Leak Alert: Gears of War 3 emerges on torrent sites

An unfinished developer build of Gears of War 3 has been leaked online, according to NeoGAF and supported by YouTube footage, including the above video showing a "Beta" Gears of War 3 loading screen and campaign footage. The leak is a JTAG version of Gears 3, meaning it will only play on specially modded or dev-kit Xbox 360s. These are commonly difficult to come by, but just because you can't run the leaked code (you can't, right?) doesn't mean other, far less scrupulous people aren't capable. YouTube and video-streaming sites will most likely contain early videos of the game, so shoot your computer screen now if you don't want to see 'em. We've reached out to Epic Games for comment on if, and how, this will affect Gears of War 3's development and release.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/02/leak-alert-gears-of-war-3-emerges-on-torrent-sites/#comments

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Black Ops Double XP Weekend Has Begun

The Double XP Weekend to commemorate the launch of the Annihilation Map Pack for Black Ops has begun. The extra long holiday edition of the double XP festivities will run from now until Tuesday July 5th. The Double XP event has hit all platforms, so that means whether you are a Xbox 360, PS3, or PC gamer, you can get in on the fun during this extended holiday weekend. For Xboxers the Annihilation Map Pack which launched earlier this week is a five map expansion to the game, which adds four multiplayer maps and one new zombies map to the game for 1200 MSP. It's currently available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and is an excellent addition to the game.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/black-ops-double-xp-weekend-has-begun-2/

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Treyarch designers “weren’t always good” at multiplayer maps

The Annihilation map pack represents Treyarch’s growing skills as level designers, David Vonderhaar has said.“We’re very concerned about pathing through the map. You want to make sure players can navigate the map in a consistent fashion. You want your main paths, to say, be wider than your flanking paths – tell a vocabulary in a visual story there,” the Black Ops design director told Gamefront. “And what we’ve learned over time is that we weren’t always good at that. “[But] we’ve gotten better at that and it’s become just part of our D.N.A. … So you’re seeing in the map packs this evolution of our thinking, and Annihilation represents exactly what we’re talking about here. … I think anything Treyarch does long-term will be more cognizant of it.” Annihilation is the third map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops, and is available now on Xbox Live, with other platforms to follow.

http://www.vg247.com/2011/07/01/treyarch-designers-werent-always-good-at-multiplayer-maps/

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Modern Warfare 3 will totally change Killstreaks

The ever contentious subject of Killstreaks in Call of Duty is about to get even more controversial, with Infinity Ward community bod Robert Bowling revealing that Modern Warfare 3 is revamping the entire thing. "We changed the entire way the killstreak system works," he said. "I can't go into detail yet, but I will share when I can." Without any further details, we've no choice but to launch into rudderless speculation. So let me ask you -- what do you want to see done to Killstreaks in Modern Warfare 3? 

http://www.destructoid.com/modern-warfare-3-will-totally-change-killstreaks-205004.phtml

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Red Dead Redemption DLC announcement coming soon, quadruple XP now

If you're ready to quick-draw some funds from your bank account, and your trigger finger is itching to click "buy", you'll be pleased to know that some new Red Dead Redemption DLC is on the way. We don't exactly know when, but Rockstar mentioned on Twitter that the release date and details for this unnamed pack will be revealed "in the coming weeks." Maybe this time it'll be about old-west Draculas, or invisible cowboys. In the meantime, if you're looking for something to do in the currently released RDR content, Rockstar is hosting a quadruple XP event through Monday. Your cowpoke will get four times as grizzled! Update: The new DLC is likely the free "Fan Appreciation DLC" announced during E3, with new "fan-favorite" multiplayer characters, and new content for various multiplayer modes.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/30/red-dead-redemption-dlc-announcement-coming-soon-quadruple-xp-n/#comments

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Andy Gray No Longer A Part of FIFA Games

EA's beloved FIFA franchise will be taking the pitch this year without long-time color commentator Andy Gray. Gray has essentially been issued a red card by both EA and Sky Sports, being sent-off after on-air sexist comments regarding a call from a female official during an EPL match. Gray will be replaced by current Sky Sports commentator Alan Smith who will appear alongside play-by-play man, Martin Tyler. However, EA will offer two commentary options for players this year. Fans can select from the Tyler-Smith duo or opt for Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend, with the default option being that Tyler-Smith will call most of the games and the more important matches will be called by Tyldesley-Townsend to give them a more realistic significance. FIFA 12 is set to release September 27.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/andy-gray-no-longer-a-part-of-fifa-games/

