A brand new selection of Gears of War merchandise has been revealed today, undoubtedly set to slot into the series' fans "most-wanted" lists rather highly. Expected for release this fourth quarter in the UK, the Gears of War - Delta Squad Box Set is just what many UK Gears of Wars fans have been waiting for.
Gears of War sold over three million copies in just Electronic Theatre Imageten weeks and was the fastest-selling videogame of 2006. The success of the game has led to the development of the Gears of War franchise, including the 2008 sequel Gears of War 2 and a whole host of Downloadable Content (DLC), and adaptations to books, comics, and a feature film suggested to be on the way.
Originally available as two separate series in North America, each comprising of two action figures, the Gears of War - Delta Squad Box Set consists of four characters; Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole. In addition, the Gears of War - Delta Squad Box Set contains exclusive weapons and accessories only available in this set. Though no firm release date has yet been set, it has been suggested that the Gears of War - Delta Squad Box Set will arrive in time for the busy fourth quarter retail period. A Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of £34.99 has already been announced.
The Gears of War - Delta Squad Box Set is not the first set of action figures based on the Gears of War franchise to be released in the UK, but is undoubtedly the most detailed. Electronic Theatre will keep you updated on all the latest development with the Gears of War franchise.
The sequel to a popular video game has been modified so it can be sold in Australia.
Left 4 Dead 2 has been given an MA 15+ rating after it was refused classification in September.
According to the classification board report, the modified version removes considerable amounts of gore from gameplay.
“The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment,” the report said.
“No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground.”
The report confirmed that melee weapons, such as “axes, crowbars and chainsaws” were still in the game.
Electronic Arts also submitted the original version of the game to the Classifications Review Board, which is scheduled for consideration on October 22, 2009.
The original version of the game was refused classification because it contained "realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence".
Distributor Electronic Arts spokesperson Cameron Jenkins said the company still hoped the original version of the game would receive a classification:
“We are waiting until we get the results back from the resubmitted full version, just in case it gets classified after working with the OFLC, we would much prefer to release that one,” he said.
According to gaming blog Kotaku, Valve submitted the modified version to ensure the game could be released in November and that Australians would receive a free update to the edited version if the original game was classified.
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has said that including easy Achievements can increase a big game's sales by up to 40,000, in an interview in the new issue of OXM.
Apparently blatant scorewhores, like OXM's Jipped, are an important enough demographic to be worth catering for.
"The Achievement hunter, who's going to make purchase decisions around the Achievements per minute to ratio - he's probably buying ten to twenty titles a year, or at least playing that many," Pitchford told OXM. "He's playing a lot. So he's a very frequent customer, and you want to be in that pile. That's just business."
Enough business to justify fiddling with the Achievements? Yes, apparently, because it's barely any more work than you'd do already.
"The time it takes is minimal," we were told, "because you're designing Achievements anyway, and you can probably affect your sales by something like 10 and 40 thousand units. If you're talking about a triple-A game selling between 1 and 2.5 million units. You're talking tens of thousands of units of impact there."
"Unfortunately most people in the industry don't think through it that much. You have designers designing achievements, and they're the worst."
A survey has been sent to Xbox 360 owners that provides some interesting insights to Microsoft's ventures into the casual gaming space.
The first part of the survey is the most standard, asking people about their favorite game shows and board games, including Balderdash and Taboo, as well as what they like best about 1 Vs. 100. One interesting aspect of that section is that there may be a paid version of 1 Vs. 100 that will offer better prizes.
The latter part of the survey, however, is extremely intriguing, and an indication that Microsoft may be venturing into a PlayStation Home-like space in which Avatars can congregate and play retro games on classic coin-op cabinets. They queried applicants what name would fit the space best – "Game Room", "RetroCade", "AvatArcade", "RetroGame", "Classics LIVE", and so forth.
Of course, with all the Atari festooning, maybe its a classic Atari compilation game that allows online parties.
