to sell Unreal 3 mods on Xbox Marketplace. They also said they'd be coming out with a textbook for schools on the Unreal Engine 3.
Mark Rein: Gears of War 'eventually' on PC
It seems that Epic's Mark Rein is finally being affected by the unrelenting repetition of being asked about a PC version of Gears of War every time he agrees to be interviewed. Having given up on traditional non-denials, an interview with Team Xbox has Mr. Rein taking one step forward and admitting that the testosterone epic will "eventually" be ported to PC. "Yeah, eventually...I don't think that's any great secret that we would like to do it on PC, but for now it's a 360 game. Eventually we'll get around to a PC version. I just don't know when." Mark explains that the "when" will be largely dependent on how long it takes for the market to have enough PCs capable of playing the reconfigured game and thus be economically viable. However, with Unreal Tournament 3 scheduled for release this year, aren't we at that point already?Perhaps we should stick to our current strategy -- ask Mark about Gears of War on PC until he screams in agony and orders a team to just port the game already.[Thanks, Jonah]
Oblivion: Downgraded for PS3, not happening on Wii [update 1]
When we learned that the PS3 version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would not feature the majority of downloadable content found on the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game, it was a blow to fans of horse armor everywhere. An episode of The 1UP Show (02/02) provides the follow-up hook as 1UP relays a juicy bit of info from Bethesda. As it turns out, it may be due to a memory limitation with the Playstation 3 itself.1UP says that Bethesda simply could not find a way to load every piece of downloadable content without affecting the performance of the game. Considering that the Xbox 360 can pull off this feat without a hitch, that seems quite odd. Bethesda will still be looking into getting that content available for PS3 users, as addressed by their VP of Marketing, Peter Hines, who also comments on the "rumors" regarding the memory issue in an IGN interview.As for the PS3 version of Oblivion trumping the 360 in the visuals department, it just so happens that the new shader techniques applied to the PS3 will also be worked into the 360 version of the game. And thus, they are equals once more. Unless you want some horse armor. In which case, you're boned.Finally, Shacknews sat down with Pete Hines and questioned their plans beyond the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. When it comes to waggling your remote in Oblivion, "It's not really going to run on a Wii for example, but if it could we would put it there. Our philosophy is to make a game and make it available to as many people as possible."Read - The 1UP Show, Oblivion Expansion Preview (9:40)Read - IGN Interview with Pete HinesRead - Shacknews, Interview with Pete Hines[Update - We swapped out the Mark Rein quote with the more recent IGN interview to pull the feedback away from gritty, armchair analysis of tech specs and back into the content involved. Cleaned up some wording to not sound so definitive on a complex and unresolved issue. Thanks!][Thanks, Stephen!]
Gears of War update: more talk, less tagging
Epic's Mark Rein has divulged a list of issues that will be addressed by tomorrow's Gears of War update. The update, a prelude to Wednesday's new multiplayer maps, promises to fix the problem that left latecomers to a match without an audible voice. The noted aspect ratio bug that occurred with the Xbox 360's VGA cable has also been crushed beneath the weight of improved code. The full list of fixes reads as follows: Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480 Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress Players can now get the Achievement for "Dish Best Served Cold" when using Troika turret to kill RAAM Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance Enabled "Strict" NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone Removed host name from Ranked match server browser Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4) Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points Added additional cheat detection code Additional housekeeping updates Those that find themselves exploding at an alarming rate should be pleased to learn that grenade tagging will now require more intimacy to be effective. Indeed, the ones closest to you always end up hurting you the most.
Gears of War enhancements incoming, trilogy unconfirmed
"Why stop at three?" Epic's Mark Rein writes in response to Microsoft's Jeff Bell implying that Gears of War will become a trilogy. While no doubt a success, we're not ready to put Gears in the same league as Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, or Metal Gear Solid. Nevertheless, Rein points to these franchises' abilities to continue to deliver popular entertainment (beyond the trilogy mark) and suggests, similarly, the Gears universe still has plenty of content to offer fans. Sounds like plot might factor into the sequel -- and here we thought sawdomy* was the only thing this series had going for it.Rein did add that Epic's focus is still on the original Gears of War, promising to deliver "some great enhancements you'll hopefully see before too long." Perhaps ranked matches will be tweaked to support team-play after all.*Use of the chainsaw attachment to defeat your enemy; coined by Penny Arcade.
Epic supports Gears of War updates
The oh so dashing Mark Rein posted a heart warming message to Gears fans on the official Gears of War message boards. Simply put, he stated that Epic was "going to support Gears of War and we're going to make improvements and enhancements for it." No dates or timetable was stated, but Epic just wants the fans to know that they are listening to us, hearing our complaints and praise, and will come out with updates and possibly new content in the near future. Now that's a real game developing company, actually caring about their customers and going the extra mile for them. Here's looking at you Electronic Arts, you're still grounded.
