epic games

Chris Knight's avatar

It’s taken me twelve hours to mull things over about it.

So here’s what I’m gonna say about it…

Darn you Cliff Bleszinski!! Because of you and your team at Epic Games, you made this grown dude cry harder than I have because of any work of art in… maybe ever.

That… was effective. The entire whole heapin’ thing. I mean the complete Gears Of War experience: from Dom breaking Marcus out of prison in the very first scene of the first game, through to that touching final shot at the end of Gears Of War 3. Along with everything in between.

Not everything was answered. In fact, I can think of quite a lot of outstanding questions that remain. But you know what? After finishing this final chapter of the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad, it doesn’t bother me at all that those mysteries haven’t ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I got it at the local GameStop at midnight yesterday morning/late Monday night. Got an hour or two in before going to bed and didn’t play it at all throughout the day yesterday (had other stuff going on) but I was able to play it for three hours this afternoon.

Cliff Bleszinski and the crew at Epic Games have done it. Again. I don’t know if “video game” is even applicable to Gears of War 3. There is plot and pacing and dialogue here that trumps that of most Oscar-winning motion pictures.

This is a whole new character-driven visceral form of narrative art. One scene in particular stands out in my mind: early in the game, you play as Cole leading a squad in search of supplies around his old hometown of Hanover. Cole and the squad enter a grocery store and come across a life-sized cardboard stand-up ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Ooh-boy, how am I going to handle this?! I mean, Gears of War 3 doesn’t come out until September 20th, this coming Tuesday. And there ain’t no way that I’m gonna get an advance copy of the game itself. Hey, I’ve got connections, sho ’nuff… but they don’t penetrate into the inner sanctum of Epic Games (even if it is just a few miles away in Cary).

But a package arrived in the mail this week: a copy of the CD of Gears of War 3: The Soundtrack, composed by Steve Jablonsky.

Hmmmm. The score CD for the next Gears of War game. Composed by the dude who did the score for Gears of War 2, the Transformers movies and a bunch of other great stuff! Y’all think I’m not gonna review this bad boy?!

The thing is, I can listen to this abundawonderful score all I ...

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From the very beginning of the franchise, Gears of War has been as acclaimed for its mesmerizing advertising campaign as it has for its intense and engaging gameplay, its story and its so-very-endearing characters who we couldn’t help but to feel for, to sympathize with, to cry for. The first game’s “Mad World” commercial is considered by many to be the best ad for a video game in history. Three years ago Gears of War 2 brought us “Last Day”: an ad that yanked our heartstrings hard. It also introduced me to the music of Devotchka (“How It Ends” subsequently became one of my favorite songs, for a lot of reasons). Then April of 2010 we got the announcement of Gears of War 3 with the “Ashes to Ashes” trailer, which had me looking for more music by Sun Kil Moon.

And then there was “What Have ...

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Check this bad boy out!

This was a Christmas present from my friend Eric Smith: welder and metal worker extraordinare. It’s the Crimson Omen from the Gears of War video game series done in steel! Eric designed it on computer and then precision-cut it out of a sheet of metal with a water jet. The picture does it no justice: this thing looks positivalutely gnarly up close and in person. Eric knew that I’m a big fan of the Gears of War franchise, and I am both thankful and humbled that he went to the effort to make this.

Now I just need to figure out how to fittingly display it. Any ideas? 🙂...

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Epic Games’ Cliff Blezinski on Last Night with Jimmy Fallon in the wee hours of this morning let the world in on what we already knew: that Gears of War 3 was coming in April 2011. An official press release from Epic and Microsoft gives a firmer date: April 5th, 2011 for the concluding chapter of the Gears of War trilogy.

Personally I’ve no doubt we’ll be seeing more games from this series though. It might – or might not – be the end of humanity’s war with the Locust Horde but there are plenty more tales to tell in the Gears saga. Such as the earlier Pendulum Wars, and the events surrounding E-Day.

But ’nuff with speculation. Take a looksee at “Ashes to Ashes”, the first trailer for Gears of War 3!

The song is “Heron Blue” by folk rock group Sun Kil Moon. Now you know. And ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

If you can’t hear the hair-rending going on right now at Epic Games’ studios in Cary not far away from here, I’d bet good money that Cliff Bleszinski’s Twitter feed is about to go pure apoplectic.

For more than a week Bleszinski – the creator of Epic’s Gears of War series – had been hinting heavily that his appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show on NBC late night would herald the announcement of Gears of War 3. That was supposed to have been last night, but something got messed up behind the scenes and Bleszinski’s appearance was postponed.

Unfortunately nobody got around to telling the management of Microsoft’s Xbox Live service about it. Here’s what greeted Xbox 360 players this morning when their consoles logged in…

Personally, I’d be sweating bullets right now. I mean, it can’t possibly pay to honk off a man who’s wedded a chainsaw to ...

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For a good while today many fans of the Gears of Wars video game series were taken aback by reports that Epic Games president Michael Capps had remarked at the Tokyo Game Show that the next installment in the series would have to wait for the next generation of consoles: putting it around 2011-2014. Which would be an awfully long wait.

Happily, it seems that things are more positive regarding the further adventures of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad. Capps has since clarified his statements:

After the event, Capps told Eurogamer that if there is another Gears of War in the the next four to five years, it would appear on existing platforms. If it’s based on the next Unreal Engine though, it’ll have to be for next-gen hardware: “If we ship a game in the next few years, it’ll be Unreal Engine 3. If we ship a game

...
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Our friend Greg at Music4Games.net passed along the terrific news that Gears of War 2 has won “Best Sound in a Video Game Production” at the Third Annual ELAN Awards. ELAN is the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and the Animated Arts.

At the ceremony, hosted by SpongeBob Squarepants‘ Bob Kenny, Gears of War 2 was honored for its audio engineering, which included a full-length score composed by Steve Jablonsky (who has also composed Transformers and its upcoming sequel, Desperate Housewives and many other films, games and television projects).

Congrats to audio director Mike Larson, composer Steve Jablonsky, sound designers Jamey Scott and Joey Kuras, and everyone at Epic Games on your win!

And for a complete list of winners at this year’s ELAN Awards, mash down here....

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WRAL is reporting that Cary-based Epic Games and DC Comics have announced plans to publish a Gears of War comic book/graphic novel this fall, in the lead-up to the release of Gears of War 2. The story is to be set after the conclusion of Epic’s 2006 mega-selling video game, which saw main character Marcus Fenix giving humanity a dire-needed victory over the Locust Horde.

A few days ago I wrote that I’d finished playing the game and how much I enjoyed it but that some more back-story would have been nice. I’m guessing this new comic is going to “flesh-out” the Gears of War saga greatly. Oh yeah, I started playing it again last night on Hardcore mode. So far so good… but I still doubt that I’ll ever try it on Insane 🙂...

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