Epic Games has put out the 5th title update for its third person shooter Gears of War 2 resolving a slew of glitches and a security hole that arose in the fourth patch. Plus, just in time for the Halloween Holiday, Epic is also treating gamers to another double XP weekend event Friday, October 30, through Monday, November 2.

Hit the jump for the full list of release notes via the official Gears forum. Read more…

Today mark’s the release of the highly anticipated Gears of War 2 Dark Corners and All Fronts Collection DLC. The Dark Corners DLC features seven new multiplayer maps and a bonus deleted single-player chapter, “Road to Ruin,” from the Gears of War 2 campaign. In “Road to Ruin,” Marcus and Dom face the Locust but can either choose stealth or the usual run and gun action to survive. The seven new multiplayer maps include a new War Machine (the classic Gears 1 map), Allfathers Garden, Highway, Memorial, Nowhere, Way Station and Sanctuary (a favorite from Gears for Windows).

The All Fronts Collection DLC is geared towards players who have yet to download any of the previously released DLC map packs. Along with the “Road to Ruin” campaign chapter and the seven new multiplayer maps, the All Fronts Collection DLC will also contain all maps included in the Flashback, Combustible and Snowblind DLC.

The Dark Corners DLC will run you 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), while the All Fronts Collection will run you 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

So after just posting the announcement of a Call of Duty: World at War double XP this weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, I found out that Epic Games is doing the same thing with their own title giving Gears of War 2 it’s own double XP weekend from July 3 to July 6, as well. During ranked matches on the public playlist, everyone will receive double the XP, and the winning team will also walk away with an additional 500 XP.

In addition to the double XP promotion, the latest update for Gears of War 2 will be released sometime before the weekend allowing for some changes to the Horde mode (most notably the addition of experience points). Speaking of the Horde mode, Epic will be celebrating Independence Day with it’s own fireworks by adding Tickers to every wave in Horde, and on the 10th wave of every Horde match, there will only be Tickers.

So, which double XP promotion will you be enjoying this weekend? Call of Duty: World at War or Gears of War 2?

Source: Joystiq

Epic has released the details for the upcoming Gears of War 2 Update 4, which will prepare the campaign and multiplayer modes for the Dark Corners downloadable content, add XP gain to Horde mode and allow for a bunch of other bug fixes and improvements.

The release date for Update 4 is still unknown, but will no doubt be released before Dark Corners comes out on July 28. The Dark Corners downloadable content will come available by itself for 1200 Microsoft Points, or in a 1600 Point All Fronts pack with all previous DLC’s included. Hit the jump to check out all the details for Update 4. Read more…

Joe Graf, Epic Games’ technical director on the Unreal Engine 3, has confirmed via the official Epic forums that Gears of War 2 will be receiving a fourth title update.

As of now, nothing is known about the newly heard of update, but Graf does confirm that a broken message in the game regarding the map packs will be fixed in the patch. Stay tuned for everything else.

The boys and girls at Epic Games have been working hard on some new DLC to extend the life of your Gears of War 2 purchase. Gamers will be able to get their grubby mitts on the Snowblind Map Pack, containing four new multiplayer maps (Grindyard, Fuel Depot, Under Hill, and Courtyard), March 31st for 800 MS Points.

Cold gas and hot lead don’t mix. Remember that.

The image you see above comes straight from the Asian Xbox Live Marketplace site, where intrepid net-surfers found a product page for the upcoming Gears of War 2 DLC, titled Dark Corners. You remember Dark Corners, right? The DLC that gives you.. stuff.. with the, uh…darker…

Yeah, no, I’ve never heard of it either.

According to Kotaku, the advent of said GOW2 DLC at GDC is right in line with GameTrailers TV’s Geoff Keighley Twitter, where he said that we could expect some new GOW announcements at GDC. As Kotaku also points out, the GOW2 Snowblind DLC is being released at the end of March, so it wouldn’t make sense for Dark Corners to be another set of maps. It’s likely that GDC will herald an extension of the Gears campaign instead. I guess we’ll find out soon, when either Microsoft or Epic makes the announcement at GDC. And make it as garish as possible, guys- anything less than pyrotechnics, and I’ll be disappointed.

The 1490 entrants of our Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack contest that didn’t win can soon take solace in the fact that the Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack (as well as the Gears of War 2 Snowblind DLC) will soon be hitting XBL. Major Nelson announced today that the Gears of War 2 DLC will be available on March 31st for 800 Microsoft points, while the Mythic map pack for Halo 3 will be available on April 9th for 800 Microsoft points.

The GOW2 content comes with 4 brand new maps, Grindyard, Courtyard, Fuel Depot, and Under Hill, as well as new Achievements and a brand new progression of ranks. Meanwhile, the Halo 3 content comes with 3 new maps, Assembly, Orbital and Sandbox, as well as a brand new Forge that allows you to start construction completely from scratch. Fancy!

Anyone out there in Ripten Land planning to slap down 10 bucks on this DLC, or are you gonna wait until it starts hitting the digital bargain bin? It doesn’t really matter for me, since I no longer own these games, but if I were you, I’d probably wait on the GOW2 pack and pick up the Halo 3 pack, if not for the new Forge alone. It’s very, very classy.

