Update 3: More comparisons surfaced overnight, revealing that Limbo of the Lost apparently contains background elements of Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, World of Warcraft artwork, and a shocking number of Unreal Tournament 2004 maps.

A pretty good and candid interview with CliffyB to lead things off this morning. Cliffy talks about UT2004 of course which has been quite a success. Check out Cliffy's attempt at describing mod communities.. I dunno where he's going there.. hehe

Bleszinski: Well I think our stuff’s easier to use than most other people’s so the barrier to entry is slightly lower. And I think, you know, Quake fans generally tend to be like Grrr, Arrrg, you know? So the Quake fans tend to be kind of like having that kind of old school like, Oh I’m a badass, kind of Internet It’s like the Unreal fans think that they How do I explain it? I don’t know. Maybe Unreal fans are more like guys. You know, it’s like, Hey buddy how’s it going? (gruff, low voice). Whereas women are all so competitive with each other. I’m totally, like, digging my own hole with these comments. Be careful with how you edit this.

Over at Boomtown you can find a Strike Force 2003 Q&A, asking producer and designer Michael Hamlett about this Unreal Tournament 2003 mod. Questions are about use of the Unreal engine, AI, the Make Something Unreal contest, and release plans.

Also on HomeLAN Fed is this Make Something Unreal contest Q&A with Epic's CliffyB and NVidia's Jim Black. Cliff is asked about the first phase winners, how the winners were selected, if there are mods that could possibly become retail products, the second phase judging, and Jim Black is asked about NVidia's involvement in the contest.

New on PC.IGN is this Red Orchestra Q&A, talking to lead programmer "Antarian" about this popular Unreal Tournament 2003 mod. Questions are about use of the Unreal engine, inspiration for the mod, the team, balancing realism and fun, and plans for future releases.

According to this post on the Beyond Unreal forums, the planned compatibility between Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 will not happen. Epic's Tim Sweeney says the network code has changed too much for the two games to remain compatible, which is certainly disappointing as UT2003 players can probably expect a big dropoff in opponents and servers. Thanks Blues News.

A new version of the popular Unreal Tournament 2003 mod Red Orchestra has been released, now at version 1.2. The 399mb download offers new features, two new weapons, and many changes/fixes. You can find the files on FileShack as well.

New on Beyond Unreal is this Q&A with Phase 1 winners of the Unreal Tournament 2003 mod contest. The teams are asked about their mod's atmosphere, plans for changes to the mod, and the contest itself.

Epic & all their sponsors today announced the winners of the first phase of the "$1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal" mod contest. The winners of the first-of-four contest rounds will receive a share of $50,000 in cash and PC equipment. The full list can be found here.

Sparky from BeyondUnreal let us know that UnrealTournament.com has been updated, finally offering a section on the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2004. Among other things you can find several new screenshots from the game there.

Over at Beyond Unreal you can find a Q&A with members of the Red Orchestra team, chatting about their popular Unreal Tournament 2003 mod.

We received a press release announcing the Unreal University, a two day event (November 8 and 9) at the North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Sponsored by Epic Games and NVidia, the Unreal University will teach people about level design, art and animation, UnrealScript and making mods. Epic will also show UT2004, and there will be an opportunity for some LAN fragging. You will need to register if you want to attend, the fee is $25.

There's a brief Tim Sweeney Q&A on BeyondUnreal. Tim answers questions about OpenGL support in UT2003, massively multiplayer game support in the Unreal engine and 64-bit support.

Epic's Unreal Technology page has some news on the $1,000,000 NVidia Make Something Unreal contest. Mod entries for the first phase of the contest are being judged, and there's a list of finalists available (other category finalists will be announced soon). Also, Epic has decided to create a new category for new game types, as some mods had neat game ideas, but just aren't going to be able to go against the full TC style mods. More info here.

For those of you who missed yesterday's Make Something Unreal chat there is a chat log on Unreality with all the info from Epic Games & co about this million dollar contest.