BODIES AS SHIELDS!!!

I haven’t typed out that phrase in a long while. Chances are you probably already downloaded the Snowblind Map Pack for Gears of War 2 but if you didn’t then this is your reminder. It’s available now for 800 MS points. You can also earn an extra 250 Achievement points. Hit the jump for a Snowblind trailer and further details on the new achievements.

Spanning tunnels, bridges, courtyards and offices, players can sharpen their skills on the four new maps in the Snowblind Add-on: Grindyard, Under Hill, Courtyard and Fuel Depot. All maps are playable on every “Gears of War 2” multiplayer mode, including the highly popular Horde mode:

· Grindyard is a massive industrial complex located in a junk-processing plant from the days of Sera’s industrial excess. The office, now gutted, serves as a perfect place to fortify, but if you’re not careful, you’ll end up trapped inside the office with no hope of escape.

· Under Hill takes players through snowbound tunnels that were once billed as a feat of Seran engineering. Head for high ground on the bridge and you’ll be rewarded with massive firepower, but be prepared to defend your position and try to escape being cornered.

· Courtyard is a wide-open battle royale containing explosive weapons that once formed the heart of Ephyra’s fashionable Civic Center. Lines of sight are far and clear here, and battles tend to focus around the elevated sniper nest. Watch your back and keep a fresh clip.

· Fuel Depot, back by popular demand, Fuel Depot is a “Gears of War 2” remake of the fan-favorite “Gears of War” map, but winter has set in and the depot is now covered in a blanket of snow. Open and unforgiving, it takes a well-coordinated team to cover all the angles here.

Here’s the complete list of achievements, points and descriptions:

· “Rookie Gear” (10 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 5 (Public only).

· “Seasoned Gear” (20 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 15 (Public only).

· “Battle-Tested Gear” (30 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 25 (Public only).

· “Battle-Hardened Gear” (50 points): Reach level 50 and play a match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (Public only).

· “Veteran Gear” (75 points): Reach level 100 and win a match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (Public only).

· “Never Eat Red Snow” (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Snowblind Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).

· “Icy Dead People” (25 points): Complete waves 1 through 50 on any Snowblind Map Pack map in Horde (any difficulty).

· “Frigid Body Dynamics” (5 points): Play a multiplayer match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (any mode).

· “The Weather Outside Is Lethal” (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (any mode).

I wish that I can someday be as eloquent as Yahtzee.

Looks like that Gears of War 2 patch didn’t fix this nasty little bug. As the hilarious video shows, the game’s walls, at least in multiplayer mode, might as well not even be there. Damage goes right through them. Utter chaos.

In fact, Kotaku calls the glitches “game-breaking,” but from what I’ve read, mulitplayer has been janky since launch, so this is just a cherry on top of the cake of failure.

Epic has yet to comment on these glitches, but I imagine it would be something like, “we’re aware of a minor issue affecting a small number of users that in on way hinders…” yada yada yada.

BODIES AS SHIELDS!!!

VGChartz is reporting that Gears 2 has sold over 2.1 million copies on its first day with 1.4 million sold in NA and 700,000 sold everywhere else. Halo 3 sold 3.8 million in its first week, but Gears launched on a Friday which puts them at a disadvantage because their first week sales only account for two days. However, the numbers are expected to be roughly 3.8 million copies sold after week two, which is actually 9 days. I think Microsoft has found a new franchise.

Who thinks the third title will be about the Pendulum Wars?

Here’s how to get your Golden Lancer and Maps for Gears of War 2 if you’ve been having trouble.

1. Launch the Xbox Dashboard
2. Sign into your Profile
3. Go to the Marketplace blade
4. Select “Account Management”
5. Select “Download History”
6. Under the “Games” section, select “Gears of War 2 Gold-Plated Lancer Assault Rifle”
7. When the blade appears, select “Download Again”
8. Wait until the “download complete” confirmation toast appears

If you’re already on NXE:

1. Launch the Xbox 360 Dashboard
2. Sign into a Profile
3. Go to the My Xbox channel
4. Select your profile (second selection) and press A
5. Select “Account Management”
6. Select “Download History”
7. Under the “Games” section, select “Gears of War 2 Gold-Plated Lancer Assault Rifle”
8. When the blade appears, select “Download Again”
9. Wait until the “download complete” confirmation toast appears

I’ve heard reports of people having to try re-downloading it a couple of times, so if you still get an error, please wait a few minutes and try again. Also, try deleting the original download, and THEN re-downloading it. As long as you entered the code and initiated the original download, deleting this won’t cause any re-download issues.

