Gears of War 2 Trailer

From the GDC Epic announced Gears of War 2 for the Xbox 360. There's a trailer on GameVideos.com which announces the release date for November 2008.

There's no in game footage, but there is a part where Fenix flips his gunsaw over to kill a Locust, so hopefully that is something you can do in the game. Andy, Santana, and Charlie are we getting the old crew back together to get smashed in the gaming leagues?

Gears of War Achievements

Tonight fans will be able to download a patch that fixes some bugs, but also includes the new achievements. The achievements are related to the Annex game type as well as the latest map pack.

Annex-related achievements:

• THIS! IS! ANNEX! -- Complete 100 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in Annex and capture 3 objectives in each match (40 points)
• Inconceivable! -- Win 20 rounds of multiplayer matches in Annex by fewer than 5 points (30)
• Nub Pwn3r -- Win 20 rounds of multiplayer matches in Annex by shutting out the opposing team (30)
  

Hidden Fronts-related achievements:

• You Down With E.P.I.C? -- Win a multiplayer match of 3+ rounds in any game type on 6 different downloadable maps (30)
• Green Thumb -- Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Garden multiplayer map (30)
• Mind the Gap -- Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Subway multiplayer map (30)
• All That Juice -- Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Process multiplayer map (30)
• Purdy Mouth -- Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Bullet Marsh multiplayer map (30)

Some of these will be pretty hard to achieve, but hey the hardcore should be rewarded for being crazy good.

Cliffy B hates Bill Gates

... and eats puppies! Ok, those statements might be exaggerated, but Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has been quoted as talking about porting Gears to the PS3.

So far this is just noise, and Microsoft isn't having any of it. Sources say that this is the result of the recent fights between Microsoft and Epic, mainly Epic keeps wanting to put out free content for Gears of War and Microsoft keeps wanting to charge for it.

While overall, Epic's give free shit away strategy has made them a fan favorite, but this talk of helping out "the enemy" with a port is causing some fanboys to rebel against Epic.

And this might all be a case of wanna be rockstar Cliffy B shooting off his mouth when he shouldn't have been. After all, everyone knows you don't cross Mr. Gates.

Another Gears update on the way

Mark Rein, VP of Epic, has announced that there will be a free auto update sometime soon. Part of it will be another attempt at fixing the roadie run/sticking to walls problems. Part of it is supposed to take care of some other bugs/exploits. But the most exciting part? New achievements!

250 points worth of achievements, to be exact. Some of which will deal with Annex and some of which will deal with the newest maps. So as long as you have all the updates and maps, the achievements are free. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until September for the maps to be free.

Gears of War DLC this week!

Apparently, those new rumored maps for Gears of War will be available on Thursday. They are:

• Bullet Marsh - Apparently a swamp map with generators you can destroy. Why would you want to do this? To kill the lights so the Kryll will kill your enemies. Sweet.
  
• Garden - A convservatory and greenhouse map. Apparently, people can die in the greenhouse from pesticides if proper precautions aren't taken.
  
• Process - An underground Imulsion processing plant map
  
• Subway - A subway hub map
  

I like the concept of traps or hazards on the map like they're doing with Bullet Marsh and Garden. We'll see how they work out.

If you want to get the maps on Thursday, they will cost you 800 Microsoft Points($10). But if you refuse to pay for stuff on the Marketplace, wait until September 3rd when they become free to all!

So Annex Will Go Live Today

Xbox.com is showing that the Gears of War Annex update will go live today at 4pm PST. Make up your mind Microsoft. More Gears of War news: 4 new maps will come out that will be pay to play at first, but if you hold out for a couple of months they'll become free to the masses. Boo yaka.

Annex Details Released

Details of the Annex update have been posted. The bug fix plus Annex update is this Monday, April 9th. It's a King of the Hill style game play. New features we will see on Gears:

• Respawn - Now you can come back from the dead every 15 seconds
  
• Private Slots - Now slots can be reserved for friends

Hopefully a lot of the glitches are fixed and new ones aren't introduced. See you in the Gears on Monday Eric.

Epic Lawyers Hate Freedom

Epic representative, Zachary R. Bishop (The Douchebagger), has sent a letter to an Emilio Lopez to remove any Gears of War logos from a Munny doll he made or they will take legal action. A Munny is a figurine that you can customize to your liking, but apparently Epic's I-Hate-Freedom department says that fans of the game and franchise aren't allowed to do such "illegal" acts. Everyone should write Marc Rein, VP of Epic Games, and tell him that he should put a big Gears of War style boot in the ass of Zach.

Hey Epic, do like Bungie and allow your fans to have the freedom to do things with your precious IP. Without your fans you wouldn't have a Gears of War franchise. And fire that Zach Douchebag guy.

Electronic Gaming Monthly Rumors

In the rumor section of Electronic Gaming Monthly, there were two interesting rumors.

The first one is that Gears of War is trying to change their achievements so they don't require "ranked" games. I don't know if this is possible, but it'd definitely help me out since I play mostly player matches.

The other one is that they want to release a version of Dead Rising that is co-op. The rumor mill also says that there would be a patch which would be downloadable to make current versions co-op as well. That would be awesome. However, I highly doubt it.