epic
November 24th, 2009 at 10:08am
Under Uncategorized
Cliff Bleszinski has been working in game development for quite some time, starting out with the release of his first game in 1991, an adventure game by the name of ‘The Palace of Deceit: Dragon’s Plight,’ before moving onto designing games that are arguably more well known, such as Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and then Gears of War 1 and 2.
Throughout this time, Bleszinski has played a ton of videogames made by other developers, some of which have even had an affect on the games he’s worked on, as well as found a special place in his heart.
Speaking to Industry Gamers, Bleszinski has listed his top ten (well, twelve) favourite games, which are as follows:
- GoldenEye/Halo
- Contra
- GTA III
- Tetris Attack/Pokémon Puzzle League
- Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Super Metroid
- BioShock
- Super Bomberman
- Doom
- Half-Life 2
Be sure to read the full article on Industry Gamers to read Bleszinski’s reasons for picking these as his favourites.
Continue Reading What are Cliff Bleszinski’s favourite games of all time?
Tags: cliffbleszinski, epic, gearsofwar, gearsofwar2, News, toplist
By Mister-X
Continue Reading What are Cliff Bleszinski’s favourite games of all time?
November 19th, 2009 at 06:20pm
Under Xbox 360
With Shadow Complex setting very specific week-one sales records on XBLA, Epic and Chair would be kind of nuts to not consider a sequel. One job listing out of a recent crop on Microsoft’s employment boards seems to out that likely scenario, implying that Shadow Complex is a bona fide franchise for Microsoft Game Studios and Epic. Said listing specifically calls for a Lead Producer to “lead the publishing side of games made by Epic: Gears of War and Shadow Complex.”
Additionally, Microsoft appears to be looking for more able bodies to join its growing pool of Project Natal and 343 Industries employees. Existing job listings call for everything from designers to engineers to even a few artists. Sadly, the company isn’t looking for MJOLNIR armor models yet, but just in case, Microsoft, you know how to reach us.
[Via Develop]
Microsoft lists more jobs for Project Natal, 343 Industries; hiring Shadow Complex, Gears of War franchises lead originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Microsoft lists more jobs for Project Natal, 343 Industries; hiring Shadow Complex, Gears of War franchises lead
Tags: 343-industries, chair, chair-entertainment, employment, epic, epic-games, gears-of-war, halo, job-listing, jobs, microsoft, microsoft-game-studios, project-natal, shadow-complex, xbla
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Microsoft lists more jobs for Project Natal, 343 Industries; hiring Shadow Complex, Gears of War franchises lead
November 5th, 2009 at 09:45pm
Under Xbox 360
Now that Epic’s rolled out TU5 for Gears of War 2, it’s geared up to celebrate the game’s first anniversary of existence with a triple XP event spanning the next nine days. Starting tomorrow at 9 AM EST through Monday, November 16 at 9 AM EST, all players will not only get triple the delicious experience points, but also access to a new tactical mode across all game modes — which adds increased weapon damage and decreased ammo counts. On top of that, there’s going to be “a few subtle tweaks,” including a longer down-but-not-out phase for revivals and individual playlists that will allow you to play the exact gametype you want.
For you masochists out there, Epic will crank up Public Horde’s difficulty to hardcore — and if you’ve been playing Gears of War 2 through all of its changes, odds are you kinda are.
[Thanks, Nick!]
Gears of War 2 celebrates first anniversary with triple XP originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: epic, epic-games, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Gears of War 2 celebrates first anniversary with triple XP
October 27th, 2009 at 08:38am
Under Uncategorized
Gears of War 2 recently received its fifth (!) title update, bringing with it a number of improvements, exploit fixes and general fixes to further smoothen out any issues you currently have with the game. You can read through a list of those fixes a little further below.
Additionally, Epic announced that they’ll be hosting another double XP event weekend, beginning on the morning of October 30th (this Friday), giving you the chance to earn double the normal amount of experience points in competitive multiplayer and Horde modes.
Epic hasn’t forgotten about Halloween, either, and will be making changes to Horde mode to make it “appropriately ‘scary’ for Halloween.” Their plans sound insane. From the post:
“Beyond that though we wanted to mess with the waves in Horde to try and make it appropriately “scary” for Halloween. So while Butchers seemed on target for the theme, they didn’t provide enough umph to make it scary.
