Microsoft somehow managed to make one incredible mountain of a screw-up this weekend involving exclusive DLC. Basically, Microsoft was running some sort of promotional event thing (?), which ultimately allowed some gamers to get a free DLC code for the original Banjo-Kazooie on Xbox Live. The problem was that a gamer found out that exclusive DLC such as Gears of War 2 Golden weapons for example, were available and free from the site due to a mess up from Microsoft's side. What's also interesting is that the gamer who found it, known only as RedRex32, went to the Epic Forums to blow the whistle and let everyone know. Not once, but twice. Although he swears that he only went onto the forums to talk about it and not spread the word, he has been permanently banned from the forums. Not only was his account banned but he was given the full IP-blocked treatment. Pretty harsh if you ask me, considering that he wasn't the one that made the screw-up.

Do you love Gears of War 2? Do you dream of being a human billboard?  Well then this is your lucky day as we are about to give you the opportunity to make those dreams come true, Lazygamer in conjunction with Microsoft are offering you the chance to win one of 2 Gears of War 2 T-Shirts and one of …

This entire story with the Gears of War 2 Map Packs in South Africa have been a bit of a complete bummer for all of us. While we can assure you that we are still hard at work with our mission to try and get map codes to all South Africans, regardless of the odds, something very interesting (and not good) has arisen. A lot of South Africans have been buying map pack codes from various different sources so that they can all join in the flashback fun. A friend of mine (Let's call him "Bartleby") bought a code this weekend and was incredibly disappointed to get home and find out that the availability of the downloadable maps has come to an end. Just like the issue that we had with the first Gears of War, our IP's are now being blocked, meaning that they are no longer accessible to anyone in this country. We have previously posted up a very clever way to get around the restrictions but either way, it's still not good news to hear. Please know that we are still working on getting answers with regards to the map codes but for now we ask you to all sit tight until we can get you anymore solid information.

Gears of War 2’s skill-based matchmaking has now become Epic’s top priority as far as fixes to the recently released game goes and they hope to have a solution soon. Hit the jump to see what Senior producer Rod Fergusson had to say on the official forums Gears forums. Last Updated: November 20, 2008

While a lot of us are still hurting from the sting of not receiving the map pack codes in South Africa, a few images have popped up on Flickr that show someone playing Gears of War 2 on a never-before-seen multiplayer map. The new map looks to be some sort of take on the whole sunken-city idea and could be one of many that are already in the works as DLC. Once again, there is no way to tell if us South Africans will even have any access to them, so maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up. Pics after the jump. [Thanks to Poddle for the tip] You check the full gallery by clicking here.

  For Gears of War 2 we decided to do our review a little differently, we knew that everyone who was anticipating the game would be getting it on launch day anyway so we decided it would be better to hold off on the review and rather give a post mortem of our experience. The hype has come and gone …

I know that all of you are actually all waiting for a response from Epic about the Map codes but unfortunately, we have been left waiting for the people at Microsoft to respond. On a different note, anyone who has tried to join a game using matchmaking will know that it's bordering on being completely broken as we hear that finding a game takes somewhere in the region of 20 minutes. Rod Fergusson, the producer of Gears of War 2 has addressed the issue on the Epic forums saying that they have heard the cries of the gamers and are working with Microsoft to try and get a solution, although it doesn't look like we will have anything anytime soon. He lists a couple of ways to try and speed things up and also gives a few interesting facts about Gears of War 2's online performance since release, so click through the source and read his post for yourself.

One of the new additions to Gears of War 2 is the ability to take photo's whilst spectating then upload them to your profile on the Gears of War website so that you can view them, download them or share them with your friends. Here's a small gallery of a few images that I took this week, check out the action of some of our multiplayer sessions and it's easy to see how crazy some of the battles can get. All the pics are available after the jump.