Hey Gamers, here is a brand new reveal trailer for Mass Effect 2. Introducing a new playable character "Subject Zero"
For all the latest Mass Effect 2 info including screenshots, achievements, trailers, cheats, forums and more please visit our MASS EFFECT 2 game page: here
With a minor update just behind us news of next months Xbox 360 Dashboard update has started to surface. Sky Magazine states that the Sky Player will be available to download on the console while Twitter and Facebook functionality are also rumored to be included.
Digitalspy writes: "The next Xbox 360 dashboard update will arrive next month.
The October issue of Sky Magazine states that the Sky Player will be available to download on the console.
The service will be accessible for all Xbox Live Gold members, but only Sky subscribers with the relevant movie and sports packages will be able to access premium content.
As well as live television, it will share features with the PC version of the player, allowing the availability of movies and on-demand content.
Microsoft has said that the next dashboard update will include social networking functionality, including Facebook and Twitter."
360-HQ Gamer "HQ GAMExxOVER" has completed a prestige level up by only using the knife on cod5. Check out more info and Detailed stats below....
Done on Xbox360, using only a Knife, not a shot fired, no dogs or artillery, no nades of any kind. Just run'in and slicing, See the video..
More info...
1. I did the prestige over about a 2 week period
2. I stated I called in a few artillery, this was just to clear the kill streak spot as I would use radar once in a while, I would pull up the artillery and drop it far off the map so as not to get any kills.
3. You will see in the stats I have turret Hunter, this was done 4 times by running up along side a tank with a gunner, jumping up and stabbing him, also when a guy jumps out of a tank and you kill him, he is still considered a turret gunner even though he is no longer in the tank.
4. You will see I have about 1 mile put on the tank on the road trip challenge, I did use the tank a few times on large maps but just as transportation to get past a sniper, I never fired a shot in the tank or turret and was careful not to run anyone over.
5. Web stats for Knife...
I was a bit disappointed to find that the web stats to not record knife use! they keep track of how many kills you get by hitting someone with a gas grenade, statistics on every weapon and a bunch of other stats but nothing on knife, I hope they change this in the future, maybe have a unlockable GOLD KNIFE for like 5,000 Knife kills.
6. Camping..
I never camped, If I did I would still be doing the challenge. The only time I would sit still is if I was taking a headquarters or protecting a headquarters. The most effective way to knife is to keep moving, stay alert for any enemy movement around you, when you see someone just start running for them, regardless if they are looking right at you, far away or if they are in the open and in a gun battle, you can not be concerned about dying, you just have to go for it.
Microsoft today began permanently banning gamers they describe as "illegitimate ODST players" from their Xbox Live online service.
Earlier today Xbox Live Chief of Police Stephen Toulouse wrote on his Twitter page that he had seen some illegitimate ODST players, referring to Xbox 360's upcoming Halo 3: ODST, online.
"No early play for you," he wrote. "Commencing permabans."
Toulouse later clarified on his Twitter that people who bought the game early and are playing it safe.
We contacted Toulouse for more details about how widespread the bannings are and how Microsoft is differentiating between legitimate owners of the game, which went on sale at at least one store early, and those who obtained the game through illegitimate means.
Toulouse told Kotaku that he can't go into specifics about how they detect and how many they ban because they don't want to tip off pirates to their methods.
"I can be clear however that this applies to illegitimate copies only, the ban covers the Xbox LIVE account and could possibly include their console depending on the results of our investigations (which are ongoing). We do this from time to time with titles to combat piracy," he wrote to Kotaku. "If a user happens to purchase a legit copy of Halo 3: ODST early, then our problem is not with the user but the retailer who broke the street date. Those individuals will not be punished."
With Halo 3: ODST releasing right around the corner (September 22 2009.) We at 360-HQ figured we would offer up everyone a little treat here. The official Achievements list with pictures! Remember this is an exclusive list and 360-HQ is where you saw it first
Well not much to say about this other than I'm super stoked to play this game, there are 47 Achievements and it looks like all but 3 can be achieved while offline, and only 2 requiring you to play online with other people. Let's hope those difficulty ones are stackable like in Halo 3.
Stoked to play this, comments? Post on our forums here
Click the link below to check out the achievement list and all info regarding Halo 3: ODST