Crispy Gamer News

Good Old Games has inked an agreement with Epic Games that will bring several titles in the Unreal series to GOG.com. Under the agreement, Unreal Gold (including the Return to Napali expansion pack), Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal II: The Awakening Special Edition and Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition will soon be added to the GOG.com games catalogue. As with the rest of the site’s catalog, all the Unreal titles will be completely DRM-free, compatible with modern operating systems, offer bonus materials and sold at unreal prices. Get it? Unreal prices? Never mind.

The first games, available now, include Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament: GotY Edition. More titles, as well as announcements of additional publishers and new site features, will appear in the coming weeks. Get your fill of these and other classic games, by visiting gog.com.

Okay folks … it’s time for another round of everyone’s favorite game, Follow Me If You Can. Epic Games, home of all things Gears of War, has as one of its many investments, a stake in Shanghai-based studio, Epic Games China. Epic Games China licenses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 2 and Unreal Engine 3 in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South East Asia, providing tech support and training to licensees using the Unreal technology. The company also offers production outsourcing and game development services to developers and publishers worldwide.

Now, this morning Epic Games China, announced that it has picked up the development studio formerly known as Darkstar Industries, best known for its work on the upcoming PSN title Fat Princess, and is now opening Titan Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary based in Seattle, WA. Titan Studios is the new home to a team of senior developers with experience at companies including Ubisoft, Epic Games, Scion Studios, Blizzard, and Lionhead Studios. The core of the team, previously operating as Darkstar Industries, began production on Sony’s Fat Princess amd is currently working on a number of unannounced Unreal Engine 3 based projects, including a massively multiplayer online game.
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gamerDNA.com, a social platform that allows people to build and express their unique gaming identity, announced today that it will celebrate the launch of Gears of War 2 on November 7th with a contest giving fans a chance to win a huge 8’ x 5’ Gears of War 2 banner that features main character Marcus Fenix and is signed by the Gears of War 2 development team. To enter to win, players must reach a 195 GamerScore in Gears of War 2 by 11:59pm PST on November 17th. On November 18th, gamerDNA will draw the grand prize winner.

To participate, players must register for an account at gamerDNA.com and add their Xbox Live account name to the “AKA” section of the gamerDNA panel. After reaching a GamerScore of at least 195 and signing into Xbox Live between November 7th at 12:00am PST and November 17th 11:59pm PST, players will be entered to win the grand prize. Current gamerDNA.com members will be automatically entered into the contest (and will just be required to have their Xbox Live name in the “AKA” section of their gamerDNA panel and to reach a 195 GamerScore in Gears of War 2). Entrants must be at least 18 years old.

More at www.gamerDNA.com.

Here’s an interesting bit of news being reported in Variety this morning. Citing those pesky and nebulous “sources close to the companies”, the outlet is reporting that film studio Legendary Pictures is in negations to acquire Epic Games.

Taken at face value, this news might seem a little far-fetched, but there are actually indications that there might be some merit to possibility of a Legendary/Epic deal. For starters, less than two weeks ago, news broke that Legendary CEO Thomas Tull had left his position with game publisher Brash Entertainment, due in part to his reported disappointment in the direction the company was taking. Add to that, Legendary is already working closely with Epic, financing New Line’s upcoming feature film based on Gears of War games.
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Epic Games and Del Rey (an imprint of Ballantine Books, which is a part of the Random House Publishing Group) announced today that it will publish three novels set in Gears of War video game universe. The first novel, Gears of War: The Battle of Aspho Fields, written by Karen Traviss, will go on sale October 28, 2008.

In the book, the last human stronghold on Sera prepares for another onslaught from the Locust Horde, as ghosts come back to haunt Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. The return of an old comrade threatens to dredge up an agonizing secret Marcus has sworn to keep about Dom’s brother that could end the popular partners’ friendship forever. And when I say partners, I don’t mean domestically, for the record..

Del Rey editor Keith Clayton promises the Gears of War books will remain true to the spirit of the game, which is probably a smart idea if you want Gears fans to read them. For our contribution to making promises, We promise you’ll love this preview of Gears of War 2.

More fun with Marcus and Locusts. Check out these action packed screens.

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For those that wanted to try Unreal Tournament 3 on a console but hate mods, Epic has the Xbox 360 version of the game for you today. Don’t blame them for the lack of mod support though, Microsoft apparently doesn’t like the idea of content from users on their very closed online system.

Still, the Xbox 360 version does offer all the other fun of UT3 along with split screen, five exclusive maps and two all-new characters, as well as all previously released downloadable content. Rated “M” for Mature by the ESRB, Unreal Tournament 3 is available for a suggested retail price of $59.95 in the U.S. Unreal Tournament 3 has already shipped more than 1 million units for Windows PC and PLAYSTATION 3 - oh, and both those games do support mods. Just saying .