Thanks for your patience, guys.

Epic Forums

BODIES AS SHIELDS!!!

This won’t be a complete review because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone. Like you, I’ve been waiting since I completed the first Gears of War, so instead, I’ll tell you what’s different. Cool?

But I can tell you that it’s everything I could have ever hoped and dreamed for. The reviews that came out earlier this week were spot-on with the scoring. It’s amazing, but there are a few things that are worth noting for the hardcore Gears fans.

I never, ever pay attention to the story the first time I play a game, so I won’t really get into it. However, I will say that Dom’s wife is a MILF and baby Gear Carmine has a gruesome death. He’s not as much of a pain in the ass as I thought he would be, though. He was a good soldier.

Tai (badass South Pacific warrior) and Dizzy (crazy cowboy) are some crazy mofos and a refreshing addition to the Gears cast. The “Cole Train” has one of the most badass intros I’ve seen from any game and/or movie. Baird also makes a return but not till much later in the game. BTW – you don’t ever want to get captured by the locust. They make you do some crazy shit. Tai knows, unfortunately.

I will say that the first 15 minutes of the game are the BOMB (f*cking awesome). I won’t giveaway the ending because that’d be a dick move and I want you guys to enjoy it as much as I did. I’m also fearful that Cliffy B will hunt me down and curb stomp me.

Anyway, remember the story I posted a few weeks back about how the gaming industry was sucking as much as Hollywood and how I thought that maybe there wasn’t any ingenuity left? Well, that’s kind of true, but let’s focus on what Ted Price from Insomniac said,

“The end result is usually a game that’s bigger, more polished and has more innovative features than the original game.”

And that’s just it; Gears 2 is a more polished and refined version of the original Gears. Some of the things I noticed are very subtle differences from the original and most of the changes are great while some annoy me just because.

The AI is much improved and the locusts don’t go down without a fight. They have the ability to revive each other, but so do you. However, the locusts have a new pal that can revive them when they’re near death (crawling) if he/she/it is somewhere within the battle sequence. So, to kill them you’re either going to have to shoot ‘em dead, curb stomp them or use them as meat shields. Going back to the curb stomping for a second. You either straddle said locusts and beat the crap out of them or you flip them over and stomp their brains out. Using them as meat shields when they’re semi-alive is AMAZING. But you’re stuck using a pistol, so it does have its drawbacks. They either die from absorbing all the gunfire or you snap their necks when you’re done using them.

My next point is super nitpicky but in the first Gears your Lancer Assault rifle aka chainsaw gun has a lot of kick to it, which makes it difficult to keep your aim on one target, but this time around it doesn’t have as much kick. The action is much smoother, but it’s easier to camp out and keep the locusts within your sights. Like I said, super nitpicky. Also, when you’re chainsawing an enemy you either saw from top to bottom or you go right into their gut and saw upwards. It’s pretty badass. Another thing worth noting is that when you chainsaw a box or thin membrane, you’re actually sawing through it this time whereas in the first one you just sort of stood there until things fell apart.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the vehicle levels in Gears 1 and I especially disliked the “kill the krill with a spotlight” level the most. The levels with vehicles in Gears 2, however, are way, way better and much more fun to drive/play. The Reaver ride reminds me of the Matrix and Return of the Jedi. You’ll see what I mean when you get there.

Selecting which path you take is much more streamlined this go around. Instead of wasting precious seconds deciding which path to take you simply go that route without stopping gameplay. Thanks for that, Epic. Except the latter half of the game reverts back to the old way. Oh well.

So how’s the Unreal engine? The improvements seem pretty miniscule to me, but I wasn’t paying all that much attention to it. I recall Epic saying that they could bring on thousands of locusts at once, but you never ever come into contact with them when they do show up. It’s more for show. Epic kind of improved the cover system, but it’s more show than go as they say in the car world. Visually, cover begins to breakdown when you fire on your enemies, but it doesn’t actually go away. So, you can’t screw over the locusts by shooting up all their cover.

The graphics have been vastly improved and the new soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky is marginally better than the original. I have my makeshift gaming center (review on that later) rigged to my Razer speakers, so they’re almost at full capacity and it sounds fantastic.

