CliffyB talks Gears afterthoughts, new DLC

Xbox 360 Fanboy: "IGN has posted an extensive 8 page interview with the ever boastful Cliff Bleszinski. In the interview CliffyB discusses the success of Gears of War and take time to discuss the future of the game and potential sequels. Of particular interest is his discussion of forthcoming downloadable content. While no specific content or date is announced, CliffyB assures us that something is coming and that we should get some news about it soon. He notes that the possibilities for such content are very broad -- new maps, new multiplayer modes, improved matchmaking, etc -- but declines to give any specific details. Furthermore, Cliffy discusses the possibilities of expanding the GOW franchise into other media, from movies to graphic novels to lunch boxes.

Cliffy also takes time to defend the story of Gears of War, essentially saying that Epic never intended to have gamers 'beaten over the head with story,' preferring to think of GOW as a big budget, summer action flick. Primarily, Cliffy leaves us with the knowledge that Epic plans to support GOW for a long time to come (presumably until a sequel arrives). Hit the 'read' link for the full interview."

Nominees for Game Developers Choice Awards announced

Xboxic: "The 7th annual GDC Awards are due to be held on March 7th during the Game Developers Conference and with just a month left before the developers can have their say on what they think was the best of 2006, the list of nominees is up. What game do you think deserves to be nominated and for what? But more importantly, what games did actually make.

Best Game

• Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Cliff Bleszinski, Michael Capps, Rod Fergusson
• Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
  - Todd Howard
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD / Nintendo)
  - Eiji Aonuma, Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto
• Wii Sports (Nintendo)
  - Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita

Audio

• Company of Heroes (Relic Entertainment / THQ)
  - Crispin Hands, John Johnson, Jennifer Lewis, John Tennant
• DEFCON: Everybody Dies (Introversion Software)
  - Alistair Lindsay, Michael Maidment
• Guitar Hero II (Harmonix Music Systems / RedOctane)
  - Jeff Allen, Eric Brosius, Izzy Maxwell
• Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend (Crystal Dynamics / Eidos Interactive)
  - Troels Folmann, Karl Gallagher, Mike Peaslee, Gregg Stephens
• LocoRoco (Sony Computer Entertainment)
  - Kemmei Adachi, Tomonobu Kikuchi, Kouji Niikura, Nobuyuki Shimizu

Character Design

• Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix)
  - Hideo Minaba, Hiroshi Minagawa, Akihiko Yoshida
• LocoRoco (Sony Computer Entertainment)
  - Tsutomu Kouno, Keigo Tsuchiya
• Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Mari Shimazaki, Sawaki Takeyasu, Kenichirou Yoshimura
• Rayman Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft Montpellier Studio / Ubisoft Entertainment)
  - Michel Ancel, Charles Beirnaert, Hubert Chevillard, Florent Sacre
• Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Ryan Stevenson

Game Design

• Bully (Rockstar Vancouver / Rockstar Games)
  - Michael Skupa
• Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Hideki Kamiya
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
  - Todd Howard
• Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Justin Cook, Gregg Mayles
• Wii Sports (Nintendo)
  - Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita

Technology

• Company of Heroes (Relic Entertainment / THQ)
  - Drew Dunlop, Shelby Hubick, David Swinerd, Ian Thomson
• Dead Rising (Capcom Entertainment)
  - Shinya Ikuta, Tomofumi Ishida, Yasuhide Sawada, Tomohiro Ueda
• Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Michael Capps, Ray Davis, Tim Sweeney, Daniel Vogel
• Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (Rockstar San Diego / Rockstar Games)
  - Ted Carson, Eugene Foss, Wil Paredes, Steve Reed
• Wii Sports (Nintendo)
  - Takuhiro Dohta, Takeshi Miyamoto, Keizo Ohta, Kenta Sato

Visual Arts

• Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix)
  - Isamu Kamikokuryo, Hideo Minaba, Akihiko Yoshida
• Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Jerry O’Flaherty, Chris Perna
• Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Naoki Katakai, Kenichirou Yoshimura
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
  - Matthew Carofano, Christiane Meister, Istvan Pely
• Viva Piñata (Rare / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Ed Bryan, Ryan Stevenson

Writing

• Bully (Rockstar Vancouver / Rockstar Games)
  - Dan Houser, Jacob Krarup
• Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Funcom / Aspyr Media)
  - Dag Scheve, Ragnar Tørnquist
• Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock (Telltale Games / GameTap)
  - Brendan Ferguson, Dave Grossman, Steve Purcell
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda Game Studios / 2K Games/Bethesda Softworks)
  - Ken Rolston
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD / Nintendo)
  - Kyogoku Aya, Nate Bihldorff, Mitsuhiro Takano

New Studio

• Gastronaut Studios (Small Arms)
  - Jacob Van Wingen, Don Wurster
• Iron Lore Entertainment (Titan Quest)
  - Paul Chieffo, Jeff Goodsill, Brian Sullivan
• Naked Sky Entertainment (RoboBlitz)
  - Joshua Glazer, Tian Mu, Sam Thibault
• Ready At Dawn Studios (Daxter)
  - Didier Malenfant, Andrea Pessino, Ru Weerasuriya
• Wadjet Eye Games (The Shiva)
  - Chris Femo, Dave Gilbert, Peter Gresser, Ian Schlaepfer

The voting process will being on Friday, February 9th and will continue for one week until Friday, February 16th when the votes will be counted. However, it won’t be until Wednesday, March 7th that the results will be announced at the Choice Awards Ceremony in San Francisco. I personally love trying to predict the outcome of award ceremonies and will be looking forward to the ceremony.

