An Engine Panel at the 2007 GCDC examined the benefits and challenges of licensing an engine versus deciding to build ones own, and addressed questions to ask during the decision process and what to look for in support after the decision has been made.

Krawall Gaming Network's Goetz Klingelhoefer moderated, and Cryptic Studios' (City of Heroes, City of Villains) Bruce Rogers, Crytek's (Crysis
» Read More 

Gizmodo staff gets a chance to try out Gears of War, Forza 2 and Bioshock on a newly unveiled 103-Inch HDTV.
» Read More 

Mark Rein has responded to the recent rumors about UE3 on PS3 problems and UT3 running 60fps at GC in a forum post in which he states that, "Epic heard that same kind of silliness about UE3 on Xbox 360 before we shipped Gears of War and we all know how that turned out."

He continues to say that :

"The only way to silence the uninformed critics is to ship the games and let them play them for themselves. We're continually optimizing our engine on all supported platforms and we will continue to do so for several years into this generation. What we ship on PC and PS3 this fall will be considerably better than the builds we're showing here at Games Convention in every aspect."
» Read More 

Epic Games president Micheal Capps has said that big budget marketing was key to the success of Gears of War - warning that many good games are ignored because they don't have the same level of support.

Capps was speaking during a Leipzig GCDC panel discussion about what makes a best-selling game. When asked by a member of the audience how important a role marketing plays he replied, "Absolutely tremendous... It's so unfortunate that I can list 20 games that were fantastic that nobody ever saw."
» Read More 

In the latest edition of the Official Xbox magazine #75, the Rumor Mole reports that, Epic says Xbox 360 won't get the nifty PC-exclusive content (namely, that brumak battle) from the Windows version of GOW as DLC because the engine can't handle it. But that doesn't mean it won't appear in GOW 2. Flashback anyone?...
» Read More 

Play N Trade Franchise, Inc., one of the fastest-growing franchises worldwide, has announced its National Gears of War Tournament, which will award a $2,000 in-store credit as the grand prize. Local rounds will be held Sept. 8, 2007, and the winning teams from around the country will compete for the national title on Sept. 15, 2007. Registration is open now at participating Play N Trade stores. The tournament is team play. Each team must have at least four players, and there is a $10 entry fee per person. A fifth player may be added as an alternate for an additional $10. Teams will be seeded into brackets, based on the number of teams entered. The tournament is double elimination, with the first team to win two of three maps advancing to the next round.
» Read More 

Microsoft's announcement on Gears of War on PC at this year's E3 didn't exactly knock us flat in shock, but it was a little surprising to learn that cross-platform support between PC and Xbox 360 wasn't planned.

After all, a massive game like Gears of War is surely just the thing to encourage PC gamers to try this feature that Microsoft's introduced in Games for Windows - Live, isn't it?
» Read More 

IESB.net claims that Len Wiseman, whose credits include the two Underworld films and Live Free or Die Hard, may direct Gears of War for New Line Cinema. Wiseman is perhaps better known as the husband of the gorgeous Kate Beckinsale. (That is the reason why guys want to become directors and filmmakers.)

The screenplay for Gears of War was written by Stuart Beattie and is slated for 2009 release, but pre-production has barely begun.
» Read More 

NECA have announced that it has entered into an agreement with Epic Games to make a full line of collectible action figures, busts, statues, dioramas and prop replicas from GOW and any potential sequels. They plan to have a full line of products available in 2008, including many of the most popular characters from the game.
» Read More 

In an interview with CVG at the Develop conference in Brighton, Mark Rein admitted that his game was going to get pummelled beyond belief by the might of Halo 3:

"All those records we broke with Gears of War are going down on September 25," Rein told CVG, "We've had a nice nine, ten months of being the record holder, and now we're going to get our ass kicked. In a good way."

Rein is referring to the records that Halo 2 held prior to Gears' release. Being that Halo 2 was the most played game on Xbox Live for over 2 years. Gears' impressive gameplay quality crushed this great Xbox Live title, but Rein feels that it is fine to be outperformed by a 'third generation' Xbox 360 title.