Unfortunately I can’t comment on anything other than Solo Campaign so you may want to hit up the other gaming sites since they clearly had more than one copy and time to have a more extensive review. I can’t wait until my friends get GoW2 tomorrow. It’s going to be a fragtastic time. Nerdy, I know. I’ll have to warn the others about Tickers and Sires. I hate Tickers as much as I hate Wretches.

Epic has improved Gears 2 with subtle differences that make it standout from the original and a much better story (be it a sappy one that focuses on Dom…), but I have to say that everything about the game seems more refreshed and 10x better. Maybe it’s the fanboy in me, but any fan of the first game has to buy the sequel. In fact, go out to your local Gamestop or Best Buy or whoever that’s reopening at midnight tonight and take Friday off. I can’t wait for Gears 3 and whatever else Epic has in store for the Gears universe, but you can damn well be sure that it’s going to kick ass.

I don’t normally score games that I review other than a recommendation to buy or not, but I give Epic’s Gears of War 2 a 9/10. Why only a 9? Because Gears 3 will surely garner a perfect score with an improved Unreal engine and I want to piss off Cliffy B.

The greatest game of all time launches tomorrow and today AOL is going to stream the entire soundtrack every hour at the top of the hour (one track per hour) starting right now.

Enjoy Now

GamePro’s Sid Shuman sat down with Cliff Bleszinski in a recent interview and they rapped about everything Gears and while it’s an interesting read I enjoyed Bleszinski’s answer about why there’s no beta or demo for GoW2. Be sure to check out the rest of the interview when you have a few minutes of downtime.

A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, “yeah, I f*cked her.” I know that sounds crude, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list — you can say, “yeah, I played it.” Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game.

Honestly, we could make a demo, but Gears of War 2 wouldn’t be out until February of 2009 [if we did]. That stuff takes times to put together.

Granted, we may need to tweak a few things in multiplayer after release through an update. People are going to find exploits we didn’t anticipate. That’s the reality of making a game — look at MMOs. We’re prepared for that, but we think we’re shipping a pretty great game out of the box here.

Gamers in southern California! Be advised that you have the opportunity to meet Gears of War guy Cliff Bleszinski in person at the Gears 2 launch in Universal City. Be there at the GameStop (1000 Universal Studios Blvd.) tomorrow night from 9pm to midnight to “party.”

Even cooler than meeting Mr. Bleszinski, in my opinion, is meeting John DiMagio, who’s the voice of Marcus Fenix. More importantly, he’s the voice of Bender Bending Rodriguez, possibly the greatest cartoon character in history.

Could be fun, I guess.

Oh, what it would be like to work for OXM, or even PTOM for that matter, and be privy to games before all of us schmucks? One can dream.

The chaps at OXM have announced to the world that the first review of Epic’s upcoming sequel to Gears of War has garnered a 9/10.

The new issue of OXM is on-sale today containing the world’s first review of Gears of War 2. And, well, it’s easily as good as we were expecting so it’s nabbed a prime 9/10 score.

OXM Monobrow was the lucky man to play through the stunning single-player campaign and was blown away by it – we reckon it’s the biggest blockbuster you’ll see this year.

We’ve also spent a lot of our own time on the multiplayer in lunchtimes and evenings and that’s awesome too. It’s going to go straight to the top of the most-played games on Xbox Live, no question.

Lucky bastards.

This statement from a Microsoft spokesperson, as told to Edge, has the Internet mildly interested:

We can confirm that Gears of War 2 will not be available in Germany or Japan indefinitely.

Then, a short time later, Microsoft rushed to clarify the statement, saying it had “no announcement” has been made regarding the game’s release in Japan. When you consider that Gears of War was the first Xbox 360 game to sell more than seven copies in Japan, it would be silly not to release it there.

As far as Germany goes, well, the ratings board (the country’s version of the ESRB) refused to rate it back in May.

Not that the kids in IRC aren’t talk-talk-talking their mouths off about how great the game is. Youngsters, I suspect—who else would yap in IRC all day?

Lucky you. Heh.

via Twitter

Some genius stole more than 100 copies of Fable II and Gears of War 2 from a Tennessee warehouse, selling a number of them on the black market. The man, Technicolor employee Rodney Gray, was found with some 31 games on his person; police found several more copies of the games, as well as other DVDs, elsewhere.