Guys and commitment do not usually go hand in hand. Most of us cringe at the idea of a five yea car loan — so how would we feel about a ten year long ride involving the mass murder of Locust? I’m pretty sure we could deal with that.

In a recent discussion durring the New York Comic-Con Gears of War Panel, Gears scribe Joshua Ortega had the following to say about the franchise: Read more…

2008 was a big year. There were so many great games released that it’s incredibly hard to decide which one deserves to be the Game of the Year… so that’s why we’re going to make you do it. Have a gander at our nominees and let us know which game you think deserves top honors. Additionally, we want to spark some debate as we also want to know which of our nominees is least deserving of Game of the Year.

The best commenter (best arguments, most interesting or humorous comments – as decided by Ripten staff) will also be rewarded with a super awesome prize: a free game! Let your voice be heard! Read more…

If you’ve ever played Gears multiplayer with me, you probably heard me scream “he’s freaking glitching!” on more than one occasion. Well the Gears of War sequel was in attendance at Glitch Fest 2000. Check out the full list of glitches features in the video above.

I can’t decide if the maker(s) of this video loved the game or hated it. I personally loved it and wasn’t bothered by (nor do I remember) any of these glitches features. I will admit that after the first minute, I tabbed into another application and listened to the audio from the clip. Enjoy.

Source: Kotaku

In the video above, there is a very…unusual Gears of War 2 Easter egg. I was on the fence about this game (not due to it’s quality, more based on money issues) but after seeing this I might have to trade in a bunch of older games to get this. I think I laughed for 20 minutes straight after watching this. When it comes to breakfast, Marcus Fenix doesn’t screw around.

Source: GameTrailers (via: Destructoid.com)

Some of you may already be familiar with the fact that I didn’t play through the campaign mode of the original Gears of War the first time around, and instead spent countless hours lost in the game’s multiplayer mode. Well, being that I was going to review Gears of War 2, I felt the need to go back and complete Gears of War 1 first.

With the assistance of Dan Landis, I cleared through the Gears 1 campaign in co-op mode, and then played through the Gears 2 campaign in single player mode over the course of two nights. In terms of multiplayer, I ran through a few of the classic formats and tested out Horde Mode with Dan, Zung, Dlyan, and some 14 year old kid I’ll refer to as “Superman” because he almost always decided to run off and save the world from Locust on his own.

Alright, enough small talk, let’s “dig in baby”. Read more…

The Gear loving crew over at G4TV spent their weekend “working” very hard in the name of better gameplay. Yes, this means they played lots and lots of Gears of War 2. The list after the jump outlines the issues they came across while playing single/co-op campaign, straight up multiplayer, and horde mode. Read more…

Many gamers only give games two hours at the most to impress them.  If a game can’t hook a gamer in those first two hours, they’ve lost the majority of gamers.  In that sense, the first two hours are the only ones that matter.

In The First Two Hours we play two similar games for only two hours each and score each game with either a “Ten” if the game thrilled us, or a “RIP” if the game killed us. Then we declare a winner based on which game used its first two hours to captivate us the most.

Today’s fight is the battle of the holiday season.  PS3 vs. Xbox 360.  Resistance 2 vs. Gears of War 2.  Which single player campaign comes out faster, harder and stronger?  And more importantly, which one used its first two hours to hook us the most? Read more…

This just in from the world of “things that make you go hmmm” news. In an interview with Irish radio station RedFM, Cliff Bleszinski jokingly (we hope) shared his thoughts on the popularity that comes with being one of the most well known game devs on the planet. Read more…

If you’ve been anticipating the release of Epic’s Gears of War 2, you may want to avoid gaming news site N4G for the time being. People (likely PS3 fanboys) intent on ruining fans’ Gears 2 experience – we’ll call them “assholes” – have been spamming N4G with phony news articles containing Gears 2 spoilers. Read more…

Leave it to CliffyB to raise the bar. Some of us here at Ripten certainly see Gears of War’s world as more than a mere backdrop for chainsaw duels and Mountain Dew-fueled testosterone fests.

But would we go as far as this? That photo pictured above – of Dom, Marcus Fenix’ right hand bro, and his girl – the subject of much melancholy in the ad campaign and supposedly the focal point of Dom’s story in Gears 2? You can own it for yourself – it comes with the Limited Edition of the game. CliffyB has his own, and he keeps it close at all times, more so than you’d imagine. Read more…

As if you all weren’t all excited for Gears of War 2’s launch tomorrow/tonight, here’s something to whet your appetite (and your pants) before the launch: Microsoft has plans to put out a Limited Edition Gears of War 2 Zune, in a similar vein of the Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune from September of last year. You’ll be excited to know that even though it’s a limited edition, these will be in production for a bit longer than the Halo Zunes, meaning that you’ve got a bit more time to grab one of these babies before they run out. Hit the jump for more details. Read more…

The two minute Gears of War 2 cinematic intro paints a picture of human ignorance fueled by a “hunger for power” — soldiers marching without hesitation into a war that the narrative suggests they brought upon themselves. Pretty darn deep for a game centered around albino skinned monsters who live underground.

Hit the jump for face full of Locust and things that go BOOM! Read more…