Actually, I got him talking about the porn in landfills part.

But you did good too!

If ever there was a must-listen episode — one with a charming three goof-ups on my part — this is it!

Host: Stephen Totilo
Guest: Cliff Bleszinski

Music: Brentalfloss

Download The Show Through These Means:
Chatting With Gears of War's Cliff Bleszinski [Blog Talk Radio]
Chatting With Gears of War's Cliff Bleszinski [iTunes]

Give us a ring! Ask away.

To listen, head over to our BlogTalkRadio page. Unfortunately, you can only listen live on the BlogTalkRadio website.

Want to be heard on Kotaku Talk Radio? Call us on the air LIVE at (347) 857-3782 or use Skype to dial in!

Listen to the show here.

The chief architect of the Gears of War series and a fun guy to chat games with, Cliff will follow in the Kotaku podcast guest-appearance tradition of Ken Levine, Tim Schafer and ... Michael McWhertor (a lucky "get," as they say).

This is your chance to ask Bleszinski about Gears of War, Unreal, his favorite color, Epic Games, Mark Rein, Shadow Complex and whatever else. Don't expect a Gears 3 announcement, but, hey, maybe he'll be in a generous mood!

Look for a reminder post about the podcast at 10:55 AM mountain time (12:55 ET) tomorrow. The post will include call-in info so you can ask your questions. The show will be live at 11am MT, 1pm ET. That's Wednesday. Tomorrow.

If this goes well, maybe we can get Crecente to fill in at Bleszinski's job for a day.

Many have made the comparison of Gearbox's Borderlands to Diablo. Cliffy B certifies it with this unsolicited Tweet: "Borderlands, I adore you. You're Diablo for a generation raised on first person shooters. I want a Claptrap statue."

That can be arranged, Cliff.

Cliff Bleszinski's Twitter [via Hot Blooded Gaming]

Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine productions and the man behind Brutal Legend, and Cliff Bleszinski, Epic Games designer and the face of Gears of War, sent in a slew of shots from their offices.

Here's a taste, the rest you'll find in our epic gallery here.

On Major Nelson's podcast, the game designer explained, "If there's any future Gears products [coughs elaborately], it's not the kind of thing you tag onto a game like that, right?"

Well........

"So what you have is the 360 which has captured a lot of the video viewing audience [with] movies and Netflix," Bleszinski continued, "it's captured a lot of the online gaming, it's captured a lot of the hardcore games, and you know segue that in, so now you have your yoga program, now you have your dodgeball thing, you have the creepy kid Milo who wants to drown you in the pond — you can do all of it."

But................

"Will it replace traditional gaming? No," he said, "but it's another amazing way that we can expand the gaming experience to a wider audience and enhance what's already there."

But, but, but, what about our Gears of War yoga dodgeball game with a creepy kid? Not making that game, dude, would be a huge mistake.

Show #326: Gaming in Germany, Gears of War and 'Splosion Man [Major Nelson via Eurogamer via VG247]

I've spent two hours and twenty minutes this morning with the game, a game made with great love for its predecessors. And no, of course it's not as brilliant as Super Metroid — what has the cleverness, the pacing, the geographic diversity, the unusual mix of power-ups? But it's clearly a game built on the same values. It's a game made to be played like it's a map being traced with a finger, followed closely, fueled by the excitement of where to explore next and where to come back to later.

Here's how it is shaping up so far…

What Is It?
Shadow Complex is an Xbox Live Arcade game set for release when it's steamy outside, an August alternative to the heat. It is a side-scrolling adventure game in the style of 2D Metroids and Castlevanias, but rendered with a 3D engine. As with its inspirations, it is a game about exploring, finding power-ups and using newly enhanced abilities to reach previously inaccessible areas of the map. This one's all about a guy fighting his way through an enormous underground sci-fi military base and, so far, trying to keep his girlfriend alive. It comes from Chair Entertainment and parent company Epic Games, chiefly designed by Donald Mustard with oversight from Gears of War alpha-developer Cliff Bleszinski. It's a 1200-point game, costing $15 and the build I downloaded, which appears to be final, is close to 900 MB.

