Cliff Bleszinski chats it up with Gamasutra about a variety of topics including improving Japanese games, saving the horror genre, random game ideas, and this bit on replayability via mini sandbox scenarios:

Yeah, well that's Halo's combat bowls, right? We tried to get more bowl-like in Gears 3, and in the future we'll continue to get more bowl-like and just overall less linear. This is my thing I've stuck to -- the more replayable your game is, the better of a game it is, even if you never replay it once.

And that's the big block that people often use with replayability. They say, "Nobody replays games; don't bother making it replayable!" No, you're frigging wrong. You're wrong because the player has more decisions, and more ways to play the game their way, and then it just drives conversations and YouTube videos, and all that stuff.

Obviously, the mini sandbox scenarios aren't great for every game. Sometimes storytelling is weakened when your attention isn't funneled in the right direction. Alan Wake does a nice job for the most part of giving you enough room to find a secret or two, but keeping things tight so the urgency of the storyline isn't lost. I'd love to see a sandbox Unreal, Cliff. Make it happen!

Epic Games is 20 years old and to celebrate they have released a free soundtrack that features games from Jill of the Jungle to Gears of War 3 (thanks chong). Songs from most of the Unreal series makes an appearance as well. Since it encompasses such a lengthy period of time, some of the real UT gems like Skyward Fire or Foregone Destruction didn't make the cut but hey where else are you going to get the cool Jazz Jackrabbit menu music?

Happy Birthday, Epic!

Unreal Tournament and Gears of War have a lot in common. If you've followed the coverage with us over the years, you've most likely put the pieces together yourself. The elusive Unreal Warfare also figures into the mix a bit. Have I got your attention?

Penny Arcade's PA Report combines a lot of previously seen development footage, some rarely seen concept art, and lots of good insider info from Epic Games' de facto historian, Jim Brown, and connects the dots between the games of that time period. (thanks shoptroll)

Check out the GDC 2002 Unreal Warfare/Tech demo, for example, and see what assets, ideas, and concepts you spot from Gears and Unreal Tournament 2003/4.

Yingpei Games, formerly known as Epic Games China, is gearing up (no pun intended) for a summer 2012 release of their reportedly PC-exclusive 3rd person shooter, Mercenary Ops. Check out the trailer below and their Facebook page for more info.

The long running and much loved map repository and review site Map Raider is still going. It has also been growing. FreakinMeany has been developing the successor, Map Raider 2, for some time.

He has now released a preview video and well worth a look it is too. I hope this will encourage more people to take up the great art of level building.



EDIT: There is a development blog regarding MapRaider 2