“So we thought, what if any of the many Boomers could attack on any wave and when possible, a full Boomer squad consisting of Grinders, Butchers, Flame Boomers and regular Boomshot Boomers could appear and attack all at once. And of course waves 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 would be nothing but wave after wave of Boomers. Sounds scary and fun to me!”
“For those of you scoring from home,” continued the post, “you may notice that I didn’t mention the Maulers (aka the Boomers with exploding flail and shield). That’s because for this event we’re pulling them out. We figured what is the fun of having a massive Boomer onslaught when you can just plant a shield to block them off. So unless the shield is part of the map, you’re on your own!”
That’s pretty intense, so good luck to anyone playing this weekend! You’ll need it!
The full list of fixes and improvements brought to Gears of War 2 with Title Update 5 follows below:
Improvements
- Adds the ability to view friendly-planted grenades in Tac/Com.
- Removes the cringe caused when a smoke grenade forces a player to drop a meatshield.
- Adds bonus points to the winning leader’s score in the Guardian game mode if the leader successfully survives the winning round.
- Changes the postmatch Invite button to only invite former teammates, so a player can create parties more easily instead of trying to create a Private Match that includes both teams from the former match.
- Returns the roadie-run camera movements to the way they were in Gears of War 1 by decreasing the dampening values.
Exploit Fixes
- A player could modify the game’s behavior due to a security vulnerability introduced in an earlier title update.
- A player could use a turbo controller to artificially maximize their rate of fire.
- A player could mantle a planted shield in competitive multiplayer to hide inside geometry or to travel outside of the map. The ability to mantle shields was removed in competitive multiplayer but remains in Horde and Campaign.
- Title Update 5 also fixes a number of other, lesser-known exploits.
General Fixes
- An issue that contributed to the “sticky walk” problem, where a player’s avatar could stutter after the player picks up a weapon.
- An issue that could prevent players from hearing the “boom” telegraph from Boomers.
- An issue that could cause looping audio to continue playing after the player who triggered that sound is killed.
- An issue that could cause multiple names to be highlighted yellow on the scoreboard instead of the name of the player viewing the scoreboard.
- An issue that prevented the game from granting the earned experience points from the fiftieth wave of Horde.
- An issue that caused players at level 100 to see the “congratulations” message after every match.
Continue Reading Gears of War 2 gets fifth title update, double XP weekend planned
Tags: dlc, epic, gearsofwar2, News, titleupdate, xbox360
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Gears of War 2 gets fifth title update, double XP weekend planned
October 26th, 2009 at 02:35pm
Under Xbox 360
In celebration of Halloween and the impending release of a new title update, Epic’s Rod Fergusson has announced that Gears of War 2 will be hosting a double XP weekend starting this Friday, October 30. In addition to awarding double XP in all multiplayer modes, the game will be featuring an extra “scary” lineup of Locusts in Horde mode. Specifically, Fergusson notes that Horde mode will feature lots of extra Boomers, including some waves comprised entirely of Boomers. An entire squad composed of Flamers, Grinders and good old Boomshot Boomers?
Yeah, pretty scary.
[Via VG247]
Halloween brings spooky Gears 2 double XP weekend originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Halloween brings spooky Gears 2 double XP weekend
Tags: epic, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, microsoft-game-studios, xbox-live
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Halloween brings spooky Gears 2 double XP weekend
October 23rd, 2009 at 02:45pm
Under Xbox 360
Epic’s latest list of fixes to Gears of War 2’s online multiplayer aims to satisfy what seems to be an ever-growing community of dissatisfied gamers.
The new Title Update (#5) reverts the roadie-run camera back to its state in the first Gears of War and fixes an exploit where “a player could modify the game’s behavior due to a security vulnerability introduced in an earlier title update.” The update also kills the ability to use turbo controllers with the game — something folks have been using to increase their rate of fire — and turns off the ability to mantle the shield in competitive multiplayer matches, eradicating the ability to escape the map or glitch certain pieces of geometry.
The fixes sound all well and good, but is it enough to bring folks back to the game and satisfy those still playing with a chip on their massive, hulkish shoulders? We’ll all find out when the update goes live, which Epic’s Rod Fergusson says could happen as early as today or Monday.