What We Saw
I was supplied with code of the game that appears complete. I played the first two hours and twenty minutes, discovering 32% of the game's expansive 2D-map and finding 20% of its mostly-hidden power-ups.

How Far Along Is It?
The game appears to be done, but because it's a downloadable, it's probably eligible for more last-minute tweaking than most.

What Needs Improvement?
Too Much Nostalgia: One of the themes of Kotaku's coverage this week has been developers' love of past influences and the extent to which that love can be applied too thickly. Shadow Complex's first hour is almost a sequence of homages to sequences from Super Metroid, Empire Strikes Back and other boys-will-be-boys action-packed inspirations. Evoking the past so much is risky, especially given that this game's chief interactive predecessor is considered one of the greatest games of all time. That the early action in the game is more conventional and its environmental puzzles less interesting than Super Metroid's initially sets Shadow Complex needlessly back. It's only when Shadow Complex starts getting past the early homages and starts showing off its own ideas that it demonstrates its worth. (That first hour isn't helped with its Uncharted homage. Yes, you have the voice-actor, but did you also need to dress your guy in the half-tucked shirt?)

Ledge-Grabbing: The controls are mostly good but compromised in one common way: it's hard to sometimes know whether you're going to drop from a ledge or just hang from it, whether you're able to pull yourself up from a ledge or whether you're going to be stuck. A smoother scheme there would be nice. Otherwise, exploration is a breeze. Finding the hidden nooks and crannies is, as always, great fun.

Blind Enemies: It was good for Metroids to be set on worlds full of dumb monsters and Castlevanias to have dullards as foes. It's less convincing to see Shadow Complex's military-base guards and super-soldiers not recognize our hero when he's standing in the same room, just because he's a little too far away but standing in plain view.

What Should Stay The Same?
An Identity Of Its Own: A couple of moments in the first two hours show what Shadow Complex can do that its predecessors never did. I won't spoil them, but just know that they take advantage of the modern technology being used in the game. And that tech helps this game a lot. This is a Metroid/Castlevania-style game with audio cues, lots of smart use of vocals, and great graphical depth. It's one in which 3D lighting and the hero's flashlight can make hunting for weakened hatches and ducts a more visually interesting endeavor. I did not get far enough into the game to find Shadow Complex's more unconventional gadgets, which will surely distinguish the game even more from others in its genre. Where I'm at, it's a game of machine guns and grenades — a different set of armament than you'd see in a Castlevania, to be sure — but not yet one that allows the action to be consistently clever. The good news is: the game appears to be getting there the further I play.

Pacing: One of Bleszinski's favorite hallmarks of good game design is good pacing. That's evident early as Shadow Complex moves smoothly from one exciting firefight to the discovery of an interesting new environment and then back to an interesting combat scene, punctuated with the discovery of a new gun or the hints of a new hidden power-up to crawl around and find, maybe hidden under an elevator or above the cafeteria full of guards.

Depth-Perception: The game's made in 3D but played in 2D. And that's used to great effect almost every minute of the first two hours. You'll think you've shot the last guard in the room when a door in what should have just been the boring background graphics of the level opens and a phalanx of troops rush in for the kill. It looks great and is fun, particularly because you can shoot into the background. You may only be able to move in 2D, but your gun does 3D. It's Shadow Complex's strongest quality and one that will make it tough to ever return to flatter games in this genre.

Final Thoughts
As I said up top, Shadow Complex could never hope to be as good as the best Metroid and Castlevania games, and I don't think its developers expected it to be. What I've played so far — past an opening a little too in love with the past — shows signs of how this genre can move forward. I haven't even mentioned the XP system which adds a little RPG character growth for every discovered room, every kill — and a multiplier for more if the kills are done creatively.

Shadow Complex is looking like a strong new entry in a style of game that too few developers seem interested in trying to make. Maybe other developers are intimidated. The bravado evident in the well-paced action so far shows that these guys most certainly were not.

Bleszinski believes that the future of shooters is RPGs. Does that mean Gears of War 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 will be an RPG-influenced shooters?

