#epicgames
You can count on Gears of War fans when it comes to buying virtual goods in the name of doing good. Want proof? Epic Games' charity campaign tied to Gears of War 3 just raised over $150,000 for charity. More »
The fate of Gears of War 3's Clayton Carmine is sealed. Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski and Rod Fergusson wouldn't reveal what fate would ultimately befall the latest Carmine, but announced that the "Fate of Carmine" campaign has raised $150,000 for Child's Play.
Although the promotion/charity event ended September 1, it appears that the shirts are still available for purchase (SAVE CARMINE Male, Female / CARMINE MUST DIE Male, Female) on the Xbox Marketplace. We're sure that buying the apparel now won't affect Clayton's chance at survival, but it's unclear if the proceeds still go to charity -- we're following up with Microsoft.
Are you curious about the events that transpired between Gears of War 2 and the upcoming Gears of War 3? Apparently, there were enough to fill up an entire novel -- the recently announced Gears of War: Anvil Gate. The book, which focuses on a Locust attack on the titular settlement of Anvil Gate following the previous game in the series, was penned by prolific Gears scribe Karen Traviss.
Gears of War: Anvil Gate will arrive in bookstores on August 31, which should give you plenty of time to study up before Gears the Third comes out. Unless you're like, the slowest reader ever. In which case, you should go to bed, dude. It's already tomorrow.
#novel
Gears of War: Anvil Gate, the third book in the Gears of War novel series, will tell the story of what happened between the second and third video game. More »
Gears of War fans, we were wrong about you. A few weeks ago, Epic announced that fans would decide the fate of the latest Carmine in Gears of War 3. Here we were, assuming that all the chainsaw-loving Locust killers out there were ready to send another Carmine to his death, and now Epic reports that the majority of fans have voted for him to live.
So far. You see, voting is still open until Thursday, September 2, and apparently the race is still tight. As Epic notes, there's still time for all you procrastinating sadists to cast a vote by picking up a "Carmine Must Die" Avatar shirt on Xbox Live, or by purchasing a real one for yourself. Alternately, proactive peace-lovers can keep on snagging "Save Carmine" Avatar shirts, or their real-life counterparts.
Remember, all the proceeds go to Child's Play, so there's no need to feel bad about toying with Carmine's life.
Xbox.com: Add Save Carmine Tee (male) to your Xbox 360 download queue ($1.00)
Xbox.com: Add Save Carmine Tee (female) to your Xbox 360 download queue ($1.00)
Xbox.com: Add Carmine Must Die Tee (male) to your Xbox 360 download queue ($1.00)
Xbox.com: Add Carmine Must Die Tee (femaie) to your Xbox 360 download queue ($1.00)
#clips
Can fans take the Gears of War teaser formula and make it better? You know the formula, right? Grim, in-game capture of cinematic footage plus stark, haunting music plus COGs versus insurmountable odds equals great Gears of War ad. More »
The Gears of War 3 Avatar shirts that will determine the fate of the last living Carmine brother are now available on the Xbox Marketplace for 80 MS points ($1), with proceeds being donated to Child's Play. We know that Gears Executive Producer Rod Fergusson wants another Carmine stuffed over some locust mantel, but we hope you'll think of Mama Carmine when making your purchase.
Those who couldn't care less about the fate of another bullet-magnet Carmine meat shield, but still want to donate to Child's Play, can do it directly on the charity's site. Also, in retrospect, we wish Epic had done something like this for Dom's interpretation of "till death do you part" in Gears 2. Links to queue up the Carmine shirt DLC can be found after the breaks.
#hollywood
Third-person shooter Gears of War looked set to get the Hollywood treatment until the movie's director Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) decided to focus his attention on another motion picture. More »
We didn't think there was anything slower in the whole, entire universe than one of Gears of War 3's lumbering, impossibly muscle-bound protagonists. We were wrong -- as evidenced by the two GameTrailers videos posted below, that honor goes to the new Beast Mode's "Berserker" character.
North Carolina is going to provide some epic tax breaks to video game developers. According to the ESA, a bill signed by Governor Beverly Perdue will provide a 15 percent tax credit on "wages and compensation for employees involved in digital media production, or the creation of a platform or engine to run such media." Of course, the big winner here is North Carolina-based Epic Games, which swims in a lake of Unreal Engine money and develops games in its spare time. However, other benefactors of the tax breaks include Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and another dozen or so developers in the state. The incentives take effect January 1, 2011.
Publishers, developers and governments use tax breaks like Ezio wields the hidden blade. It's a weapon, either for financial defense (which seems to be the case in North Carolina) or aggression. With Canada's relentless siren call of tax incentives, if other countries and states don't step up their game, The Great White North will continue its Tim Hortons-fueled march to eventually developing most of the world's video games.
Rod Fergusson is the executive producer of Gears of War 3, and he wants Clayton Carmine to die. He wore a "Carmine Must Die" t-shirt at Microsoft's Comic-Con party last night, casting his vote for the fate of the third Carmine brother, but he's willing to leave the decision up to the fans: "They kept saying, 'How can you be so mean,' and 'What about Mrs. Carmine,' and 'What's that like [losing her sons]' -- all this stuff," he told us at the event. "And so we're like, let's just question them and see what they want."
Fergusson also shared a few development updates, relaying the most difficult part about designing the new Beast Mode: getting all of the playable beasts to control as solidly as Gears and Locust characters. "Just making sure the camera works from a Ticker to a Serapede to a Berserker," he explained, "just refining the technical ways of making people feel like they have control and that they're grounded in the character." It's not so much about balancing the beasts, though -- Epic wants these creatures to feel powerful, so "even if it's overbalanced a little towards the monsters, that's cool. We want to make players feel successful."
