The National Entertainment Collectibles Association, or the NECA for short, recently unveiled plans to unleash a fourth edition to the Gears of War (series 1) action figures. While you can't actually buy these figures yet, if you're in the market for such trinkets, we do happen to have pretty pictures and a description from NECA.

A deadly asset for the Locust Horde, the Locust Sniper is equipped to destroy humans with its high-powered sniper rifle, and is especially intent on blowing away the members of Delta Squad in Epic Games' smash hit Gears of War. Sporting goggles and a game-accurate Longshot Rifle with scope, the Locust Sniper Action Figure hits shelves this spring with the rest of Gears of War Series 1!

In a rather vague press release, 2K Games officially licensed Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 to use in making an unknown number of undisclosed games. One of these games is very likely to be the BioShock sequel, whatever it may be. Unfortunately, at this point, it seems as if BioShock sequels will only come out once very two years (or that's what the author feels, at this point), and Ken Levine (the main writer for the original BioShock) will not be part of a BioShock sequel. Hopefully, the new titles 2K is developing will not run into the problems that developer Silicon Knights is having. Silicon is having so much trouble getting Unreal Engine 3 to work that they've sued Epic Games.

All Unreal Tournament 3 players will be flattered to know that new patch 1.2 of the game is in final stage of testing and should be up for downloads some time next week. The full list of changes is included under the "Read full story" marker.

Epic Games is well known throughout the gaming community. Most well known for their Unreal Tournament series and the Unreal engine series, Epic Games has every reason to be at the peak of their game for the PC gaming crowd. However, they are beginning to doubt their fan base. While Gears of War for the Xbox360 was an instant success for the Xbox360, the PC version of Unreal Tournament failed to take off. In an interview, Mark Rein confirms that gaming itself has begun to move away from the PC, and towards consoles. Even inside Epic Games, a sizable chunk of employees play their games on the Xbox360. Outside Epic Games, a paltry 14% of gamers game on their computer. The reason for this, despite the superior technology the PC offers, is the sheer cost of owning and maintaining a gaming habit on the PC. While an Xbox360 is $400USD including games and extra controllers, a PC is upwards of $1000USD for a game-worthy setup, not including games, and only supporting one player at a time.

Epic Games has issued the final version of the first patch for Unreal Tournament 3, updating the recently released multiplayer shooter to version 1.1. The 234MB download offers graphics and user interface changes along with tweaks and fixes for general gameplay, AI, networking and more.

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Publisher Midway has announced the official ship date for Epic Games' PlayStation 3 version of the multiplayer shooter Unreal Tournament 3, confirming Epic VP Mark Rein's recent estimate - December 10, 2007. Unusually for a console game, Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3 will feature support for user-created content, which means you can load maps and mods from a central "My Content" menu. UT3 is already available on PC. The PS3 game will be priced at the standard $59.95.

Codemasters and Epic Games are the latest publishers to join the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers, the ESA announced today. These two new additions bring the association's membership to 29, and highlight the expanding role of the association in the ever-growing computer and video game industry.

The PC version of Unreal Tournament 3 has gone gold and will be in stores November 19, publisher Midway announced today. The game will be available as a $49.99 regular edition, and a $59.99 collector's edition which comes in a tin box and includes a bonus DVD as well as other goodies.

The PC edition of Epic's third person shooter Gears of War has gone gold, Microsoft announced today. The title will hit retail stores on November 6th. Gears of War for PC will feature the amazing tactical action and multiplayer excitement found in the Xbox 360 version, but it will also add a variety of all-new content, including three new multiplayer maps, a new multiplayer mode, game editor, five new game chapters and DirectX10 support. The package will retail for $49.99.

Epic Games have released a patch for Unreal Tournament 3 beta demo for those of you who are not able to run it. If you have Windows XP 64-bit or Windows Server 2003 and you are receiving the "Modified executable code is not allowed" error at startup then you should replace the game's executable with the one from this 9.47MB patch.

Epic VP Mark Rein issued a short statement yesterday, confirming that a PC beta demo of Unreal Tournament 3 could be released as early as this week.

The development team feels they're pretty close to being ready to release this, ... so it could come out this week but for safety sake I'd say it should be out within two weeks.

said Rein on the Epic forums. According to him, the beta will feature standard online play, as well as an offline instant-action mode, allowing players to play with bots.

The purpose of the Beta Demo is to test the game on a large variety of hardware configurations and get gameplay feedback from the community,

he added.