Gears of War 2 TU5 passes cert; Epic passes along list of fixes originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Gears of War 2 TU5 passes cert; Epic passes along list of fixes
Tags: epic, epic-games, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, multiplayer, title-update-5
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Gears of War 2 TU5 passes cert; Epic passes along list of fixes
October 14th, 2009 at 02:15pm
Under Xbox 360
It’s a sad testament to how much we loved Shadow Complex that we were able to spend several happy minutes simply poring over Chair’s hand-drawn proto-map for the game, as obtained by MTV Multiplayer. As an added bonus, we got to hear the story of Chair staffers playing the game with their imaginations, tracing a stick figure’s journey through a giant-sized version of the map as they tried to perfectly balance the experience.
Golly! Imagination? Non-electronic games? What will video game developers think of next?
Ogle Chair’s hand-drawn Shadow Complex map originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: chair, epic, shadow-complex, xbla
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Ogle Chair’s hand-drawn Shadow Complex map
October 9th, 2009 at 05:15pm
Under Xbox 360
Cheaters beware! Epic’s Rod Fergusson recently popped into the Gears forums to let everyone know that Gears of War 2’s fifth Title Update is currently in the works and will hit Xbox Live sometime soon. The new update will not only add some new features to the game — no more “sticky walk” and you’ll be able to see friendly grenade plants in Tac/Com — but will also put an end to a rather nasty cheating hack that surfaced shortly after TU4. Cheating in Gears — who’da thunk it?
We’ll be sure to let you know when the TU5 is available.
[Thanks, Kyle B]
Epic prepping TU5 for Gears of War 2 originally appeared on Joystiq Xbox on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Epic prepping TU5 for Gears of War 2
Tags: epic, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, title-update, title-update-5, xbox-live
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Epic prepping TU5 for Gears of War 2
October 9th, 2009 at 12:40pm
Under Xbox 360
Epic and Microsoft have long been cozy bedfellows, comfortably sharing the covers with each other for years. Now that partnership has extended to Microsoft’s proposed game changer, Project Natal. Speaking to Epic’s marketing maestro, Mark Rein, OXM asked what Natal’s use of the Unreal engine implied for the futures of both companies.
“I think any future Xbox games we make will have some Natal support,” Rein commented. “We always want to have something that exploits the unique capabilities of a platform.” While Rein had no idea what type of game Epic would make with Natal, he did have some ideas on how Natal could improve the hardcore experience — namely, simplifying the controls.
An example he used was taking one’s hand off the controller to mimic throwing a grenade, or using a hand gesture to signal your squad move to a certain location. On paper it sounds great, but we have to question how much such controls could improve on what is arguably one of the easiest things one could ever do: pushing a button.
Mark Rein: future Epic games will have ’some’ Natal support originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Mark Rein: future Epic games will have ’some’ Natal support
Tags: epic, gears-of-war, gears-of-war-2, mark-rein, project-natal
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Mark Rein: future Epic games will have ’some’ Natal support
August 31st, 2009 at 06:40pm
Under Xbox 360
That’s, um, sales of single-player games (multiplayer ones don’t count!). And, uh, you know, we’re just talking about Xbox Live Arcade titles — not that clarifying this awfully specific sales record is an attempt to take away from the much-deserved success of Chair’s excellent Shadow Complex or the 200,000-plus downloaders (much of the Joystiq staff included) who didn’t wait long to cash in 1200
.
Still, we’re not going to label Shadow Complex’s sales Achievement(R) (as Microsoft does) the “New Era of Downloadable Games.” It takes far too much effort to produce a decent Metroidvania experience than it does a mediocre dual-stick shooter, after all.
We will, however, join in on the not-so-subtle peer pressuring. Seriously, you still haven’t purchased Shadow Complex? Shame on you. (So … just direct deposit that check, cool? Thanks Microsoft!)
Shadow Complex sets week-one sales record originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue Reading Shadow Complex sets week-one sales record
Tags: chair, chair-entertainment, epic, epic-games, microsoft, sales, shadow-complex, xbla
By Mister-X
Continue Reading Shadow Complex sets week-one sales record
