"Ain't no candy here, ugly!"

Sounds like Epic is *ahem* GEARING up for a fun Halloween.  The Gears of War 2 "All Hallow's Eve" event begins Friday morning, and will likely keep you glued to your Xbox 360 all weekend.  The fifth title update for the game is available today, fixing some bugs and exploits.  This weekend, XP earned in competitive multiplayer (the tricks) and Horde mode (the treats) will be doubled, allowing you to earn those achievements and the respect of your peers just that much faster.

Horde mode won't be the same ol' thing, though.  How does "more Boomers" strike you? 

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Online retailer Amazon.com is listing a September 1st ship date for Gears of War 2: Game of the Year Edition.  Retailing for $40, and available for $37, the game packs Gear 2 and all of the DLC content onto one fine disc.  

That gets you a two player co-op campaign, 19 maps for 5 player co-op Horde mode, and the additional Dark Corners 2 player co-op campaign chapter.  Suckers, er, I mean early adopters, paid almost $100 for all of that content.  If you've waited on Gears 2, now is your chance to hop on the Cole train!

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Sometimes a relationship keeps people apart. The long distance relationship was always considered difficult, but thanks to modern technology there's no reason to feel apart from your significant other. Our latest co-op couples looks at using co-op gaming, movies and chat to keep connected.

Sure...it looks peaceful now.  That's because we killed everything that moved.

With the recent release of the Gears of War 2 All Fronts Collection, we saw a title update which added numerous cooperative achievements to the game. Not only were there three available for the story based content, but an additional dozen for Horde mode on the new maps. Me, being the gamerpoint loving son-of-a-bitch I am...well I just had to have these.

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Yeah, you know these guys love Horde mode too.

You've probably been busy revisiting Gears of War 2 lately, given the new update and "All Fronts" map pack released recently.  As is becoming more and more common lately, there are a bundle of additional achievements with the DLC.  The new achievements raise the maximum you can earn up to a whopping 1750 gamerscore points.  Playing through "Road to Ruin", the bonus chapter, in co-op will net you 50 points, plus an additional 25 if you replay it in the opposite style (stealth vs. guns blazing).  The majority of the remaining achievements are all related to perennial favorite Horde mode!  The achievements are tied to specific maps from the new content, and also to your multiplayer level, which, you'll recall, you can now earn XP for in Horde mode.  Look us up if you're online and trying to get these new cheevies!

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Next week Epic Games will be releasing a few pieces of Gears of War 2 content.  Included in with a package of multiplayer maps called Dark Corners, Road to Ruin is a brand new single player chapter that was cut from the original game.  What makes the content unique is the fact that there's two different ways to play through it.

"It's a 90-minute section that was actually snipped out of Gears of War 2, where Marcus and Dom are actually going to the Locust homeworld and they're basically suited up in Locust armor and have a choice - they can go in guns-blazing as they always do, Rambo-style, or they can go with a more stealth approach,"  the game's producer, Cliff Bleszinski,  told Major Nelson's podcast.

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You have to admire the folks over at Epic.  Already, just over half a year since release, Gears of War 2 its fourth title update.  Not too many games get this level of attention, and we're glad to see that there's a lot of co-op goodness to be had in this latest update.  From Epic's official Update 4 Release Notes:

• Adds the ability to collect multiplayer experience by playing Horde mode.

• Adds the ability to restart Public Horde from the current failed wave instead of having to start over from wave 1. Title Update 4 also allows the host to kick players from a Public Horde session.

• Adds support for the new campaign chapter, "Road to Ruin."

In case you had forgotten, "Road to Ruin", an hourlong deleted campaign chapter, will be available in the upcoming DLC pack Dark Corners, along with several new maps.  All Fronts, a collection including Dark Corners and all the previous DLC, is coming as well (though the retail version of All Fronts has been cancelled).  Both are headed your way on July 28, so get your Lancers gassed up!

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The new Dallas Cowboy's stadium sports a state of the art 72x160 FOOT screen.  To put it another way, in say - living room HDTV terms - that's a 864" by 1920" television.  The Cowboys monitor though is no ordinary HDTV, it's a state of the art LED screen capable of displaying instant replays, concert footage and now Xbox all in glorious hi-definition.  

While setting up for a upcoming concert, the video director for the Jonas Brothers figured it'd be a good time to test out the screens capabilities.  Both Gears of War and Halo 3 were on display.  I guess I wouldn't mind playing some split screen if I get a full 960 inches on my side.

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In this weeks "Deal of the Week" on Xbox 360, the Gears of War 2: Combustible Map Pack will take a nice price cut. If you've been waiting to unleash some awesome in the Combustible map packs new levels, wait no longer. Normally 800, Xbox LIVE Gold Members will only have to fork over 560 this week! The Combustible Map Pack features 3 new stages, Flood, Gold Rush, and Fuel Station.
 

"Flood features a rising flow of Imulsion that drives the fight into close quarters. Infiltrate an Imulsion factory in Gold Rush, where multiple levels and volatile materials guarantee memorable encounters. Fuel Station delivers a dangerous battle around an abandoned refueling facility"

Well, what are you waiting for, add it to your queue!

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Microsoft has announced a fresh batch of their platinum hits titles with very wallet friendly pricing.  Most titles will set you back $19.99, while a few still hover around the $29.99 mark.  There's also some fancy smancy new packaging available for these titles, so it's easy to distinguish between the normal priced titles and these.

The latest set of games has three solid co-op titles:  Gears of War, Army of Two, and Burnout Paradise.

What else can you snag for cheap?  Forza 2, Mass Effect, Viva Pinata, Battlefield Bad Company, and Fight Night Round 3.  The entire Platinum Hits collection contains over 45 Titles, so there's plenty of good cheap games to be found.

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