Unreal Tournament III

Epic Games founder and current CEO Tim Sweeney has been selected as the 16th inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) Hall of Fame. Set to be made official during the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit this February, the honor will see Sweeney rewarded for his contributions to gaming, including his development of the Unreal Engine and his hand in creating some of gaming's most memorable franchises.

“Tim’s vision has changed the face of gaming with the advent of the Unreal Engine and the commitment of Epic, as a studio, to bring both consumer and industry-facing technology to new heights.” said Martin Rae, President of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Science...

How's your graphics card these days? Strong like bull? Well maybe you might want to start looking around for an affordable supply of digital steroids just in case. Epic Games showed off some real-time footage of their next set of upgrades to their Unreal Engine 3 at GDC, showcasing a whole bunch of rig-bursting new features.

The demo was apparently intended as a prompt to hardware manufacturers to get their kit ready for the incandescent pixel-joy Epic is preparing to unleash in the future. How much is that future going to cost? Possibly a fair chunk, but don't worry about that. Just ogle the prettiness for now.

Unreal Engine 3 has probably lived beneath a majority of the games you've played since 2006 - it's been the framework for well over 100 major titles, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect, BioShock, and, of course, Epic's own creations. That's why it's a big deal that Epic plans to unveil the next version of the engine at GDC next week...

Yep, that's the word from Lord Clifford of Bleszinskishire. Gears of War 3 will include special unlockable content if you've played other Epic games. No word on what yet, or exactly how it'll work, but it'll most likely be a case of Gears 3 opening up little game-specific presents when it finds the right save files on your hard drive. Like Psycho Mantis, only with less levitating gimps. Either way, Cliff has given a few titles as examples.

Witchcraft. Seriously, just witchcraft. I've been playing games for decades now, and I've got a pretty good grasp of technology and development techniques, yet still the occult is the only explanation I have for what Epic Games and Chair Entertainment are pulling off with the recently unveiled iPhone version of the Unreal Engine 3.

You've probably already read mine and Justin's ebullient geek-out over the Gears of War dev's Epic Citadel tech demo. If you haven't, click here. In short, Xbox 360 in your pocket. But now, via an iPhone 4 promo video, the first tiny snatch of footage from the game proper has appeared. And that means you should probably click here too.

What do you want from the next generation of consoles? Pixar-quality graphics? Ultra-capacity Blu-ray as standard? Immense game worlds with procedurally-generated everything, to create a sense of lifelike interaction like never before? Or how about a beefed-up tablet computer that'll make you look like a twat in the pub for the few brief moments it survives before being smashed, covered in booze, or converted it into heroin by local scallies via the transformative medium of theft?

Epic's Mark Rein is swinging towards the latter. Click on for his arguments, then tell me what you think.