As promised, CliffyB introduces the very first footage of the Gears of War 2 campaign, showing off some very large vehicles, including a bit of taking down a Brumak.

A press release from 2k Games reveals that BioShock is getting the feature film treatment courtesy of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl director, Gore Verbinski. The press release has all of the details.

The prospect of bringing this blockbuster game to life has attracted not only a major studio, but top Hollywood talent. Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, is slated to direct and produce the BioShock movie. John Logan, Academy Award-nominated writer of Gladiator, The Aviator and Sweeney Todd, is in talks to do the screenplay.

Check out Xbox Live Marketplace at 11pm PST tonight for the first real footage of Gears of War 2. CliffyB will be showing off the new chainsaw duels and ranged combat. Look for it to hit the internet about 1 minute after it debuts.

Gamespot's demoed Mass Effect for the PC on their weekly 'On the Spot' show. You can skip to the twelve minute mark on the video to catch it. The entire focus of the segment is on things that are new to this version. (thanks Majik)

In response to the massive outcry (and possibly cancellation of pre-orders) due to the highly restrictive anti-piracy measures that were planned for Mass Effect PC, BioWare announced that they've had a change of heart.

• First, authentication of discs has now gone from the physical format to the online format, freeing the need for consumers to have a disc in the drive at all times.
• Second, with online authentication consumers now connect to the Internet the first time the game is launched and are required only to reconnect if they are downloading new game content.

Once you've reached the maximum allowable number of re-installations, you'll have to contact EA support for further authentication. Hopefully, much of this will be patched out somewhere down the line.

Building upon the (denied) rumors from earlier in the year that Epic Games was a target for a Microsoft buyout, Develop thought it would be entertaining to speculate on which companies might be better suitors for the folks behind the Unreal Engine. Please note that in no way is anyone trying to imply that any of this is actually in the works; this article is more of an exercise in matchmaking... and you might be surprised at what they've come up with.

Assuming someone was to make a move for Epic (which we are not claiming, by the way, just speculating), if you look back at recent announcements, it seems that out of all the more ‘neutral’ technology companies that are most likely to grab a piece of the pie is Autodesk – and there's several reasons why it in particular could benefit from owning an engine.

Slainchild has released DM-Acquisition for Unreal Tournament 3 and as we've come to expect from his work, it's a great-looking and great-playing level. This one is designed for 1v1 play, but it's large enough to accept several more should you so desire.

Download links are available in the release thread.

Fans of every gaming platform (and those with vested interests in) like to toot their own horn and Microsoft's Games For Windows senior director Kevin Unangst (unsurprisingly) does just that in an interview with Gamasutra.

Gamasutra: Okay. I was talking to Nolan Bushnell a little while ago. I was asking him if he ever thought that there could only be a single format for games, and he said he's pretty sure it would be the PC that would be the de facto single format on which games are released in the distant future. What do you think about that?

KU: That's interesting. I have a lot of respect for Nolan. I hadn't heard that he'd said that, so that's an interesting view of the future. I think that we're uniquely in both the console business and the PC business, and I think there are certain instances where consumers like playing in their living room for some types of games. I like playing on the biggest screen in the house.

But I think we share the view that the PC will always be at the center of the innovation that is happening for gameplay -- new game types, new business models, new distribution models.

It's lead in the Internet, it's lead in the acceleration of graphics, and I don't see any reason to believe that the PC will change, and that trend will go away any time soon. It is at the forefront, and I believe it will continue to be at the forefront.

And who knows, in that vision of the future, everything may be called a PC, right? Everything's going to get more intelligent and more Internet-connected, and the investments that Microsoft's making in both of those worlds I think will allow us to bring better experiences to consumers, no matter where they come in. They start on the consoles? We're going to make sure that when they add a PC to the mix that that experience gets better, and vice versa.

CVG has word that The Bourne Conspiracy demo has reached Xbox Live. I understand, however, that it may be only accessible to Gold members.

Russian developer Avalon Style Entertainment announced today that it has licensed Unreal Engine 3 for it 4х4 Off Road III driving simulation game. The press release has all of the details.

“Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 is at the forefront of multiplatform game development,” said Vyacheslav Gordeyev, CEO of Avalon Style. “The technology has been successfully used in many critically acclaimed titles, and we feel fully armed to make the first off-road driving simulator on Unreal Engine 3 thanks to its built-in vehicle support, powerful PhysX system, and many other leading edge features.”