Despite a recent flurry of rumors suggesting a PC port of Gears of War 2 before the end of the year, Epic Games apparently has no plans to bring the Xbox 360 hit to any other platforms. Gamespy contacted Epic’s PR guru Dana Cowley who informed them that..

- We have no plans for a PC version of Gears of War 2. …

which makes it clear that we won’t be seeing a PC port anytime soon.

With the recent trend of blockbuster games being packaged together (Game of the Year Bundle), it seemed that EPIC’s blockbuster Gears of War series was missing out on its very own package. Well fear not Gears of War fans, as Microsoft Australia have just announced a special ‘Gears of War’ bundle to be released on the 4th of June to participating retailers.

The limited edition Gears of War bundle will include an Xbox 360 Pro console, accompanied by both Gears of War 1 & 2, in a swanky looking blood red box. Though the press release clearly states an Australian release date, it is highly likely that this promotion will include all other major territories.

[Source]

During a recent podcast by Major Nelson, it is revealed that Microsoft has a bigger punishment for cheaters than just wiping their scores. Stephen Toulouse, Xbox Live Policy and Enforcement, stated that the cheaters will also be branded — for life.

When talking about the resetting of gamerscore’s, Stephen stated “I’m going to admit that the bar is a little bit higher than that, because we are a little bit conservative. The other thing it does is reset your gamerscore, but it also puts a tag that you’ve been caught cheating on your gamercard. That’s a pretty big Scarlet Letter.”

So the moral of the story? Don’t cheat unless you want a tag saying you’re a cheater for the rest of your gamer life.

Source: Major Nelson’s Podcast

The latest batch of classic 360 games to join Microsoft’s Xbox Platinum Hits includes the original Gears of War. The platinum version of Gears will include all the DLC available for the game on Xbox Live.

Named “Game of the Year” by over 30 media outlets, Gears of War is the definitive third-person shooter and one of the most popular Xbox 360® games in history. Gears of War: Platinum Hits comes complete with every map pack, game mode and Achievement ever released on Xbox LIVE.

Microsoft Game Studios has responded to criticism from Ars Technica concerning the price of the upcoming Dark Corners DLC for Gears of War 2, which includes new multiplayer maps and a new single-player chapter.

Guy Welch, the Global Product Manager for Xbox Global Marketing, had this to say on the issue.

“As you report, the a la carte price for the ‘Dark Corners’ content on Xbox LIVE is 1600 points, which includes seven maps and a new campaign chapter,” he told Ars. “If you weigh each component equally, that’s $2.50 each, which is in-line with the Game Add-On prices you see on Xbox LIVE. We think this is a great standalone value.

“In addition, there’s the ‘All Fronts’ collection which is a limited-time retail product for $20, which is intended for new Gears players or people looking to catch up with what they might have missed earlier this year (Flashback was released in November, Combustible was released in December, Snowblind in March, and Dark Corners arrives in July). It’s a great deal.

“I’m an early adopter, and sometimes I pay more in the end than if I would have if I’d waited for special promotions to come along,” he explains. “It’s the same situation here—MS did not set out to ‘royally annoy’ players, and certainly not to scam them, but to give special incentives to attract new players 8 months or so after the game’s initial release.”

The full story Here

Microsoft and Epic Games deliver seven new multiplayer maps to Gears of Wars 2 in July’s retail release of the Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection, finally answering the question “what is Dark Corners?”

Back in March, rumors flew about a new batch of downloadable content for Gears of Wars 2 called Dark Corners, but Epic denied that such DLC existed. Turns out that they were telling the truth(kinda). Dark Corners is not DLC. It’s a new map pack being included in the Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection, available exclusively at retail worldwide on July 28th. The collection includes all of the Gears 2 DLC to date, along with Dark Corners, a collection of seven new multiplayer maps which you can find detailed below. The collection will be priced at $19.99.

“Dark Corners” will also sport a “deleted scene from the game’s campaign that takes you deep into the bowels of the Locust hollow.” This segment, called “Road to Ruin” will also introduce a new stealth element, giving the player the option to get their Solid Snake on with Marcus Fenix. Or, you can just go in guns blazing.

In order to make the pack worthwhile to those who’ve already downloaded the majority of the Gears 2 DLC, the package also contains an introduction from Cliff Bleszinski for “Road to Ruin”, a collectible poster, a strategy guide, and a custom Xbox Live theme.For those of you already rocking the previously released Gears 2 map packs, Gears of War 2: Dark Corners will also be available for individual purchase and download from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 1,600 Microsoft Points. (continue reading…)

Fantastic news for all you legit gamerscore whores out there. Thanks to a recent post by Stephen Toulose, Microsoft’s official banhammer, we learned that Microsoft is resetting the gamerscore for those who have used a glitch to unlock some of the achievements in Gears of War 2. The post read:

“I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been heads down on some work stuff.  Today my team is issuing Gamerscore resets due to some people cheating up achievements in Gears of War 2.  We’re going to be hitting the most egregious offenders first while we investigate the full set of people who have done it.  More information on Gamerscore Resets can be found here.
 
Now, we do this on a periodic basis and I always get asked the same questions because I know a lot of people like to boost, etc.  We tend to issue resets for a very clear set of actions that users take to get achievements without even playing the game. So those of you boosters, if you’re not glitching or doing other things in violation of the Terms of Use, don’t worry. Also to be clear, this isn’t any type of bug or issue caused by Gears of War 2, it’s just people cheating their profiles to toggle a specific achievement they didn’t actually earn.  

[Source]

This week was another difficult week in choosing the Gears of War Addict Member of The Week. Unfortunately, this week, there wasn’t one glaring member that stood out among the rest so yet again, we’re breaking our own rules. We have chosen two members who deserve some recognition. The first Gears of War Addict Member of The Week is one of our newest members and our only female member, pikminlink. Pikminlink spent a lot of time on the Gears of War Addict website as well as the forums. We are proud to have her but unfortunately we didn’t get to play with her a whole lot this week. The second Gears of War Addict Member of The Week is Wildcody123. Wildcody123 spent a lot of time playing Gears of War 2 among other games with us, probably more than anyone else, with the exception of last weeks Member of The Week, DeMoNiC NiNjA62.

Congrats to both pikminlink & Wildcody123!

How do you become the member of the week?

Each week on Sunday, the chairmen of Gears of War Addict will get together and decide who should be our member of the week. We’ll base our decision on all sorts of things such as, who was most active on the website, who played the most, most improved, sportsmanship, among other things. If you have someone you’d like to nominate, leave a message on the forum or send any of us a message on Xbox Live saying who you’d like to nominate and why. These nominations will be taken into account when we are making the decision.

After 24 hours of gameplay with Gears of War 2, MajorGamer (xXWhoDeyXx85), xHolySchnikiesx, & myself have collaborated to bring you our thoughts on the latest update from Epic. First off, this update has made playing Gears of War 2 much less stressful. While there are still those “WTF!?!” times, they are fewer and farther between. We have decided to break this post into many subsections to cover all aspects of what was included and done well in TU3 as well as what’s still missing. (continue reading…)