Thankfully, some development components have gone down smooth. "Ice-T is kicking it as Griffin," Fergusson reconfirmed. "We recorded it this week remote from New York ... Ice is doing a great, great job -- we wanted him to be him somewhat, but he's just bringing that character to life for us. It's really fun working with him on that stuff."
#xbox360
Before you decide on the fate of Gears of War 3 newb Clayton Carmine take a moment to consider the rookie in his majestic natural setting: Gun in hand, fist in face. More »
The Carmine family is something of a running gag in the Gears of War franchise. More of a dying gag, really, considering a Carmine brother has suffered an undignified death in each game thus far. Naturally, we were all set to see another Carmine brother bite the big one in Gears of War 3 ... and then developer Epic Games threw a curve ball. Rather than putting a red shirt on the latest Carmine -- Clayton, the hulking brute you see above -- Epic is leaving his fate in your hands.
Starting July 29, players will be able to buy two new shirts on Avatar Marketplace, one emblazoned with "Save Carmine" and the other with "Carmine Must Die." Each shirt purchased counts as a vote toward one fate or the other. The winning vote will then be implemented in Gears of War 3. We'd call it shameless ploy to sell virtua-shirts, but the proceeds will go to the Child's Play charity.
If you're headed to Comic-Con this week, the NECA booth (#3145) will also be selling real versions of both shirts for $20. And yes, they do count as votes. Frankly, we'd like to see the Carmine family redeem itself, but we get the feeling that real Gears fans are kind of sadistic. We've placed a poll after the break to confirm our suspicions.
#usausausa
This weekend was July 4, Independence Day. It's America's biggest national holiday. And it's got me thinking about American games — namely, as this post title indicates, what makes American games "American"? More »
#wat
Maybe you know someone who's just a little too cray-cray for Gears of War. If not, now you do. Meet iSekC, who's cuckoo for Cole Train and was knighted by Cliff Bleszinski himself as the game's No. 1 fan. More »
During E3, we managed to distract Cliff Bleszinski, design director for Epic Games and the face of Gears of War, long enough for an interview. Despite our intense interrogation, he remained a good sport throughout and offered us candid answers. The full interview follows.
Joystiq: Most of the things we want to ask, you probably can't talk about yet -- like Gears 3 multiplayer ...
Cliff Bleszinski: Can't talk about that yet.
Okay, let's try it this way: in Gears 1, a lot of people complained about opponents being able to roadie run into them, stun them with a punch and then shoot them -- and you guys fixed that with updates. Are you concerned that the new spearing ability, with the retro Lancer, is going to lead to similar complaints in Gears 3 multiplayer?
You know, we try our best that before we ship, we balance these things as much as possible. But when you release into the wild, you never know what the gamers are going to come up with.
So in regards to the Lancer charge, we're going to try our best to, you know, play with it as much as we can and you never know. We did six title updates to Gears 2 and we continue to refine that experience. Matchmaking wasn't the best at the start, but we stand behind our products and continue to support them.
#e3
Tucked away in the dimly lit back room of a defunct subterranean power plant in downtown Los Angeles, music pulsing, crowds surging, I concentrate on the task at hand: Blowing myself up, taking as many people with me as I can. More »
If you were absent, either online or otherwise, from the Microsoft press conference last week at E3, you probably missed out on Cliff Bleszinski's brief demonstration of Gears of War 3's single-player campaign. No worries -- through the power of internet magic, we've captured this moment in time and embedded it in a video posted after the jump. Now you can witness all the profanity, bloodshed and bayoneting from the safety and comfort of your own home.
Beast mode in Gears of War 3 is best described as "inverse Horde." It has you playing as the Locust while you go after waves of CPU-controlled human enemies, who pack Lancers, auto-turrets and even the Hammer of Dawn. As you progress through each wave, the humans become tougher -- both through their tactics and arsenal of weaponry at their disposal, not to mention the ticking of the clock menacingly counting down to zero in the background throughout each wave. And after my time playing this new mode, it's a brilliant fit for Gears of War.
We recently sat down (literally) for a chat with Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski here at E3 and grilled him on all things Gears of War 3. While he couldn't give us much on the planned changes to Versus mode, he did confirm that everyone's favorite co-op online mode from Gears of War 2, Horde mode, would in fact return in Gears of War 3.
Even though Beast mode is in the limelight right now, it doesn't mean Epic Games has forgotten about Horde mode. "Everyone's assuming, for some reason, on my Twitter and stuff, that we're not going to have Horde," Bleszinski said. "Horde will be back. We're just not talking about it right now."
You can look for our full interview with Bleszinski in the next few days.
#gearsofwar
Just because Marcus Fenix has a neck of steel doesn't mean he has a heart of steel. He is a man, and men have feelings. Which he may indulge from tie to time, when he's not busy chainsawing things. More »
#gearsofwar
Don't call Ice-T a liar, because tonight it's been confirmed that the rapper and TV cop will be playing the role of Griffin in Epic's 2011 shooter. More »
That rumor about Ice-T playing a role in Gears of War 3? Totally true. The man himself took the stage at tonight's Gears of War 3 shindig in downtown LA, as indicated by Major Nelson on Twitter (and seen in the picture above, also care of Major's tweet). Apparently, he'll voice a character named Griffin, with Gears creator Cliff Bleszinski mentioning Ice "won't stop telling everyone about his role as Griffin in Gears 3."
What's that, you say? You're just as excited as we are to hear Ice-T's debut gameplay voiceover role? Good! Now get back to reading about E3 2010, won't you?