It depends on where things go. I mean, one could wean that from the comments I made earlier about the future of shooters is RPGs and see where things are going with us.

We really hope that Bleszinski brings back the classic Gears of War style for Gears 7. That's our own selfish wish. Sorry.

The future of shooters is RPGs – Bleszinski [Develop]

Then we made a typo, and he became "Dude Huge" — well, Bleszinski jokingly wanted us to call him "Dude Huge". Now? In an interview with OXM, the designer doesn't seem to care what you call him:

Honestly, that was just a media experiment to me. It was Stephen Totilo [former MTV Multiplayer editor, current Kotaku Deputy Editor] who started it — I had an IM conversation with him and said, "I'm thinking of abandoning that." And he broke it on MTV Multiplayer, and it got picked up everywhere, and then it turned into "Who does he think he is?" Dude, the fact that you're getting upset just means you're playing along with my joke here. You can call me whatever you like as long as you play the game.

That's awfully generous of him. Those thinking of calling D.H. a douchebag, he's one step ahead of you, calling himself a "giant douchebag" in the same interview.

Hello, My Name Is Cliff [OXM]

Shadow Complex is the third exclusive game from Epic for the Xbox 360, a dramatic stylistic shift from two Gears of Wars. This one's a just-about-modern-day side-scrolling adventure for Xbox Live Arcade primarily designed by Epic's newly-acquired Chair Entertainment, whose design lead, Donald Mustard has distinguished himself as a big ideas man.

The game comes together as the developers may finally be coming into its own. The Chair principals' first game, the ambitious, cosmic Advent Rising, disappointed many and is one of the first installments of a planned trilogy that stalled at one. But Chair's second effort, the underwater combat game Undertow set graphical benchmarks for an XBLA game, which Mustard believes this new game can now surpass.

He predicted to Kotaku during our hands-on session that this will be the biggest XBLA game yet — at least in terms of size.

What Is It?
Shadow Complex unabashedly plays like a 2D Metroid, with its hero traversing 2D levels and backtracking to previously inaccessible areas once he gains more power-ups. Instead of being a lady in a suit of armor who can roll into a ball and shoot monsters, he's a guy with in combat gear who can crouch low if need be and shoot mechs.

What We Saw
Pressed for time, I sat with Mustard as he talked me through an early level in the game. He had me button-mashing to skip his own cutscenes so I could find the hero's pistol, start crawling through ducts, backtrack through alternate routes accessible because I now had the gun that would open my way to them and appreciate that, yes, this game feels like a well-developed child of Mother Brain's favorite series.

How Far Along Is It?
Shadow Complex is set for a summer release, so the game must be close to completion.

What Needs Improvement?
Movement: Metroid games, at least as I remember them, empower the player to perform acrobatic movement fluidly. The hero in Shadow Complex could run well, but he didn't reliably grab ledges or duck when I needed him to. Nothing another fine-tuning of the controls can't fix so that I can focus on movement and exploration, not get frustrated that my guy's not operating as I commanded.

What Should Stay The Same?
The Metroid Stuff: The mini-map for this game is a direct "homage" of the Metroid map, as it creates a colored grid that charts the corridors you've discovered. An optional feature will show the player where to go next on the map, but thankfully that can be turned off for those of us who never needed help to find Kraid or the Screw Attack. The backtracking is looking good. One hopes it is more clever than it is tedious, the knife's edge on which all Metroid games teeter.

The Non-Metroid Stuff: No Metroid side-scroller had this much visual depth, which, thanks to the Unreal Engine or not, allows Shadow Complex's combat to have a faked third dimension. Imagine the hero running from left to right down a street and reaching an intersection. From the distance, over the intersecting road, comes a helicopter attacking our hero. Moving the hero's targeting cursor over that helicopter doesn't just cause our guy to shoot at it, but it turns him so that his gun points toward it and his bullets fire back toward the chopper, as if the battlefield was in 3D. It's a flashy visual trick that adds depth without keeping the game from being classified as a 2D adventure.

