Epic is constantly improving its popular Unreal Engine 3, which powers Gears of War, and dozens of other games. Their latest update showcases some new features, like depth of field for filmmakers, color grading and cascaded shadow maps. Watch the video from some nice graphics — hopefully we’ll see all of this stuff in Gears of War 3 next year.

After a long wait, Gran Turismo 5 has been released and lots of players, including yours truly, are playing the game, offline and online. However, the online portion has been severely limited over the past few days because Sony didn’t anticipate so much traffic — Sony’s GT5 servers are able to handle up to 500,000 connections, but that has been vastly exceeded over the past few days, resulting in lots of lag. Sony is working on a patch which will ease the congestion.

Nintendo is known for making excellent games based on their own IP, this time, Nintendo takes Donkey Kong and recreates it on the Wii. Developed by Retro Studios — which did the Metroid Prime games — the new Donkey Kong game on the Wii, called Donkey Kong Country Returns, is a 3D side scrolling game much like New Super Mario Bros. And much like NSMB, Donkey Kong Country Returns is a polished, deep, and fun title to play.

In Donkey Kong Country Returns, you play as Donkey and Diddy Kong, where you are on an adventure to reclaim your bananas, which have been stolen by the evil Tikis. This plot device moves you through 8 different game worlds, each with lots of levels, resulting in a lot of quality gameplay. The easiest way to explain Donkey Kong Country Returns is that Nintendo takes the same formula they used on New Super Mario Bros, but that doesn’t mean Donkey Kong loses his history, not at all. Donkey Kong fans will feel right at home with the gameplay, worlds and style. The worlds are huge and various, and the levels offer increasing difficult throughout the game, especially at the end. The levels have a lot of variety, and utilize 3D in a great way. For instance, on one level, you’ll be running while a giant wave will come towards you, and you’ll have to periodically hide behind cover. It’s a great way of adding a third dimension to a 2D side scrolling game.

On top of the lengthy single player campaign, there’s also multiplayer co-op, were you can play through the game with a friend, and we sure recommend this, as it’s a lot of fun and eases on the challenge. Overall, Donkey Kong Country Returns is an awesome platform game that takes the throne from New Super Mario Bros. as the side scrolling title you must own on your Wii. All that is needed now is a true 3D Donkey Kong game, like Super Mario Galaxy.

The Good:
Lots of gameplay
Challenging (in a good way)
Great visuals and soundtrack

The Bad:
Controls can get clumsy at times, especially during tense moments

Overall score: 8/10

Microsoft’s Kinect has already been hacked for use in almost everything, from making 3D models of rooms to real-time lightsaber fun. Now Microsoft has announced that Kinect software and SDK will be available to their XNA developers, the smaller, indie devs which will certainly appreciate toying around with Kinect. For more on Kinect, read our Kinect review.

The Japanese are crazy about Yakuza — and by that we mean the game, not the real, bad ass, tattooed mobsters. Sega has released a new trailer for Yakuza 4, where an English narrator (for once) introduces the world of the Yakuza.

DICE have released a new patch for the PS3 version of Bad Company 2, fixing a bunch of issues and tweaking some others. Bad Company 2 Blog has the full list of changes here, but we’ve summed a few of the important issues here:

• Increased the AT4’s splash damage so it competes with other AT weapons vs infantry. The AT4 still has the least splash damage of all AT weapons.
• Reduced the splash damage of the Carl Gustav to bring it in line with other explosive weapons. The Carl Gustav still has the most splash damage of all AT weapons.
• Increased the 1 shot kill range of the M95 body shot to counter its lower rate of fire.
• Fixed a bug with the SVU that gave it better close range damage than other semi auto weapons.
• Reduced all weapon damage to the MCOM by 50%.
• Fixed a C4 vs MCOM exploit on Atacama Desert.
• Fixed a bug with FOV when aiming the M1911.

The update is only for the PS3, the Xbox 360 will receive the update later this week, while PC gamers already have the patch. Via BadCompany2Blog.

Sony is betting big on 3D, bigger than anyone else. And they’re putting their money where their mouths are — 20 of Sony’s internal titles will have added 3D feature, while another 30 from third party developers will feature 3D. According to Sony’s Mick Hocking:

Overall we have more than fifty titles currently being converted into 3D, and this number if growing fast. Some of them are massive names. That’s a really, really good sign that the industry is behind our unique message that 3D is a key element in the future of home consoles.

According to Hocking, who spoke to Develop, adding 3D costs just 2% more on the budget. Which is remarkably low, maybe too low.

PopCap is running a great holiday sale on its PC and Mac games, with all games being 50% off through November 29. In case you’re wondering, it’s 50% off of all games, the entire catalog. Which you can find here. May we suggest Plants vs Zombies?

Home consoles have gotten a lot more features since they were launched, and one of the best ones, Netflix, which is now available on all three consoles, has introduced a new streaming-only option which will cost $8. In addition to that, they’ve raised the price of their DVD options as well (for example, the 1 DVD out at a time has raised from $9 to $10). If you’re not into DVDs, it just got a bit cheaper to stream films and TV shows to your Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Nintendo’s Wii has been a massive success, mainly because of its motion controller capabilities, and while both Sony and Microsoft joined the motion sensing game this year, with Move and Kinect, respectively, only the Xbox 360 Kinect actually gets rid of controllers altogether — you control the games and interface with your own body. It’s a great device in theory, but how does it work in real life, and especially, games?

For starters, Kinect is easy to connect and you’re ready to go in no time (after you’ve shed out the steep $150 for the device, which includes a bundle of mini games). You navigate the menus with your hands and voice, but probably know all the tech stuff now, so let’s get to the games:

Kinect Adventures is a collection of mini games made to showcase the capabilities of Kinect with a series of tech demos. But none of the games are deep enough to sustain your interest for long. Granted, they’re only supposed to showcase the technology (like Wii Sports), but it also displays the biggest hurdle we’ve seen in Kinect: lag and inaccurate controls. On top of that, the games are very forgiving and even when you give it the wrong input, it’ll help you along. It’s good for 5 year olds, but it’s an insult for real gamers.

Another game we played was Kinectimals, where you play with your pets, like catch and what not. These games are really cute but ultimately, pointless. Kind of like Viva Pinata without much of the depth. The third game, Kinect Sports is pretty much like Wii Sports, and has some of the same game as well, like boxing, bowling and table tennis. However, it suffers from the same glitches as the other games. The controls are not only inaccurate, but they’re not 1:1, which makes mini games like boxing even worse than it is on the Wii. Other games like racing don’t really require your input at all. You can just sit there. Doing nothing (like in this video).

Using your hands to navigate the menus is a great feature, and in theory should be great. Only that it’s a lot slower than doing it with a controller, and when all you do is wanting to navigate through the menus as fast as possible, going to your game, you’ll be waving in the air, trying to get to your destination. To make matters worse, you can’t use the controller when you use Kinect. You have to navigate with your hands and voice. Which is annoying to say the least. Also, be ready to clear your living room table, as Kinect needs some space in order to recognize you. Overall, Xbox 360 Kinect has some good fundamental ideas, but in real life, it goes from annoying (lag), to the really irritating (have to use Kinect to navigate menus). But it’s not to say that are a lot of possibilities to make great games for the device. A lot of third party developers are already working on them.

The Good:
Interesting concept
Quality hardware with lots of features

The Bad:
$150 price tag (in addition to an Xbox 360)
Often inaccurate
Lag
No option to use controller for menu navigation
Games are lacking in quality and quantity at the moment

Overall score:
System:6/10
Games 3/10