SAN FRANCISCO--Walking into the huge booth that Epic Games had at the Game Developer Conference at Monscone Center West, everything was right there on the wall. Above the great spread of food (cinammon, salt and chees soft pretzels, fruit, and all types of healthy and junk food snacks), there were 150 videogame box covers adorned on the wall. Only two hadn't shipped yet. Every one of these games used Epic's Unreal Engine 3 technology, which has rapidly become the top middleware software for next generation game development.

Following his breakout entrance during the Microsoft GDC Keynote Address, Cliff Bleszinski, the lead designer of Gears of War and its just-announced sequel, was over at the Epic Booth grabbing some chicken skewers--make-up still fresh on his face from his teaser introduction of the big game of November. Anyone who's been around Cliff know that he's a dedicated, hard-working and creative game designer. He also is one of the few "rock stars" the game industry has today. And he likes to speak his mind when asked questions, which sometimes gets Epic into some hot water. Mark Rein, Epic's vice president, also likes to talk, but he's much more strategic about what can and cannot be said.

After interviewing Cliff and just catching up, I managed to run into him again that evening at the Clift Hotel. A magazine that I work for, Marc Ecko's Complex, is entering the games business in a big way--with a new development studio as well as a new consumer site aimed at young males. As part of this strategy, Complex was at GDC for two days filming interviews with some of the top minds of the game industry about relevant topics like violence, sequels and originality. The catch? The interviews were conducted in bed with two lingerie-clad Penthouse Pets on either side of the subject doing the interviews (with an editor prepping them and throwing out new questions of camera).

It was entertaining to watch Cliff and a member of the Call of Duty 4 team sit in front of the bright lights and go through this hour-long interview. It's certainly something the game industry hasn't seen before from a journalistic standpoint. And Cliff was very comfortable on top of the sheets. Now that he's 33, he even asked me if maybe graduating from Cliffy B to Cliff might be in order, referencing the names that Sean Combs has gone through over the years. One thing that was evident as the Pets peppered him with questions was that they knew about Gears of War 2 because over the past 48 hours (Cliff was the second to last interview of their trip), every game developer had referenced it as one of the games they were looking forward to.

That's good news for Epic, and so are all of those box covers in their GDC booth. Because those were just the games that shipped. There's an entire line-up of yet-unannounced games heading out this year and beyond that use UE3 technology. There likely won't be a bigger UE3 tech game this year than Gears of War 2, though, a sequel that so many people are getting excited about that it's just going to be a very challenging task to live up to the hype and kudos of the original. But as Cliff said, "It's going to be a long summer. No trips to the beach for me." And that's exactly what gamers want from him.