Real life Halo suit bombs, now on eBay

Xbox 360 Fanboy: "Troy Hurtubise, the man responsible for the real life Halo suit we reported last month, is placing his latest work up for auction. Having spent his family's savings and 1750 hours developing the 'Trojan' suit, Hurtubise is broke. Following the media frenzy that surrounded his latest creation, Hurtubise hasn't received a single offer to produce his exoskeleton on a large scale. In short, he needs money. The high bid sits at $15,000 as of this posting, and we expect that amount will go up before it closes on February 15th."

Play Unreal Tournament; Improve Your Vision by 20%

TeamXbox: "Researchers from the University of Rochester have found out that playing video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can improve your vision by about 20 percent.

Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, and graduate student Shawn Green, tested college students, dividing them in two groups.

One group played a game with no visual complexity, Tetris, and the other group played a blink-and-you’re-dead game, Unreal Tournament. Each group played the game an hour a day.

Then, the researchers put the individuals under a visual acuity test where the students had to quickly identify the orientation of a certain symbol within a crowd of symbols placed to fool the eye and make the recognition harder.

The students that played Unreal Tournament could tell which symbol was pointing in the right direction much more easily than a month earlier and also better than the student that played Tetris, who showed no improvement after a month. "

HL2: Episode Two coming in the Winter

bit-tech.net: "Valve and Electronic Arts have announced that Half-Life 2: Episode Two, along with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, will ship together this Winter.

The game will launch in two boxes: the black box will ship for the PC only, while the orange box will ship for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Both boxes will have Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2, but the orange box will also include Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

In November, we learned that Episode Two had already been pushed back from its original Q1 2007 release date to 'summer 2007', but the latest news suggests that Episode Two won't launch until the end of the year.

Either that, or Valve and EA has cleverly worded the statement made by the two companies. Here's a clip from the statement:

'Electronic Arts, the world’s leading interactive entertainment company, and Valve, the award-winning studio behind the blockbuster franchises Half-Life and Counter-Strike, today announced the naming and product configurations The Black Box and The Orange Box, two of the most anticipated action game offerings shipping worldwide this Winter 2007.'

We'll let you make your own minds up on that one."

New Virtua Tennis 3 Screenshots

TeamXbox: "Yesterday, SEGA announced that Virtua Tennis 3 on Xbox 360 will support 1080p resolution, a brand new VT:TV live spectator mode and Ranked and Player Modes for top scores on the Leaderboard on Xbox Live. Today, we bring you screenshots of the game showing these features.

With the highest digital video standard enabled on the Xbox 360, each of the 20 tennis pros featured in Virtua Tennis 3 appear even more realistic, while the court environments deliver a newfound richness in colour and texture. The increased levels of detail can be picked out in the spectators and backgrounds, and despite the increased number of pixels on screen, the smooth gameplay mechanics and movements of the players are just as fluid as ever.

The online gameplay for Virtua Tennis 3 consist of a number of features set to make the most of the Xbox Live network.

Players can take part in Ranked or Friendly modes, and enter Exhibition games or Tournaments in both singles and doubles matches across the Live network. The all new VT:TV real-time spectator mode allows players to view their friends or other top-ranked players compete in tournaments, adding an all new strategy in sizing up the next opponent. "

Rumor: "Official" word on 120GB+HDMI 360?

Xbox 360 Fanboy: "Apparently, Microsoft Australia has informed a local retailer named Myer to get its store ready for a Black Xbox 360 with an HDMI port and 120 GB Hard Drive. The MSRP for the 2.0 360 is $749 AU (which translates into about $582 USD/ $690 CAD) and it is expected to be released in April, although Microsoft allegedly wants to push for late March to compete with the PS3's launch on the 23rd. Interesting news, but at the same time, don't believe everything you read."

Xbox Rewards announced

Xbox 360 Fanboy: "Last week we gave word about a rumor regarding rewards for getting Achievements. Now xbox.com has the full details. Starting on February 12th, U.S. Residents will get the opportunity to get some free swag for increasing their Gamerscore by 1,500 points within a month in the 'Old Spice Experience Challenge'. Also, to make the deal sweeter for those who already have been actively unlocking Achievements, they have three tiers of prizes, based on your annual Gamerscore increase. Less than 5000 Gamerscore will be Level 1, where you can win Contra, a gamer pic, and a level upgrade. The second tier is for gamers with 5000 to 9999 Gamerscore, and will net the same rewards as Level 1 as well as 100 Microsoft Points. Those of you who have 10,000 annual Gamerscore or more are part of the third and final Level, and can win the aforementioned prizes, as well as an Old Spice T-shirt, 200 total Microsoft Points and a copy of Fuzion Frenzy 2.

Not bad for beating one-and-a-half games, especially if you have just over 10,000 Gamerscore. If you're looking for some ideas on how to maximize your efficiency, you don't have to look hard. So, are you going to sign up? And for those of us who can't join due to being geographically impaired, when do you think your locale will be added into the mix?"