NECA Pimps Gaming Toy Line Up At Comic-Con

Gears of War Movie Closer To Getting Made

The Gears of War movie has a co-financer and co-producer. Meaning? Meaning that we're closer to seeing it on the silverscreen. According to Variety, Legendary Pictures is co-financing the Gears movie with New Line. (Legendary recently financed The Dark Knight and are adapting World of Warcraft.) The head of Legendary, Thomas Tull (pictured), is apparently a big gamer, so that should hopefully ease concerns. Somewhat. Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman is attached to helm the project.

Legendary Pictures co-financing "Gears of War" movie" [The Cut Scene]

Is This God of War Brett Ratner Confirmation?

Those early rumblings just might be true. Back in May, rumors swirled that filmmaker Brett Ratner was directing the God of War movie. In a MGM press release for the new RoboCop movie, there's this bit of info:

David Self’s credits include 13 Days and Road To Perdition. He wrote God of War for Universal, to which Brett Ratner is attached to direct, and was a writer on Universal’s Wolfman currently in production.

That press release is obviously incorrect. It should read: "He wrote God of War for Universal, to which Brett Ratner is attached to direct and fuck up."

Brett Ratner Confirmed? [/Film] [Pic]

David Reeves - We All Have Very Sharp Swords

Man, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves is an analogy machine! In a recent interview with Eurogamer, he put his powers to task in summing up the current state of the console war.

"I prefer to talk about the fact that, yeah, we're competitors, but the competition really has made people so much sharper, and if I can use this analogy, if you're fighting in a war that's, say, Boeing versus Airbus, it's almost like battleship against battleship and you're fighting from 15 miles away; if you're fighting in the car war, it might be that you're fighting in tanks and you're one kilometre away; in the videogame industry, if there's a war, if there's competition, it's almost like hand-to-hand fighting, but it makes you sharper. You want to have a sharper sword, you want to have a sword that feels just about right, and everyone is very sharp, and what they're doing is they're looking for high ground, low ground where they can get an advantage."

So the console industry is like melee combat with swords...or is it like shoes?

Phil Spencer Talks Gears of War 3

Gears of War 2? That's so 2008. We ask recently promoted Microsoft Games Studio head Phil Spencer about Gears of War 3. We heard during the show that story for the Gears of War trilogy has been completed, so what about the game design?

Gears Of War Novels Get New Author

How very odd. Back in January we reported that Steven L. Kent, author of the Clone series and The Ultimate History Of Video Games would be penning a series of novels based on Gears of War, but now Del Rey has announced an entirely different sort of clone author for the series. Karen Traviss, who wrote the excellent Star Wars: Republic Commando series of novels. No offense to Mr. Kent, but my excitement level just kicked up a notch.

“Playing Gears of War is a kick-ass experience,” said Del Rey editor Keith Clayton, “And the Gears of War books should remain true to the spirit of the game. I’m happy to announce that the marriage of Karen Traviss and chainsaw bayonets is a match made in heaven—or hell, if you happen to be a Locust drone.”

The first novel, Gears of War: The Battle Of Aspho Fields will go on sale October 28th, exploring the relationship between Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. Let's just hope there's no kissing involved. Hit the jump for more info.

As listed on GameStop's site. For $70, you'll get the game, a "Collectible SteelBook DVD case", a small art/character book with foreword by Dude Huge, a making-of DVD, a cheesy photo of Dom and his missus and an in-game item. Which is a "gold-plated" Lancer, that you'll be able to use in MP matches. In these crazy days of $100+ collector's editions, that's surprisingly reasonable.

Hey, You Got Kiefer Sutherland In My Call Of Duty 5

Activision's not-E3 presser was surprisingly mundane, considering they're North America's #1 publisher and all. One thing stands out for fans of 24 and Lost Boys the world over, however: it was announced by Treyarch that Kiefer Sutherland will be on voice-actor duties for the upcoming Call Of Duty: World At War. No specifics on which role, but if you presume he'll be a gruff-voiced American soldier and work from there, you should be OK.