All told, police found more than $100,000 worth of stolen games and DVDs.

Now, is this related to today’s leak of Gears of War 2? I mean, that the game leaked a full three weeks before its release date is a pretty big deal, and you know Microsoft and Epic are none too pleased. In fact, Microsoft had this to say about the game’s leak:

We do not comment on police investigations in progress.

Police investigation? Good luck, bro, to the guy responsible for the leak. Methinks Microsoft and Epic aren’t messing around.

Ironic: Cliff Bleszinski’s quote about PC piracy being a problem. I’ve spent the better part of the day in various IRC rooms and the kids there are dripping with sarcasm vis-à-vis that quote.

Wow, Gears of War 2 has now leaked and can be found all over the place. I just checked Usenet, and it’s there waiting for you. It’s also on private and public torrent sites if you feel like risking a hefty fine (maybe).

The game is scheduled to come out three weeks from now on November 7.

It can’t be too long before Epic and/or Microsoft make a comment about its leak.

Looks like this episode was released a little prematurely.

Episodes 1-4

One more month!

Episodes 1-3

Enjoy.

Video #1
Video #2

Bridging the gap between the first GoW game story line and the upcoming sequel is Joshua Ortega’s Wildstorm series from DC Comics. The first six issues will get you ready for the November 7th launch of GoW2 with all sorts of filler for you to froth over. Download a preview here. Or you can hop on down to your local comic book store and pick one up for $4. There’s also an alternative cover to the Crimson Omen version that’s seen in the preview.

DC Comics

Last week Cliffy B made a few remarks about why GoW2 wouldn’t be ported over to the PC and his argument was based two things: piracy and the making games for open systems was a pain. Shacknews recently rapped with Cliffy after a GoW 2 event and went a bit further into the subject.

Check it out after the jump.

Shack: When you made the decision to not port Gears 2 to the PC, were you basing that decision mostly on the performance of Gears 1 PC, or the platform in general?

Cliff Bleszinski: Look, we put a lot of work into Gears PC. There was basically a whole new act in there. And we thought that that section was a very well done section of game, filled in some plot points that might have been missing from the first game to be perfectly honest.

But we just believe that collectively we can laser-focus this franchise, keep it on console, and it will be stronger as a result. I mean it’s just plain and simple. It’s not that I don’t like the PC, but we want to make an Xbox 360 game that kicks ass, plain and simple.

Shack: I know you mentioned piracy as one of the primary reasons behind the decision, but I’m wondering if you’ve considered any others. Do you think the idea that many of the potential PC customers had already purchased the 360 version a year prior had anything to do with it?

Cliff Bleszinski: That could be a potential factor, but it’s a very complicated formula. And honestly in regards to strategy and platform strategy, I’m the guy that sits around and says, you know, “Let’s make a gun with a chainsaw on it.” It’s not my call.

And because I’m the one that’s doing all the interviews, suddenly everyone’s assuming that I’m the one that makes that call. It’s like, alright, I’m going to make the best game I can with the talented people I work with, and it’s up to the powers that be to decide where it winds up.

Shack: So you wouldn’t say that your attitude toward the PC applies to Epic’s ventures down the road?

Cliff Bleszinski: Too early to comment on future products.

Shack: What would you say to fans that claim you’ve abandoned your roots by not doing a PC port of Gears 2?

Cliff Bleszinski: We’re a business and we’re going where the market is. There’s a hundred guys at work, a number of which have wives and kids, and there’s a certain amount of responsibility to make sure that they can afford their Pedialyte and their Enfamil. And you know, we’re a business, and it makes sense for Gears to keep it on the 360 and have Microsoft market the hell out of it and make the best game that we can.

I’ll always love the PC. That’s where our roots are, but, you know, companies evolve and their strategies sometimes shift, and that’s an unfortunate reality of business.

Shack: Do you think that fans don’t consider the business end of the equation often enough?

Cliff Bleszinski: Well, people are passionate. People care about their platform. I mean you witnessed this with the PlayStation 3 versus Xbox 360 arguments, because people vote with their dollars.

You know, a lot of people were very upset about my comment, and make no mistake, I find it very upsetting to read it. But it is what it is, man. Gears of War is a console franchise first and foremost.

Real or fake?

via Ripten