Gears of War Realm

As a reminder, the Xbox Live Emergence Day promotions begin today. Here is a quick recap of the events:

Leaderboard tournament: The 24-hour leaderboard tournament winner receives a one-of-a-kind Gears of War branded guitar as well as an automatic bye to the finals of a global Gears of War tournament planned for 2007.
Hourly sweepstakes drawings: Prize giveaways mean you could win one of several Samsung HT-P29 Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound Systems.
Gamer pic and theme: Score the exclusive free Gears of War gamer pic and theme, only available on Emergence Day.
Game with Fame: Play with legendary heavy metal band and Gears of War fans Megadeth, the game’s lead designer Cliff Bleszinski, and other members of the Epic Games team.
New videos: Check out the never-before-seen videos including a special Emergence Day transmission from Cliff Bleszinski.
MTV Special: Watch the MTV “Gears of War: The Road to Launch” sneak preview.

As you can see below, the Live downloads are now up and ready for everyone. No sighting of the MTV Special content, yet.

As far as the Tournament is considered, currently the leaderboards for Ranked Play have not been reset yet as of this writing at 3:00AM CST. I’m sure they will sometime soon and I’ll update this post accordingly.

I wanted to give everyone a little tease of what is to come here at Gears of War Realm. Right now we’re working on putting together not only our Gears of War WikiGuide that we talked about yesterday, but also some other great content for everyone. We’re going to have video clips of all the exciting Gears of War cutscenes action as well as helpful videos for defeating those bosses we all know and love. We will probably give video walkthroughs of all the Multiplayer Maps as well.

Here is a quick taste of what’s to come.

Next week is MTV’s “Gamer Week” and they have another Gears of War documentary lined up for us. This time it’s the “Race To Launch” instead of the “Race to E3″ and again follows the development team as well as fans who are awaiting the release of the game.

Here is what Lead Designer CliffyB had to say in his MySpace bulletin about it:

I caught a bit of it today and it’s great stuff. The whirlwind of launching a next gen game is captured in all its glory and craziness! Watch superfans get stoked for the release of the title … including tattooing! Watch one of the Greys’ doctors get filled full of lead in the game! Marvel at the action packed world of SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT!

It premeieres Monday night at 8:30pm on MTV.com. But don’t worry, if you miss it at the first airing, here is a list of all future air dates for MTV and MTV2. I snagged these from MTV.com, so they are subject to change at any time.

Monday 11/13 – 8:30PM [MTV] and 9:30PM, 2:30AM [MTV2]

Tuesday 11/14 – 1:30AM [MTV] and 12:30PM, 3:00AM [MTV2]

Friday 11/17 – 10:00AM [MTV]

Saturday 11/18 – 9:30PM [MTV2]

Sunday 11/19 – 1:00AM [MTV]

Monday 11/20 – 3:30AM [MTV2]

Are you a little upset at the lack of ability to play ranked matches with other friends in Gears of War? Well you are not alone, it’s a common complaint from most of us who were spoiled by Halo 2. Don’t fret, there may be some hope yet. According to an interview with Epic Games VP Mark Rein over at Gamer Andy made some teasing all of us by saying that ranked friend party matches may make it in a future update.

Here’s a transcript:

Gamer Andy: Actually, I do have a question for you if you don’t mind
MarkRein: Sure, whats on your mind?
Gamer Andy: Well, I’m kinda a hardcore team guy when it comes to games like this, and one of the things I enjoyed most about Halo 2 was how easy it was to play all night with your friends against other people and have it still be really competitive… For as much fun as unranked games are, I think people take games more seriously and generally try harder when they think somethings on the line
MarkRein: Yeah, Microsoft came to us and said there would be alot of cheaters if we did it that way so for right now this is how it is. In the future we might roll out some additional functionality
Gamer Andy: Oh, thats such a dirty tease
MarkRein: Yep

So there it is, lets all cross our fingers that this mode gets into the game. I feel it would make ranked matched more appealing for some of us who enjoy teaming up with friends online.

Well I’ve had my copy of Gears of War for about a day now, and it lives up to everything I expected so far. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the single player campaign yet, and love it so far. I’ve actually been addicted to the multiplayer game so far, getting used to the gameplay mechanics and getting owned on a regular basis. But after taking too many beatings, I’m going to take the advice of some fellow players and start to play the game on Hardcore because it’s the best training method available to those wanting to play multiplayer. So I’ll be skipping the Casual mode and going right to Hardcore. So far the Hardcore AI has kept me on my toes. Expect a full review once I wrap up with the game.

Over the next few days I’ll start to lay down the ground work for our Wiki strategy guide that I have mentioned before. Hopefully I can launch it sometime in the next few days, so the community can help it grow into the best resource online for Gears of War. We just want to get some of the structure in place before we let everyone into it to start contributing. So please check back if you are interested in helping out the community. We may also be giving away goodies to the best contributors over the next month, but that’ll be announced officially once it’s launched.

Also, I am going to sweeten the pot of the contest. Now the first place winner will receive a Gears of War: Collectors Edition instead of the standard edition of the game. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Collectors Edition and decided to give that away instead. So if you haven’t yet, go and sign up because there is still plenty of time left! As a tease, here is some sweet shots of the Collectors Edition box from Xboxygen.

Alain Tascan, general manager of EA Montreal, stated at a panel discussion at the Montreal Games Summit that Gears of War “brings nothing in terms of innovation to the shooter.”  A few more choice quotes are embedded in the story over at Eurogamer.

Looks like those are fighting words.  It should be noted that Tascan’s studio is currently in development of their game Army of Two, which many compare the game to Gears, but emphasizes co-op play.  Tascan is putting a whole lot of pressure on his team now that he has publicly ridiculed a competitor, while he hasn’t actually played Gears of War yet.  Army of Two better be an amazing game, or Tascan might have set his game on a level too high for his team to achieve.

According to videogameplus blog, Gears of War is reported to be “region free”, allowing all consoles in any geographical region to play the game without any limitations.  This is good news for some overseas Xbox 360 users who cannot wait for their slight delays in their region to pass.

I found this on Digg today. A teen waiting in line to purchase Gears of War was assaulted by angry 36 year old at a local Gamestop store. The man was upset after the cashier notified everyone there were no more copies left. The kid is now in the hospital with several injuries to his head and neck, while the man is in jail arrested awaiting arraignment for aggravated assault. Sadly the copy of the game is being held as evidence in the matter.

read more | digg story

Any of you not totally sold on getting Gears of War yet and want to see some reviews? The website Gameguru Mania has an excellent round up of all the various Gears of War reviews from all the major game outlets. The game is getting some EXCELLENT reviews, which is great news to take to heart that all of Epic’s hard work is being recognised.

So if you need some convincing, go check the list out but we all know you already have the game on preorder or are playing it right now!

We at Gears of War Realm have received one copy of Gears of War today. Everyone should be able to find the game in stores Nationwide today. Sadly the Collectors edition of the game is not out today, but our writer Drew got his today without even preordering!

We are firing it up right now and will be updating the site here throughout the night with various information.

The game does appear to have an update available on Xbox Live. Not sure what it does but it was a quick update.

Here is an image of the box taken by my webcam:

Update 7:00pm
For those interested, you can watch Drew’s progression through the game via his Xbox Live Profile Page