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Bullets and Blades – The Top 5 Weapons in Modern Gaming

What would Link be without his sword?  Samus Aran without her patented arm-mounted gun that doesn’t resemble Mega Man’s at all?  Other cliches without their weapons?  With the possible exception of Street Fighter and/or Mortal Kombat, many games have legendary heroes and villains that wield weapons and armor of a similarly epic nature.  This week, we’ll be looking over another Top 5 List, this time focusing on the greatest gear in gaming, and who wields it.

I’d like to mention right off the bat that the Mega Man Blaster or the Master Sword won’t be making an appearance in this list.  When I say weapons in modern gaming, I’m talking new games from the Playstation 2/Xbox era forward.  As much as I would like to mention epic weapons from times past (cough – Masamune! – cough) let’s stick to the more current list.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at our list! READ MORE »

Marcus, Dom, and all the Locust hordes you could ever hope for are back in what I would like to call the Ultimate Gears 2 collection. Unfortunately I am not allowed to name these DLCs so instead, Gears of War 2 would like to proudly present the All Fronts Collection.

The Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection is exactly that, a collection of every GoW2 map add on to date. With this collection, the over 5 million gamers who have clashed with the Horde since it’s launch last fall will not only get access to the Flashback map pack, not only get access to the Combustible Map pack, not only get access to the Snowblind map pack, but also get access to the brand new Dark Corners map pack as well as the elusive deleted campaign chapter entitled Road to Ruin. That’s right, a chapter campaign and 19 maps are being released in the All Fronts Collection this July 28^th, for 1600 MS points. For those of you who have been keeping up with the horde and already have Flashback, Combustible, and Snowblind; the Dark Corners map pack with Road to Ruin chapter will be available by itself for 1200 MS points. Now that the general details of this glorious package have been taken care of, let’s move onto the details of the All Fronts Collection and revitalize one of the best titles of last fall. READ MORE »

Epic Games, Inc., and Del Rey, a part of the Random House Publishing Group, announced today that Del Rey will publish three novels set in the bestselling and critically acclaimed Gears of War video game series.

“This trilogy of novels opens up whole new worlds of storytelling opportunities, and will add even more context to the upcoming comic book series, game sequel and motion picture. We loved Karen Traviss’ work on the Republic Commando series, and we can’t wait to get her Gears book to our fans,” Epic Games’ president Michael Capps in a press release from the company.

The first novel, titled Gears of War: The Battle of Aspho Fields, written by New York Times bestselling author Karen Traviss, will go on sale October 28, 2008. The Gears of War 2 video game, the sequel to the third-person shooter that won over 30 game of the year awards, will be released for the Xbox 360 on November 7, 2008.

“Gears of War” is set to blast its way onto the big screen with Len Wiseman at the helm.

Wiseman, who previously directed the “Underworld” franchise and “Live Free or Die Hard,” has signed on to direct a feature film based on the hit video game of the same name.

Chris Morgan, whose previous scriptwriting credits include “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” and the upcoming “Wanted,” has been tapped to rewrite the existing script by Stuart Beattie (”Collateral”).

The film from New Line was originally slated for a summer 2009 release, though these new announcements may now push that date back.

Epic Games’ “Gears of War” debuted on the Xbox 360 in November 2006 and was met with huge critical and commercial success.

It sold more than 3 million units worldwide in its first 10 weeks and was named Gamespot’s Game of the Year and the Interactive Achievement Awards’ Overall Game of the Year, among other accolades.

The third-person shooter takes places on the planet Sera and pits players, who assume the roles of soldiers on Delta Squad, against creatures known as the Locust Horde.

A sequel to the game was announced earlier this year and is expected to be released in December.