Mark Rein has made himself look like a man on the edge by lashing out at accusations that all Unreal Engine games look the same.

When asked why they looked a bit similar during a questions and answers session his curtly responded, "Do you think BioShock looks like Gears of War? Really? Have you seen Undertow?" Visibly irate he at least offered some further insight saying "The answer to that is that if two games look similar to one another in this day and age...it's probably intentional. It's probably two art directors who like one another's work and go for the same effect."

Doug Binks from Crytek was on hand to back up Rein, to a point. "I do think there are technological features from engines that define a certain amount of the look," he said, "but you can play around with that using tools."

It could be that Rein was a it worried that the session could actually end up being more about the public issues with Silicon Knights and he was eager to counter Unreal Engine queries before they really got started. However, Binks really hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the tools. Silicon Knights have accused Epic of not offering enough support, even going as far to say that Epic have a better version of the engine for themselves.

Rein did however go on to talk about Epics relationships with developers saying that they invite dev teams to visit to get the benefit of Epics experience first hand and that they also offer an open forum type affair where developers can exchange tips and tricks to get the most from the engine, tools and technology.

Personally I feel that Unreal Engine (FPS) games DO look rather similar with the extremely polished and shiny glaze look. I don't believe the problem is totally lack of artistic vision either. As the Unreal Engine is almost synonymous with FPS games, a genre which in itself is quite generic and difficult to innovate or invigorate, this combined with a generic tool set that developers can use to quickly turn out graphically stunning titles is, somewhat obviously going to generate a basket full of titles that look quite similar.

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