Xbox 360 Fanboy

Gears of War's latest auto update has been released for a few days now and the overall consensus has been pretty positive. A new gametype, check. More balancing of weapons, check. Sticking to every damn wall and glitching still not fixed, check. Wait ... still sticking to walls and cheaters still able to glitch? Yes, it's true friends, the latest auto update is far from perfect not fixing all our glitching woes and even making one annoyance worse.

Major Nelson just posted an update on the much anticipated Gears of War ... update. True, the auto update was initially slated to be released today and then was later denied, but we just got word that it is now back on for a release later tonight! Major isn't certain of the exact time that the update will be pushed through, but he did post a list of all the new enhancements and features that will be included;

• New Annex gametype.
• Better VGA cable support.
• Assassination gametype leader no longer unlocks weapons, but has to be executed to die.
• Boomshot's splash damage increased.
• Hammer of Dawn will be more forgiving with moving targets.
• Road Run has been tweaked to lesson accidental wall sticking.
• Kill message ticker will be available when down and while spectating.
• Fixed numerous multiplayer exploits (praise the lord!).

So, we'll be playing the new Annex gametype sometime later this evening and benefit from the other tweaks. We're just hoping that all the glitches and exploits have been fixed and that Annex turns out to be a blast. Anyone up for some Gears of War action later tonight?

Update 1: Gamerscore Blog is reporting that the update will release at 4:00PM pacific. But Major Nelson is reminding everyone that this is a rolling update, which means it could take a few hours for everyone to get it after they make it available. So, be patient.

Update 2: Doh! Epic also released a few new screenshots featuring Annex. Silly us.

[Thanks, zdgman]

Yesterday, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition got a multiplayer auto update. The first thing it did was add some features, such as seeing a player's national flag in the lobby, pre-game and post-game results. It also shows who's talking in-game and in the lobby with a ")))" to the left of their gamertag in team-based games. Finally, in the lobby, your connection strength to a player is signified by a "!", and the brighter it is, the better your connection. The other set of fixes were to bugs found in the game, due to lag, as well as a few exploits. For full details on what to expect next time you log on, click the "Read" link. So do the fixes to the gameplay make you want to put some more time into Lost Planet's multiplayer?

Oh, and one more thing...

Brian Dunn says that the downloadable maps should be available March 9th or in close to that date.

[Thanks, AoE]