You ask, and you receive. Last spring, when faceplate creator extraordinaire SpaceGhost2K attended a Microsoft Spring Showcase in San Francisco, Gears of War's Dude Huge, AKA the game designer formerly known as CliffyB, told SpaceGhost2K he liked his custom faceplates and jokingly (we think? we hope?) put in a request: TubgIrl. SpaceGhost2K agreed and created a Tubgirl faceplate, which he gave to DH at the Gears 2 launch.

Hit the jump for an uncensored version. It's anime-style, but should still be stomach churning to those who haven't erased the original image from their brains. Note: New to the internet and unfamiliar with Tubgirl? Check out this text only Wiki entry. Anyone who posts or links the actual picture in the comments section will get cozy with the brunt end of the Banhammer.

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Now that Gears of War 2 is in the can and maybe even in your hot little hands, what's next for Epic Games and designer Cliff Bleszinski (née Dude Huge)? Would you believe survival horror? That's the word from EGM's "Quartermann" who writes in the mag's monthly rumour column that Bleszinski's next will be a "mix the bloody visceral elements of Gears of War with psychological terror."

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There are tons of big games coming out. (There always are!) Gears of War 2 designer Dude "Cliff Bleszinski" Huge gives a laundry list of what's on totally awesome radar:

Fable II looks cool. And Resident Evil 5 is next year, right? I'm dying for that, I loved RE4. Street Fighter IV looks sick, and Dead Space also looks solid. I'm a fan of horror games — I loved Event Horizon and all of those movies, so they're making Dead Space for guys like me. That's my genre, and it looks great.

I think Mirror's Edge will be great, too, but they're showing me too much parkour, I want to see the gunplay. I hope it's not all just running and jumping. As long as there's something chasing me...even Mario had Goombas, you know?

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Know this, humans, Gears of War 2 won't be a short game. It'll be a long game. One you play for "months, if not years to come". So says Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, at any rate, who also says that because of the amount of time you'll spend with it - thanks to the longer campaign and multitude of multiplayer modes - it's no longer a "game". "It's no longer a game: it's a platform. Each mode is huge", he told VG247. And he should know! Dude Huge knows huge when he sees it.

Bleszinski: Gears of War "is no longer a game: it's a platform" [VG247]

At today's Gears of War panel at Comic-Con, Cliff Bleszinski from Epic Games was asked about the Len Wiseman directed movie based on the IP. Bleszinski, the executive producer on the Hollywood adaptation, says he has high hopes for the film.

"Look, we know that video game movies have been pretty bad", Cliff admitted to the crowd, attempting to assuage their fears that the Gears flick will suck. "But just think how bad comic book movies were for such a long time. We hope [the Gears of War movie] will change that".

He noted that the Hollywood shot-callers are the same age as the average gamer — 35 years old — and have grown up playing and loving video games. "Hollywood gets it... and they dig games", Cliff said.

What may depress aficionados of Gears meaty, steroid overdosed look is that the feature film may not live up to the dream casting of certain fans. In lieu of filling out Delta Squad's armour with accurately voluminous meatheads, he's hoping they'll find some actors who can, you know, act.

"I know people have ideas where they want to see some wrestler, some huge buff guy", Bleszinski "The thing we care most about is charisma, someone you'd want to watch for two hours".

What a novel idea!

Cliff Bleszinski presented Gears of War 2 to Comic-Con attendees today, walking fans through the Sinkhole level shown last week at E3. While that gameplay session may be old news to Gears fans, Dude Huge had two new announcements for the crowd.

The first was that Steve Jablonsky, composer on films like Transformers and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, was working on the score for Gears of War 2. Jablonsky was said to have been at Skywalker Studios working on the final mix of the soundtrack.

Even more interesting was the announcement that Gears of War 2 would feature "linked Achievements". In short, goals reached in the original Gears of War will carry over to the sequel, giving the player bonuses. Cliff listed three examples of how linked Achievements will work.

Keep in mind, some may be light spoilers.

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Gears of War 1 ballparked around 6 to 9 hours. For some, that's a little on the short side. So for Gears of War 2, lead designer Cliff Bleszinski wants to make it a tad longer. Says The Cliffster:

We definitely want it [Gears of War 2] to be longer. We won't specify a number of hours right now, but it will be longer — I can guarantee that. And it'll have a little bit more drama too... I think that, with campaigns like in Gears, Halo or Call of Duty, my personal preference is around the 10+ hours mark, with a co-op and a multiplier you can play in the longer term.But I find a lot of games are filled with padding to make them seem longer. They do stuff like, at the half way mark, demand that you play through all the levels again backwards, and you think "kiss my ass". We'll never do that. We'd always rather push forward and provide new experiences.

Added value! That's because The Cliffster cares. He really, really does.

Interview Cliff Bleszinski [CVG]

Remember Clifford Michael Bleszinski stated how "Metal Gear Solid is our example of the game we're not doing" and "Passive entertainment is on its way out" and something about Web 2.0? Sure ya do! The Cliffster is back with more opinions about Metal Gear Solid, but seemingly less disparaging ones. Cliff says:

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Epic's Cliff Bleszinski doesn't want much. All it takes to make him happy is a puppy to eat, a gun with a chainsaw on the end and a control pad with fewer buttons. Least, that's what he told CVG, saying "I hope if there's a new Xbox that there'll be fewer buttons on the controller...This is purely me speculating in my own realm of game development, but if you look at a controller right now it looks like an alien spaceship". So what's The Cliffster's ideal controller? We'd like to think it's one with two buttons. Press B to shoot, press A to awesome.

CliffyB: Fewer buttons on next Xbox pad, please [CVG]