CVG, however poses a good question to gamers abroad: Will Halo 3's inevitable record-breaking sales success be crushed by the multiplatform GTA IV a month later?
» Read More 

Epic's Mark Rein has said it's "very unlikely" that the content the developer is creating exclusively for Gears of War on PC will ever be released for the original Xbox 360 version of the game. "It's very unlikely because the two code bases aren't compatible," Rein explained when we caught up with him earlier this week. "To do that, we would have to patch the 360 version and the size of the patch would probably dwarf all five updates we've done so far. It's just too much work. I can't see it ... » Read More

Gears of War is on its way to PC with some new missions and a map editor. The question on the minds of every Xbox 360 owner is whether or not these additions will make their way to Microsoft's console. In an interview with IGN PC, Epic's Lead Designer Cliff Bleszinski and Gears PC Producer Rod Fergusson dashed the dreams of millions of fans.
» Read More 

On July 27Th play with Velvet Revolver on Xbox live to play some Gears of War. The super group just recently dropped their second album Libertad on July 3rd featuring the single "She Builds Quick Machines". To play with Velvet Revolver, you need to send a friend request to the Gamertag GWFVelvet on the 27Th and hope that you're one of the lucky one's chosen to play with them.
» Read More 

Listen to your favourite quotes from the Xbox 360 game Gears of War. The soundboard features the multiplayer and the campaign modes from the Locusts and the COG killing crew including Marcus, Dom, Baird, Cole and Carmine.
» Read More 

Yesterday's openly salvo of GameTrailers.com's "E3 Business & Media Summit Awards" offered up nominations and winners across various categories, such as Best Racer, Best Action Adventure, Best PSP Game, and Best DS Game. And, to be honest, the winners and loses didn't really throw up many surprises.

However, today's second round of E3 Awards coverage may well stoke the fires of fervent fanboy fanaticism. And why?

Oh, because the Best First-Person Shooter category does not include nominations for Halo 3 and Killzone 2, because Sony comes under fire on various fronts in terms of Most Disappointing, and neither Mass Effect nor Assassin's Creed is given a nomination nod for Best Graphics ¿ while a revamped PC port of Gears of War certainly is.
» Read More 

The Gears of War Original Soundtrack features over an hour of orchestral music from the game written by Kevin Riepl, orchestrated and conducted by Corey Status, and performed by The Northwest Sinfonia orchestra.
» Read More 

AMN ran into Epic's Mark Rein and lead game designer Cliff Bleszinski during today's E3 2007 events.

When questioned on the possibility of the exclusive Gears of War PC content appearing on the Xbox 360, we found that the while technically possible, the chances are looking rather dim. While Mark Rein dodged the issue more or less, we found Cliffy B to be a bit more cooperative. "If we didn't have any exclusives on the PC, why would anybody have the PC version?" When asked if the extra content was a timed exclusive, Cliffy replied with "to-be-determined...
» Read More 

With the success of Gears of War on the Xbox 360, and its continuing powerful surge, its no surprise that rumours are abound for more from the epic Shooter...
» Read More 

Reports are suggesting that a PC version of Epic's Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War will finally be announced at E3 next week, following the appearance of an E3 montage gameplay trailer that's leaked onto the internet purportedly showing the game on PC. Of course, Gears of War on PC has always been a matter of "when" rather than "if." Epic's boss Mark Rein has said previously that a PC version is "inevitable." It's now expected that Microsoft will announce Gears of War under its Games for ... » Read More

Gears of War was clearly one of the standout titles of last year's holiday season. While the eye-searing graphics may have been the biggest draw, gamers found themselves treated to equally brilliant sound design, tight, visceral gameplay, and a compelling world to claw their way through. Tying all the elements together was the dynamic musical score by Kevin Riepl - a score that will finally see a commercial release on July 31st.

"The soundtrack CD was always something we wanted to do for Gears," Riepl told IGN recently. "It was put on the back burner for a bit until the game was released, but soon thereafter we started getting the ball rolling in finding the right distributor, mastering house, and a lot of legal issues that needed to be addressed when dealing with a soundtrack CD release."
» Read More