I really hope that I get proven wrong on this one because if I don't, it will be a pretty sad piece of news for us South Africans. As you all know, a few South Africans have been able to get their hands on copies of Gears of War 2 a few days early. I got the chance to speak to someone who has already gotten a copy and has played a sneaky multiplayer session with a few other of the lucky folks who got it early as well. The problem is that none of them could find the "Flashback Map Pack" code in their Gears of War 2 boxes. Say it ain't so. More after the jump. While there is a small chance that the early copies didn't have the codes, I very highly doubt that there is any difference between those copies and the ones that will be available on Friday. If this is true, it may mean that South Africans are going to completely miss out on the recreated maps from the original Gears of War. The truth is that South Africa isn't officially supported for Xbox Live but one would think that because we get the same stock as Europe, we would have the codes packaged in. At this point I am just sincerely hoping that the guys I spoke to were just hopelessly blind and couldn't find the codes that are actually there. Problem is that it isn't really likely. If we are lucky, the maps will become available over Xbox Live to everyone after a short while, even though a lot of South Africans will need to resort to special measures to bypass the region block on all of the Gears of War 2 content.

A report has come in confirming that a new Xbox Live starter pack has been made official and is going to be arriving sometime next week for the US price of $99.00. The pack includes a 60GB HDD, a 3 month subscription to Xbox Live, a wired headset as well as an ethernet cable. A touch expensive? Maybe. With 20GB HDD's usually going for around a grand in South Africa, it may not actually be a bad deal. This all however depends on the price it will be when it hits local shelves, which also brings me onto my next point. When I say next week, I mean next week in the US as there are no indications to whether or not we will even be seeing it in South Africa, especially since we don't even have local Live support. We can only hope to see it someday soon and with all of the extra online functionality being pushed towards the casual gamer with the new dashboard update, it's about time that we start seeing some proper news about some local support.

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?

You may or may not have seen the Xbox 360 Christmas bundles being announce across the world over the past few weeks, well if you have then you will be happy to see that we are not being ignored and if you haven’t you will be happy to know we are getting great bundles. See everyone’s a winner. Anyway to …

Microsoft revealed earlier this week that qualifying Core and Arcade owners can receive either a free Xbox 360 Memory Unit or Xbox 360 Hard Drive. Unfortunately this seems to only apply to Xbox 360 owners in the US and Europe. But fear not. Craig N, our very own Microsft MVP has just posted on his blog that Microsoft Xbox South …

I'm writing this article only a short while after arriving home from a Megarom event that had two rather humourous French blokes from Activision give us a presentation of their upcoming titles for the Christmas season. While they did a great job of keeping things fun and interesting, nothing could compare to the guy in the back row who thought that there was a walkway behind his seat and literally took a casual step off of a 2 meter ledge, shaking the entire rooms floor as he slammed into the ground.... I had the chance to get some hands on time with Call of Duty: World at War as well Guitar Hero: World Tour . Yes indeed, A couple of guys and myself stood up on a small stage in front of a bunch of strangers as I fought back the pressure of nailing the solo of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" on Expert mode, which I thankfully handled and made sure to not look like a complete noob (It came out of nowhere I swear). You had better make sure to check the site for my hands-on impressions of both COD:WAW and GH: World Tour as I will have both of them up shortly after this article sees the light of day and you will really want to hear what I have to say if you are a fan of the COD series or games that let you rock out in style.... If there is one thing that Activision impressed me with, it was that they very openly admitted to many of the faults in their previous titles and that they seemed to have really listened to the suggestions and complaints of gamers around the world and made any necessary changes to make better games. Whether they have done enough or not is something that we will only really find out once we have had time with the finished titles. We were also treated to some footage of the upcoming action title "Fracture", which takes a whole new approach on combat by giving you the ability to alter the terrain around you to your advantage.

...Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond game also looks like it has a lot of potential, especially for a 007 title since the last couple of Bond titles were nothing special to say the least. Add the fact that it is using the COD 4 graphics engine and it actually might surprise us. Obviously one of Activision's biggest titles for the year is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. While I quite liked the feel of the game I can't say that I am completely sure that it will not get repetitive. We didn't see much more than what is already available in the demo so if you want to know more you can go read the impressions of the demo that I put up a while ago by clicking here. While there were a few other titles shown off such as Clone Wars, Spiderman: Web of Shadows and believe it or not, two Barbie titles, the real ones you want to pay attention to are the ones described above. All I can really say is that after my experiences with a few of these upcoming titles, the only advice I can give you is to start saving up. There is a big season of gaming on the way and you are going to want a couple of these in your games library come Christmas.

Americans are up in arms because a US company called Comcast has started capping their internet services. The poor US internet users (residential only I might add) are going to really suffer because they have been restricted to a measly 250GB per month.... Now I can understand why the internet users are upset as no one likes having anything taken away but this really makes me think about how scary things actually are in South Africa compared to the rest of the world.... I really think that the world needs to know how much we pay and how little we get. I have gone to a US ISP website to check their pricing and then looked at the pricing here in South Africa just to get a good look at the differences between the two. (Comcast requires an address to get pricing and for the life of me I couldn't get it to work) You simply won't believe the numbers when you see them. Firstly, I am going to take a look at a decent "hardcore" internet package from Telkom together with Webafrica: Telkom 4Mbps ADSL line including rental (Not including any setup fees or modem + Webafrica 10GB Shaped Account: = R1050.88 Now for the US, I have taken these details straight from the AT&T website: Downstream Speed: Up to 6.0 Mbps Upstream Speed: Up to 768 Kbps IP Address: 1 Dynamic Double Your Cash Back – Order online and get $100 Cash Back!* Get Elite for $35.00 per month with the price guaranteed for 2 years—no contract required!* Plus, receive a FREE AT&T Wireless Gateway (wireless router with built-in modem—a $79.99 value) or a FREE Modem (a $49.99 value) after rebate. Online offer only.* Also, enjoy complimentary Wi-Fi access at over 17,000 hot spots, including U.S. company-operated Starbucks locations equipped with a hot spot.* So then, 6mbps line, uncapped, unshaped free modem and hotspot connectivity, wanna guess how much it works out to? $35.00 per month (R276.00) As I work out these figures I find it incredibly difficult to believe what we are paying and what we as South Africans have become used to. Now I know it doesn't actually work this way, but my calculator program is open and I feel like working something out. What would it cost me to have 250GB's worth of cap if I had to order it from a local ISP? I checked on Webafrica and they do have High Cap options available, so from their packages I will need to order 2 x 100GB packages + 1 x 50GB package. The final price for the cap alone: R16,700.00 ($2,115.00) per month Wow, just wow. When you look at numbers like this you really start to realise how ridiculous all of this actually is. These US ADSL packages at these prices are geek fantasies that we could only dream of and it is something that really needs to change.