Final Thoughts
One hopes that Shadow Complex will eventually be able to boast an identity of its own, but for a first impression, it compares well to its Metroid inspiration. While the game is ultimately being creatively overseen by Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, the fact that Mustard is the driving force — and that the gap is narrowing between his hype for his games and what he and Chair have been delivering — there's reason to anticipate Shadow Complex as an important XBLA release.

We've cherry picked three of our favorites Mohr told about the gaming industry:

Directed at LittleBigPlanet's Alex Evans about the DIY hit: "It's like buying CD, plugging it in, and then having to go buy all the instruments."

Directed at gaming-legend-turned-astronaut Richard Garriott: "That guy used 30 million to launch himself into space. Maybe he should have used that to launch Tabula Rasa."

Directed at Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski for dropping the "y" from his first name to seem more adult: "That worked well for Rick Schroder."

A couple more yuck-yucks in the link below.

DICE 2009: Jokes That Mock Top Game Developers [MTV Multiplayer]

Sorry, no more updates from cliffy_b about doing one-armed push ups, physically abusing Epic VP Mark Rein or, in general, how awesome it is to be Cliff Bleszinski on a daily basis. The gentlemen responsible for the 166 fake Twitter updates from the fake Cliffster were informed that their account had been renamed, locked, and was being investigated for "allegations of copyright violations."

Wait... seriously? Or is this just one of those baseless threats that companies like to toss around hoping someone's just as clueless on the receiving end of the e-mail?

According to the twosome behind the fake cliffy_b persona, Twitter reps explained that the account cancellation was in violation of the site's terms of service, noting "Impersonation is against our terms of service unless it's parody."

I suppose if someone at Twitter had seen the "approved" Cliff PR photos, they might not be able to make the distinction between real and fake. We, however, know that Cliff's not a one-armed push up kind of guy — he can do 'em with zero arms.

If you'd like to relive all the great cliff_b memories, they're still available at the updated link below.

Fake Cliffy_B [Twitter]

It's pretty damn funny, and touches on a lot of the current issues without being pedantic. Here's 'CliffyB's' advice on streamlined writing:

4.) Treat Words Like Lovers, Be Picky: If you don’t choose your words carefully you will piss off readers and they will leave unproductive comments like “U R MR GAY.” Even if you are Mr. Gay, which is totally fine, you want a discussion in the comments, not aggressive statements.

For example, say a journo writes, “I think CliffyB’s friggin neat and he does neat stuff.” In reality, the journo knows I’m fan-friggin-tastic, I have perfect hair, and I make for a solid best friend. Now, don’t be verbose, but try to express yourself entirely and concisely with charm and wit. And if you’re lucky, your readers will want to be your friggin best friend too.

Welcome back, guys at Hardcasual — this piece is definitely good for a read, as are several of their more recent pieces.

The Cliffster’s Badass Plan to Fix New Games Journo [Hardcasual]

Hit the jump for an uncensored version. It's anime-style, but should still be stomach churning to those who haven't erased the original image from their brains. Note: New to the internet and unfamiliar with Tubgirl? Check out this text only Wiki entry. Anyone who posts or links the actual picture in the comments section will get cozy with the brunt end of the Banhammer.

You Can Find Her In The Tub [Hawty McBloggy]

That's the extent of the details Q-man is willing to give, only noting that the title is "multi-platform" — which we'll interpret to mean Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and (maybe) PC, not Nintendo DS and PSP. We'll hold tight for the EGM cover story on the matter or hope that Cliff just spills the beans in the comments.

Quartermann: Cliff Bleszinski's Next Game a Survival Horror Title? [1UP]

The designer talks about developer Epic's motion for making the game ("Why not?"), confirms that the sequel is longer and mentions that DLC might be released “somewhere possibly down the line." It's a pretty good interview, complete with Dude talking about hair semen and 15 year-old boys — tongue planted firmly in cheek. Um...yeah.

Listen Here [vicbarryvos.com via Vic Barry via VG247]

Fable II looks cool. And Resident Evil 5 is next year, right? I'm dying for that, I loved RE4. Street Fighter IV looks sick, and Dead Space also looks solid. I'm a fan of horror games — I loved Event Horizon and all of those movies, so they're making Dead Space for guys like me. That's my genre, and it looks great.

