Another holiday is around the corner, and you know what that means.  Lots of food, friends, family, and of course a special event in Gears of War 2.  This time around, you can get your holiday cheer on during the '12 Days of Gearsmas", starting December 22 and running through January 2.  To begin, a 12x experience multiplier will allow you to earn those levels that much faster, and every day, the multiplier increases by one, topping off at 23x on January 2.  In addition, each day has a special modifier, such as "9 Boomers Booming" or "7 Sires a Storming".  We've got the full list of ho-ho-Horde friendly fun ready for your perusal, so grab an egg nog and relax.

So it’s time for another round of co-op gaming. Since we were both in the mood for some manly men accompanied by some hot, chainsaw on Locust action, Katrina and I were looking to go old school with a little Gears of War 2. I don’t know if it actually meets the definitions of ‘old school,’ but let’s just say it hasn’t been spinning in my machine lately.

This past weekend was a 31 times XP modifier for Gears of War 2.  Tally and Marc, determined to get in on the mega-leveling action, logged in only to discover the weekend actually ended on Sunday, not Monday, as previously expected.  Undaunted, they played Horde mode, assisted by Marc's youngest son, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time on the Normal mode of the Day One map.  Instead of a detailed report, Tally and Marc teamed up in true co-op fashion to bring you the Official Co-Optimus Gears of War Co-Op Quiz.  So grab a pencil, put all four legs of your chair on the floor,  and keep your eyes on your own paper.

The special Halloween weekend events in hot games just keep on coming, like a good slasher film villain.  Epic has raised expectations with a whopping 31 times experience point multiplier in Gears of War 2 from today, October 29, to November 2.  So, if you haven't earned all those level up achievements, now is definitely a good time. It's a nice treat from CliffyB and the rest of the Epic crew, but there's a trick, too: Horde mode is a special lancer only mode throughout this event.  Yup, that means chainsaw duels all over the place, and you won't be able to interrupt, either, so plenty of gore will be flowing.  Sounds like a lot of fun, and with XP earned so easily, we'll temporarily stop lamenting the fact that Gears of War 3 won't be here until next fall.

We just told you about a temporary price drop on the "All Fronts" map pack a couple of days ago.  Today, we let you know just how much a digital copy of Gears of War 2 is going for:  Thirty smackers.  Yep, that's right.  $29.99 for those of you skimming this.  (You're missing out, by the way.)  A digital copy of Gears of War 2 costs the same low, low price as a brand new copy of the actual physical media.  And if you download it you get the added privilege of having 6 gigs of your hard drive squatted on.

This deal doesn't appear to be part of the Xbox Live Gold Weekly deal, but it's a deal only available this week none the less.  Right now you can snag the totally awesome Gears of War 2 All Fronts map pack for only 400 .  The pack, when released, originally cost 1600 .

Right now - this very instant - you can get 25x Experience Points in Gears of War 2, including Horde Mode. Epic Games promised a 1x multiplier for every thousand Facebook fans, and they're delivering. This trumps July's 20x XP weekend and lays track for the Gears of War 3 hype train - it's a good time to be a Gears fan.

For three weeks or more I’ve been working on the first two Gears of War campaigns by myself. It’s not that I haven’t had offers to play them in co-op from the gracious community; my schedule is too crazy to do anything but plow through small segments at a time. So it was to my exclusive benefit when Jason was compelled by the bossman to arrange some game time with yours truly.

Do you like the XP?  The experience?  What some might call the cool points?  If so, have I got a Gears of War 2 deal for you.  For this weekend only, Epic Games is giving players FREE extra experience points.  No strings attached, no extra hoops to jump through.  But, just how much are they giving away?

In celebration of the 4th of July in the states and Canada Day in um, Canada, from July 1st to July 6th all game modes in Gears of War 2 will net you 8 times the amount of normal XP. 6x XP during E3 was a big success, so Epic figured why not make it bigger and better this time? 

Gears of War Title Update #6 has been released today and with it comes a horde of changes to the game.  We've detailed some of these already - most notably drop-in/drop-out support for Horde mode matches.  No longer will you have to wait for a group to die or will the group be forced to restart their Horde mode session.  So why wasn't this included from the beginning with Gears 2?  

Let's gather round and all be friends