1UP has reprinted a recent interview with Mark Rein, vice-president at Epic and among other interesting facts there was a catfight between Crysis engine and Unreal 3 engine, a sort of "mine is prettier than yours" stuff. We'll let you enjoy the conversation below:

"1UP: We'll see, because everyone's tardy with their stuff. Of course, Crysis is coming out. We'll see if that makes it out... Not necessarily declaring one or the other better-looking right off the bat, but...

MR: If that's the quote you want, is Crysis better-looking than Gears of War? I don't think so. It's different. It looks great in its own way, but does it top the graphics bar for Gears of War? No.

1UP: I think it's getting a lot more...you know, here's how I look at it. There's always that game, and definitely Gears of War is that game, it was that game, and it still is, where it makes you look at the face of gaming tomorrow. You play it and you're like, OK, this is nice. This is what we can look forward to from other games. But I have to say that every time I see Crysis, it's the same thing, and it's so far after Gears, there's nothing else that seems like it's quite going to deliver that. Whereas I think even Gears, as an aside, I think Gears looks better than Halo 3, from what I've seen, at least of what I've seen of Halo 3 so far. But Crysis is one of those when I look, if something is going to give me that brand-new "wow" it's gonna be that.

MR: Well, let's see how it looks on your PC.

1UP: Considering right now I don't even have Vista...

MR: That's my challenge: Let's see when it ships how great it looks on the PC you own. That's the thing, do I think Gears of War will look better than Crysis on the PCs people actually own? Yes. But that's OK. Neither of them's gonna look bad. I'm not saying Crysis is a slouch by any stretch of the imagination; it's gonna look great, but it's a different look. We're a more stylized game. We take some liberties with realism that they can't take with their forests and trees and stuff that they're doing. It's just a different game."

The more I think about it the more I tend to agree with Mark Rein's claims of a beauty contest. In this moment there are just two big players in the graphics engine market: Crytek and Epic. Both of them have shown some tremendous potential in the past and both engines are a marvel. This autumn will prove to be one of the most interesting we had in many years. I think it will even top the Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 controversy. It's like Jerry Springer, but with game developers. You can find the entire interview here.