Only 4 sleepies left until Gears of War 2 hits the shelves and indeed most of our disc drivers. To help ease the pain of the wait, or for that matter, possibly make it worse, we have a montage of a lot of the multiplayer maps, courtesy of IGN. The wait is almost finally over for the sequel to Microsoft's big hit of 2006. The only thing easing my pain at the moment is the barrage of big titles that came out this previous weekend.

1UP Specials: Artist Formerly Known as CliffyB 1/3 Cliff Bleszinski talks about his start in the business with Jazz Jackrabbit on PC. It’s quite interesting to see how the Gears of War poster boy started his career in games. Part 2 of the interview is after the jump, where Cliffy talks about Unreal’s effect on the industry and how it’s …

I saw an interesting news story showing that the popular American retailer "Circuit City" is going to be offering 1600 free Xbox Live points to anyone who buys Gears of War 2 from one of their stores. Ok, I though, this doesn't really apply to us South Africans so I don't need to bother posting the news. Then it dawned on me, this is very relevant to us because I want to know why we aren't getting cool deals like this. As a South African, any of us have quite a large amount of stores to choose from when buying a new game for our favorite console or handheld. Some go to certain stores for a better price, or because they like the service and most, well, most probably just pick whichever is closest. So with gaming picking up in the country and the potential for sales being huge this Christmas season, why in the hell aren't any of them using any methods to get us to buy from them instead of their rivals. Damn it. I want 1600 free points when I go buy my Gears of War 2, or a free keyring, or pat on the back, or something. I'm sure that you do too. Most of us have our favorite stores but if there is one that is offering something like this along with the game then you know damn straight that it will be there store that I go to when the game gets released. C'mon local stores, when are you going to realise that we all want free stuff and you all want more sales, it makes sense doesn't it?

This latest developer diary from Epic doesn't really focus on anything specific but rather talks about a lot of the different aspects that make up the game. They also discuss the fans and the media as well as what they are doing to try improve the game as well as attract new audiences. Just a week and a bit left till the destruction begins and these videos aren't helping to make the wait go quicker.

Unfortunately no matter how hard we try we just can’t really make Gears of War and Resistance enemies, they don’t compete directly against each other and they are both great games. However that won’t stop us from trying, I guess there will be someone out there who is rich enough to own a PS3 and a Xbox 360 but can’t …

Not too long ago, we reported that Gears of War 2 had been leaked and was already available for download on the internet. A tip has come in today, telling us that a local, with the incredibly elegant gamertag: Balsak66 was already spotted playing Gears of War 2 last night while connected to Xbox Live. A damn shame that some members of our local gaming community are supporting piracy and for all we know there are more although some of them may have actually made some sort of effort to hide their crime. Piracy really is starting to become a serious problem in the console gaming industry and if we support it then we are going to slowly kill off the very thing that we all have in common, games. More after the jump. Come on guys, be a man (or woman) and do the right thing. Wait the wait and fork out the cash for the game that so many of us have been waiting for for such a long time. PC gaming is already suffering with Crytek announcing that they will no longer be creating games exclusively for PC as well as Epic Games announcing that they will not be releasing a port of Gears of War 2. Gaming has just become the new "Hollywood" and already so many people are making such an active effort to destroy it by pirating games.

A new TV spot for Gears of War 2 aired today in the United States titled "Last Day". Keeping with the feeling of the Mad World trailer that was released for the original Gears of War, the trailer plays out with sombre tunes and muted tones, the beginning really is quite lovely. It's obvious that by now the hype for Gears of War 2 has reached a mad height. Xbox Live friends lists are sitting chock and block with people all playing the original Gears of War again so that they can brush up on their skills or only just because they need to play the closest thing that they can find to the sequel. It's time has nearly come. November 7th draws nearer and all we can do is wait. It's a good thing so many good games are coming out today, they will help ease the pain.

Reports have been going around the internet saying that according to EDGE magazine, Gears of War 2 will not only not be released in Germany but will not see the light of day in Japan either. The report caused much confusion because the first Gears of War sold well in Japan and even made it into the sales charts on it's opening weekend and no reasons had been given for why it would be kept out of Japan. We all know why Germany isn't getting it. It's because if a German citizen sees violence they turn into zombies that eat all of the neighbours kittens and the mess is truly a sight to behold. We all know that Japanese people are immune to becoming zombies because of the (Y12/7 +43ab - 7) chromosomes in their blood. So why aren't they getting it? More after the jump. Well an update has now been posted saying that Microsoft is not entirely happy with what they said and that apparently no mention has been made of the release plans for Japan. Does that mean Japan is getting it after all? Err, well, no it doesn't but it does at least give hope to all the Japanese 360 owners who want to play it (latest reports show that there are now more that 8, thanks to recent sales).