I think Mirror's Edge will be great, too, but they're showing me too much parkour, I want to see the gunplay. I hope it's not all just running and jumping. As long as there's something chasing me...even Mario had Goombas, you know?

Oh yes, we know. So! What about you, what's got your interest?

Cliff Bleszinski dishes on Gears and games [GamePro]

"A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, 'yeah, I f*cked her,'" Cliff waxes. Furthering the Gears boning metaphor "Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list — you can say, 'yeah, I played it.' Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game."

That's an excellent point. One opportunity to "look at all that juice" wasted!

Cliff also explains why there is no Gears of War 2 demo on the horizon, pointing out "stuff takes [time] to put together." If stuff were put together "Gears of War 2 wouldn't be out until February of 2009." And then you'd have blue balls.

Cliff Bleszinski dishes on Gears and games [Gamepro]

Meanwhile, at the less important GameStops, they'll still have trivia challenges and tokens for exclusive in-game gold-plated Hammerburst weapons and Xbox LIVE themes. It's not Bender, but it's something I suppose. Call your local GameStop to find out if they're hosting midnight events, and reassure your wear game advisor that the season is almost over and they can rest soon.

GameStop to Host Gears of War 2 Launch Events Nationwide

GRAPEVINE, Texas—(BUSINESS WIRE)—GameStop (NYSE: GME), the world's largest video game and entertainment software retailer, today announced that it will host midnight release events for the Xbox 360 exclusive “Gears of War 2” by Epic Games at 3,500 stores nationwide. Starting at 9 p.m. on Thursday, November 6, 2008, customers can visit their local GameStop and be among the first to get their hands on the new game at 12:01 a.m.

Fans will have the opportunity to compete in a variety of trivia challenges as well as have the chance to bring out their inner war hero during “Gears of War” tournaments. Customers who purchase “Gears of War 2” at the events will receive an Xbox LIVE token for an exclusive in-game downloadable gold-plated Hammerburst for use in multiplayer gameplay and “Gears of War 2” Xbox LIVE Theme tokens, while supplies last. These tokens will not be available beyond the night of launch.

In addition, GameStop will host a marquee “‘Gears of War 2’ Midnight Mayhem” event in Los Angeles at its Universal CityWalk location with Xbox 360. The midnight extravaganza will feature special celebrity appearances and autograph signings by Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games, the creative force behind the game, and “Gears of War 2” voice actors John Di Maggio (Marcus Fenix), Lester Speight (Augustus Cole), Carlos Ferro (Dominic Santiago) and others. Additionally, fans will have the unique opportunity to hang with a real life “Delta Squad” – costumed characters from Nightmare Armor Studios will be patrolling the GameStop event handing out free “Gears of War” merchandise throughout the evening.

In “Gears of War 2,” players continue the story of Marcus Fenix, a reluctant war hero, as he leads Delta Squad on a series of perilous and adrenaline-pumping missions. “Gears of War 2” blends a best-in-class third-person shooter with unsurpassed high-definition visuals, all layered on top of an engaging story of survival, loss and retribution.

To participate, visit a GameStop store for details. To find a local store, log on to GameStop.com, and search using the ‘Store Locator.’ For more information about “Gears of War 2,” please visit www.gearsofwar.com.

"Look, we know that video game movies have been pretty bad," Cliff admitted to the crowd, attempting to assuage their fears that the Gears flick will suck. "But just think how bad comic book movies were for such a long time. We hope [the Gears of War movie] will change that."

He noted that the Hollywood shot-callers are the same age as the average gamer — 35 years old — and have grown up playing and loving video games. "Hollywood gets it... and they dig games," Cliff said.

What may depress aficionados of Gears meaty, steroid overdosed look is that the feature film may not live up to the dream casting of certain fans. In lieu of filling out Delta Squad's armor with accurately voluminous meatheads, he's hoping they'll find some actors who can, you know, act.

"I know people have ideas where they want to see some wrestler, some huge buff guy," Bleszinski "The thing we care most about is charisma, someone you'd want to watch for two hours."

What a novel idea!