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Call of Duty XP Event This September

Activision has just recently announced that it will be holding a Call of Duty event for fans of the game this September. The XP event which sounds awfully familiar to something along the lines of Blizz-Con, except that the event will be all about Call of Duty only. At the event that is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles this fall, Activision will unveil Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer for the first time during the two day event, as well as feature a fully functional Call of Duty Elite to show off to fans. There will be plenty of festivities at the event that is said to "feel like you stepped into the game", which include paintballing on a recreated map from Modern Warfare 2, eats sponsored by Burger Town, a real-life recreation of the Pit which you can run, and a $1 million dollar Black Ops Multiplayer Tournament for starters. Attendees will of course have to travel to the 12-acre compound which is located in Los Angeles for the two day event, where then tickets will run $150 according to Giant Bomb. 100% of the entry fees that Activision gets from the Call of Duty-palooza will be going to the Call of Duty Endowment.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/call-of-duty-xp-event-this-september/

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Why isn’t FIFA in 3D yet?

With sports these days being broadcasted in 3D all over, and the tech being pushed in videogames, why isn’t one of the biggest sports game series, FIFA, in 3D yet? For those few who’ve wondered, FIFA 12 lead producer David Rutter has the answer. “If you look at the broadcast of footballon TV in 3D, what you see is the kind of standard camera angle and the 3D realization of it. We can get 3D working in some camera angles but in others it’s quite jarring,” he explained when quizzed on the matter. “So we’ve been working on it and we’ll look at it, and when we get it right we’ll seriously think about releasing it.” Rutter was talking in the latest episode of EA’s PWNED web series. Catch the whole episode below.

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Modern Warfare 3 Fires Back at the Competition

Perhaps the developers that are working on Modern Warfare 3 are sick and tired of hearing about the Frostbite 2 Engine. There's no doubt that DICE's work on the upcoming shooter is looking fantastic, but that's not stopping the competition from firing back some choice words of their own. Sledgehammer Games, who is co-developing Modern Warfare 3 pointed out that the game is still running at 30 frames per second. "You can go out and name your engine and call it whatever you want, right?" Sledgehammer Games' Glen Schofield said in the recent interview "You know, I've done that before; I've seen that trick and the bottom line is, this game [Modern Warfare 3] will run at 60 frames a second. Not sure any of our competitors will." "Not sure I've seen any of our competitors, on the console especially, running at 60 frames a second, and I'd be a little scared at this point -- in June -- if I was looking forward to a particular game that wasn't on the console and running at 60. And I think 60 is our competitive edge and you just don't throw that away." "I don't know what the future holds for the engine. But you don't ship an engine, you ship a game." he concluded in the interview. DICE has already went on to defend their position on the frame rate concerns that have been expressed by fans. Johan Andersson told fans of the game "We always do 30 FPS on consoles, not possible to fit in vehicles, fx, scale and all players otherwise".

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/modern-warfare-3-fires-back-at-the-competition/

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Xbox 360 Graphics Quality Raised by New Tech

Developers have recently gotten the Xbox 360 to use an MLAA anti-aliasing technique that levels the playing field for the two console when it comes to graphics. The best looking PlayStation 3 games of this generation used this MLAA technology which was implemented using five of the consoles SPUs to compensate for RAM limitations that it had. The development technique produced superior results to what the Xbox 360 was using, which was a traditional MSAA (multi-sample-anti-aliasing). This was one of the major reasons that you saw a quality gap in third party games between the two consoles at the onset of the generation, and in some cases more recently. It had been thought that the Xbox 360 would not be able to match this graphical output, but it appears that a development team has got the technique working on the Xbox 360. This could be a big gust of wind for the Xbox 360's almost six year old sail, one which analyst's believe is beginning to show it's age. Whether developers will be able to take and implement these new findings in upcoming games to deliver noticeably better gaming experiences has yet to be seen.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/xbox-360-graphics-quality-raised-by-new-tech/

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