Serious Games Summit: Epic Games' Mark Rein
In advance of the upcoming release of Gears of War, Epic Games' Mark Rein appeared at the Serious Games Summit to promote the Unreal Engine 3 for serious game development. Amid a video demo of the game and the usual PR-speak about how, with the Xbox 360, "the next gen is here now," Rein talked about how Unreal Engine 3 allowed the game to be developed at a fraction of the cost (GOW cost $10 million), time (two years to develop), and manpower (average 30 person team size) of other similar games. To accentuate this point to the crowd, Rein brought out a developer from Virtual Heroes, a developer of "advanced learning technologies" that's using the engine in their games. He showed off an impressive demo of a full navigable Martian surface, featuring amazing ridges and vistas that were streamed from the hard drive dynamically and constructed using real Martian elevation data from NASA. The demo was thrown together in only four days, according to the developers.Despite the advantages of the latest Unreal Engine, Rein admitted his team outsourced some art and programming help for Gears of War. Rein noted that with today's games this was practically a necessity: character models that were 3,000 polygons in 2004 have ballooned to nearly 4 million polygons for Unreal Tournament 2007. As Rein himself wryly put it, "Now that's a serious game."
Gears of War ain't easy, defends Epic
In response to concerns that Gears of War, with frequent checkpoints and regenerating health, is too easy, Epic's Mark Rein has chimed in over on Epic's forums. Rein has clarified that the Gears demo is set to "casual" (easy mode) and implies that first-time players will encounter plenty of challenge on harder difficulties.Games like Halo 2 and Call of Duty 2 have proved that regenerating health does not impede on our sense of accomplishment when we pwn Legendary or Veteran mode. Here's to hoping Gears follows in their footsteps -- and not down Prey's path.[Thanks, michael]
Epic's Rein talks Gears, UT2007
Epic Games VP Mark Rein was back in the hot seat in a new interview with CVG. For part one of two, Rein discusses Unreal Tournament 2007's hover board and weapons roster, the UT Kismet scripting language, and why Gears of War isn't really a "shooter".Regarding the Kismet toolset and UT mod community, Rein had this to say: "Mod makers and designers are going to be able to do things that programmers could barely figure out how to do in the previous generation... you could take Unreal Kismet and build Tetris with it. I mean, without being a really genius programmer you could make a cool puzzle game with it."Well, we've already had Mortal Kombat Tetris, so why not mash up the classic puzzler with a shooter? Using Unreal Engine 3's enhanced particle and shading effects, it would be the best damn looking Tetris game ever!See also: Rein reckons PS3 "in a better place" for launch than 360 EA adopts Unreal engine for select next-gen titles
GOW rumblings: no demo?
Following yesterday's BIG announcement that Gears of War will hit the US on November 12th and in the UK on the 17th of November, comes the news that there will not be a demo released before the game ships, or possibly ever. Speaking with TeamXbox, Epic VP, Mark Rein, had this to say:"Demos take a long time to create and polish and we can't afford to get derailed like that if we want to have the game in stores by Thanksgiving. Given a choice of the game this year or a demo this year and the game next year I'm sure every one of you would rather have the game this year because you're already planning to buy it. No idea if we'll do a demo or not after the game ships."Maybe that was the real BIG announcement. Seriously though, we all want a taste of GOW, but is there anyone out there waiting for a demo to make up their minds? If so, tell us why.[Via Fraggerock]
Emergence Day emerges as *gasp* Nov. 12
The reason viral gaming campaigns bug us is 'cause the hype never matches the delivery. Last Monday Epic's Mark Rein declared, with a theatrical wave of a rather ham-shaped hand, that there would in fact be a "BIG announcement coming next week." At the same time, in another corner of the gamerverse, XBL gamertags using the fictitious names of fictitious characters pleaded with eager (or disinterested) gamers, "We need your help. Can't talk now. Don't know who to trust. Will send more tomorrow." Codes were delivered, codes were broken, retail sites were apparently updated a little too early and now, on Thursday of the foretold "next week," we know the truth: Gears of War is coming out this fall ... specifically, November 12th! And gone is the Microsoft-published pricepoint of $49.99. This fall, $59.99 (with $69.99 special edition, natch) is the new $49.99. Yay?You see? It's just not that exciting. We already knew it was coming out this fall and educated guesses would have pegged November, just prior to the Nov. 17th PS3 launch, as a likely candidate. And announcing a higher than expected price isn't usually received very well (just ask Sony). Then again, maybe this isn't the BIG announcement. Maybe this is all part of a cleverly orchestrated plot by this guy to get our hopes up, dash them against the rocks like so many brains, and then, when we've hit bottom, throw a face melting Gears of War demo in our very melt-able, exceedingly cynical faces. Your move, Epic.
Rein reckons PS3 "in a better place" for launch than 360
In an interview with Eurogamer, Epic's Mark Rein makes an interesting observation in stark contrast to the doom and gloom murmurings (and memes) that have recently surrounded the impending PS3 launch. Rein notes that developers were just receiving final developments kits when E3 rolled around, whereas the Xbox 360 units were not yet available during the expo a year before. "So Sony's actually maybe in a better place vis-a-vis Microsoft in relation to launch."Coupled with news of 10,000 development kits being shipped off to eager programmers, it would appear that the PS3 is indeed in a good place for developers. Of course, that only amplifies the importance of having companies like Epic use the tools and the time given them to craft excellent experiences. After all, the best place for the PS3 to be in would be someone's living room, and the only way it's going to get there initially is with the aid of some killer launch titles. Where are they?In Mark Rein's house, apparently. "I know we're getting some great results with it back at our house, so I would expect other developers will be as well." Once Sony announces the PS3's full launch lineup, we'll be in a better position to see how pronounced the development kit advantage really is.