[Pic]

Don't Be Surprised If There Are RE5 Controls Surprises

The Resident 5 footage shown here at E3 is gorgeous. Jaw dropping, even. The game really looks like what people have been waiting for. What's not to like? The criticism level against the game has been the fact it uses Resident 4's controls. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you liked Resident Evil 4! But as RE5 producer Jun Takeuchi pointed out:

It's possible that a lot of people who play Resident Evil 5 may not have played Resident Evil 4. But they might have played Gears of Wars or Call of Duty. Those are both games that I and our team really, really like. So don't be surprised if at the Tokyo Game Show, the controls are different. For now, we have the control set up for RE4. I'm not confirming or denying anything, but we like to surprise people.

Another interesting tidbit: When Takeuchi saw Gears of War, he thought the guys that made it must really like Resident Evil 4. And when he met the Gears of War team, they told him, yes, they were big RE4 fans. And like that, we come full circle! Or something.

"IN THE END...THERE WILL BE ONLY CHAOS". Hahaha. Oh man, this is hammier than a triple ham & cheese sandwich on bread made from ham. And today, I had a hankering for some ham, so this is going down a treat.

God of War III Announced for PS3

A brief trailer toward the end of Sony's news conference at E3 today gave a glimpse of God of War III, just announced for the PS3. The trailer was all pre-rendered, featuring Kratos atop the rubble of a ruined city, bellowing "In the end, there will be only chaos!"

Of course, more on this as it moves. Just wanted to get word out that yes, God of War III is in the pipeline.

Inside the Making of Gears of War 2 Book

Just got back from the Gears of War 2 event where I got a chance to check out the new multiplayer coop mode, Horde. Lots of fun. As I was leaving they handed me this nifty making of Gears of War 2 book. Don't worry, I'm adding it to our schwag pile for the E3 2008 Kotaku Fantasy Betting Pool.

Playing Gears Co-Op With Mark Rein

Four player co-op in Gears of War 2 would be too messy, the plot would fall apart, Mark Rein told me tonight as we sipped mojitos at the Ciudad restaurant.

But he and Cliff Blezinski both know how much gamers thirst larger co-op experiences. So the development team set out to create something that would be just as fun as four player campaign co-op, but not as problematic.

In Horde up to five players take on increasing large waves of locust, clearing rounds and scoring points until everyone dies. The idea is fairly straight forward and surprisingly fun.

I was lucky enough to sit down with Rein and Blezinski and play through a couple of matches of Horde as they looked on. It only took a minute or two for Rein to start back seat playing, pointing out where enemies were and chastizing my skill, or lack of it, with a sniper rifle.

Yet another release date dropped during Microsoft's E3 2008 press conference as Cliff "Dude Huge" Bleszinski took the stage to show off the next chapter in the Gears of War story. After extensively showing off the game in action, Dude Huge took the stage to announce the release date for the title...Gears of War 2, launching worldwide November 7th. So we have Fable II in October, Gears 2 in November, and the Resident Evil 5 in March. It's release date-o-rama!

There's a new Dawn of War II trailer doing the rounds, no doubt minted in honour of the week's E3 festivities. Its purpose seems two-fold: to show that Relic, bless them, aren't afraid to put out a trailer comprised solely of gameplay footage, and also (SHOCK) to announce that the Eldar will be amongst the game's races.

Cliff Bleszinski "Can Guarantee" Gears of War 2 Will Be Longer

Gears of War 1 ballparked around 6 to 9 hours. For some, that's a little on the short side. So for Gears of War 2, lead designer Cliff Bleszinski wants to make it a tad longer. Says The Cliffster:

We definitely want it [Gears of War 2] to be longer. We won't specify a number of hours right now, but it will be longer — I can guarantee that. And it'll have a little bit more drama too... I think that, with campaigns like in Gears, Halo or Call of Duty, my personal preference is around the 10+ hours mark, with a co-op and a multiplier you can play in the longer term.But I find a lot of games are filled with padding to make them seem longer. They do stuff like, at the half way mark, demand that you play through all the levels again backwards, and you think "kiss my ass." We'll never do that. We'd always rather push forward and provide new experiences.

Added value! That's because The Cliffster cares. He really, really does.

Interview Cliff Bleszinski [CVG]

Ahead of what will no doubt be a big push for the game next week, Activision have released some new screens for Call Of Duty: World At War. Again, they're split between the Pacific and Eastern fronts, leaving us wondering when we'll get to see something from the British sections of the game.