You Might Get Another Unreal Game. Maybe.

I'm sure that at some point in our future we will make another Unreal, single-player, story-driven game. I'm sure at some point there will be one...[however] there are no plans to do one today.

Samus, Unreal Tournament III's Newest Contender

After transplanting Master Chief from his warm, green home on the Xbox 360 to the PlayStation 3, it was hard to imagine a greater iconoclastic modder offense...but one may have just happened. The newest entrant to the UTIII unlicensed mods club is this Samus Aran skin. Play Metroid, kinda, on your PS3!

As Microsoft explained before, there's nothing illegal about creating or downloading such mods. But that doesn't mean Epic will pay you $1,000,000 for one. Their Make Something Unreal Contest bans the use of "third party intellectual property, including, but not limited to software, images, characters, logos, names and trademarks." Still, some pranks are so good, they're worth the free work.

Character - Samus Aran [UT3Mod via PS3Fanboy]

Epic Gets Steamed

Alright, who isn't on Steam at this point? We can add Epic Games to the list, as the developer announced (with the help of Valve) that its catalog has come to Steam. Everything Unreal and Unreal Tournament is now available via legal digital distribution starting today, with a tremendous bundle of savings at your fingertips in the Unreal Deal Pack. That pack features Unreal Gold, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition and Unreal Tournament 3 for just $53.95 American for a limited time. Yowza.

The full release is below, with guest quotes from Gabe Newell and Jay Wilbur.

Unreal Engine 4 Targeting Consoles, Not PCs

There is a long life ahead for Unreal Engine 3. Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that.

Enjoy Video Game Death Reenactments Live

Those living in the LA area have the opportunity to partake in one of the weird (read: more awesome) stories we've come across this week. Performance venue Machine Project will be featuring artist Brody Condon...well, we'd best just let the program description tell the rest:

10 performers outfitted in medieval/space/fantasy armor re-create Bruce Nauman's 1973 work "Tony Sinking into the Floor, Face Up and Face Down". Performed in slow motion and combined with movements based on computer game death animations, this piece is accompanied by a high volume binaural beats reputed to induce out of body experiences.

Performance Information [Machine Project via BoingBoing] [image]

Epic Still Fighting For UT3 Mods on 360

...we're hopeful. Microsoft hasn't said "no" yet, but then they haven't said "yes" either. We need them to say "yes," and we need them to do it soon.

Latest Unreal 3 Extras To Be Shown at GDC

Epic Games plan to demonstrate the latest Unreal Engine 3 features at this year's Game Developers Conference next month. The presentation will run on the half hour for each day of the show.

The Epic folks will also be speaking at two sessions:

"Automating Regression Discovery: Finding the Wrenches in the GEARS OF WAR," will be presented by Martin Sweitzer, programmer, Epic Games. This intermediate-level lecture, to be held Wednesday, February 20, 12:00-12:30, in West Hall Room 3004, will be geared toward programmers, although production and management may also benefit from the talk.

"UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 Postmortem: ULTRA KILL!" will be led by Dr. Michael Capps, president, and Jeff Morris, producer, Epic Games. This postmortem, to be held Friday, February 22, 2:30-3:00 p.m., in West Hall Room 2001/2003, will cater to all developers, regardless of experience.

I hope they delve a bit into the whole Playstation 3 Unreal modding. It seems like it should be getting a lot more attention than it is.

Unreal Tournament 3 Mod Cooker Coming Soon

Epic's Mark Rein dropped into the Epic forums last night to let people know that the PS3 cooker for the Unreal Engine 3 editor is in the final stages of testing and could be out as early as next week.

Folks,

I just wanted to give you an update:

We're very close to releasing an update to the Unreal Engine 3 editor, that comes with the PC version of UT3, that will allow UT3 mod-makers to cook their mods into the required PS3 format. We've been doing some internal testing and we're hoping to expand to a wider group tomorrow or Friday. If all goes well then we should see the update released next week which is what I expect will happen. Obviously the process works, as we put out a few mods before Christmas and people seem to be playing them, but it is the update to the editor that we're testing.

Happy New Year!

I can't wait until the mods start flooding the PS3, I'm hoping it could convince a lot of companies build in their own truly user-created content into console games.

PS3 mod cooking update [Unreal Forums, via Evil Avatar]

Silicon Knights Responds To Epic Countersuit

"We don't think Epic's counterclaim has any merit," Holland told us. "We believe strongly that our claims in our complaint will prevail and the damages Silicon Knights has suffered in connection with its original complaint are vastly more, millions of dollars more than what Epic claims its damages are in its counterclaim. They've set forth $650,000 and our claims will dwarf that substantially."

Epic Vs. Silicon Knights is a Common Lawsuit

This is, at its core, one of the simplest contract disputes. Party A promised to deliver a good in form X, and Party B alleges that good arrived in form X-1 and Party A never fulfilled their contractual agreement.

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