The head of Epic Games, Mark Rein, said in an interview for the AnandTech website about the adaptation of the Unreal Engine 3 engine for iPhone 3GS/iPod touch 3G. Yes, yes, it is used in one of the best shooters for Xbox 360 — Gears of War 2.
On the iPod touch of the third generation, Unreal Engine 3 was demonstrated and the test program was pleased with a good frame rate and excellent appearance. The control in it is traditional for shooters on the iPhone platform using touch blocks (the developers have so far abandoned the use of the accelerometer, choosing a more traditional way of guiding the character). The sensor unit in the lower left corner is responsible for moving the hero, and the camera is controlled from the lower right corner. You can shoot in the game by simply touching the device screen with your finger.
The mobile version of Unreal Engine 3 uses OpenGL ES 2.0, and since only iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3G have support for this API, the new development of Epic Games is compatible with them, the previous generations of Apple gadgets, unfortunately, were left aside.
At the moment, the engine has not yet been finalized (Epic programmers plan to introduce additional visual effects, support for complex textures), but now it can be used to develop games for the iPhone mobile platform. When the tools for iPhone app developers designed to work with Unreal Engine 3 are ready, we should expect an entirely new generation of games.
By the way, at CES 2010 in January next year, Epic Games will show a version of the game engine for another mobile platform, but which one is not yet known.
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