Epic and Microsoft have teamed up to give gamers the chance to earn double experience points in Gears of War 2 this Labor Day weekend. There’s also the chance to play against Epic devs in a “Game with Developer” event taking place on Friday.

The event will run from Friday morning, Sept 4th till Tuesday morning, Sept 8th (Eastern time)

• Double experience for all Horde games and Public multiplayer games
• Winning team gets a 500 xp bonus in Public multiplayer
• Public Horde will default to Hardcore difficulty instead of Normal
•  Horde will be infected with Sires, just like the Ticker attack of July 4th
•  Hardcore Horde (Public or Private) will receive an extra experience boost (essentially double Hardcore will be the same as double Insane)
• The Game with Developer event will take place on Friday, Sept. 4th from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Eastern Time). Look for the following Gamertags and send off an invite:

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Microsoft announced that Gears of War 2, one of the most critically acclaimed action games of 2008, will be getting its own Game of the Year edition

Set for release on September 1 for $39.99, this new edition includes the All Fronts Collection (including all 19 extra multiplayer maps), the Road to Ruin campaign chapter, and every achievement totaling 1750 Gamerscore points.

In a recent conference speech, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney revealed the development cost of Gears of War 2, putting it somewhere around the $12 million mark – a surprisingly modest sum for a current-gen blockbuster.

Tim also revealed that Gears of War 2 took 15 programmers and 45 artists over two years to create.

“All-Time Greatest Game Hero (ATG) is GameSpot’s new interactive editorial feature that gives you the opportunity to determine, once and for all, who the greatest video game hero is. You will also have a chance to manage your own brackets based own votes and win prizes. If you have participated in CBSSports’ March Madness, you’ll know exactly what we’re getting at.”

Check here for the details.

The list:
http://www.gamespot.com/greatest-vid…oes/index.html

You must sign in to your GameSpot account to vote. Need a (free!) GameSpot account? Sign up here.

More information will be added to this post as it becomes available.

Gears of War is awesome yet it never hit the top of the live usage charts and it gets criticized like no other even after 4 title updates. If Epic could make the following changes/additions, I think this would easily be atop the usage charts and dive deeper into the hearts of the average gamer.

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On this year’s G-Phoria, G4’s annual fan-curated awards show, gamers everywhere cast their vote and selected Gears of War 2 as the year’s best shooter. Was there ever any doubt?  Check out the G-Phoria Best Shooter results page for a rundown on the nominees, as well as the video showing Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski accepting the award.

The latest Gears novel, Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant, hit bookshelves last week. Epic has a video interview with the author Karen Traviss. She talks about her writing process, what it’s like to work within the Gears universe, and much more. Check it out [Here]

Siliconera has a brief interview with Gears design director Cliff Bleszinski on the recent Japanese launch of Gears of War 2…

How do you feel about the Japanese version of Gears of War 2?

Cliff Bleszinski, Lead Designer: They actually did a really good job casting the voices. Marcus sounds like, you know, how a Japanese version of Marcus would sound like and Cole Train always translates hilariously into other languages. [In an impression] It’s Cole Train woo!

It’s fun to play. It’s fun to see the subtitling and everything like that. We do have a share of Japanese fans out there and we’re glad we could fill the promise of letting them play Gears 2 in their local language.

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Will gamers finally be able to play as a female in the Gears of War series? That’s the question Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski was asked by 1 vs. 100 Live host Chris Cashman during a game this past Saturday, according to Binge Gamer.

Bleszinski danced around the question and said he couldn’t comment on “‘possible aspects’ of a game that ‘may or may not’ be in development.” He then followed up on his comment by saying the female character sitting on top of a dead Brumak from the comic series “‘may or may not’ be involved in any ‘as-yet-unannounced’ video game projects.”

The GameSpy guys had a chance to sit down with Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski at the recent San Diego Comic-Con. Topics of discussion included the upcoming Gears of War movie, as well as how to make it into the games industry.

GameSpy: Can you elaborate on what kind of talent will help get you [into the industry]?

Cliff Bleszinski: You have to be honest about the level of talent that you have. Whether you’re a programmer or an artist, you need to get on websites, like CGtalk.com, and you need to start posting some of your images for critiques. You have to be willing to throw away the first thousand images you do. Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest link. You need to network on the Internet and eventually get to GDC, show up with copies of your work, run into people, like me, Molyneux, whoever. This industry is a lot more open than a lot of other ones, you could come to events like this and see us hanging out and say “hello,” and kick and scream and claw your way in. I think it’s kind of a self-regulating thing: If you’re that determined, and you’re that hard-working, you’ll get in.