If you don't like the new maps then $@#% you. lol. The only one that's a little shaky is Garden cuz it's not set up that well. But other than that they're awesome. Process and Bullet marsh are especially nice. The weapon placement in process is awesome. Subway is nice cuz it's big. the sniper spot for that level is a little iffy b/c the ledge for the window is too small so it's really hard to get a good shot on anyone, which makes going for the boomshot not as risky. It is a great placement for the person who goes after the torque bow, while giving the torque a fighting chance to stick the sniper. I'm glad the levels are bigger and not like Raven down. I mean, i like that map, but it's like one giant slaughter. so, i give the new maps a 4.85 out of five, only for minor problems.

Mmm, mmm, new gears of war update. Those always make me happy. However, what was in the update didn't make me nearly as happy as what WASN'T in the update.

 

I heard all of these stupid rumors about flamethrowers and daggers and I just laughed. Then I heard a rumor about dual-wielding and a blood vessel in my head exploded. I couldn't believe it. So, let's try to educate people on why stupid additions to a game are, well, stupid.

 1. Dual wielding would be dumb. Even though a lot of people don't use it due to the power of the gnasher, the game was meant to use the aim feature quite often. The game was meant to have people pick strategic spots and pick their shots... not charge someone head on and hope you can pull the trigger faster. And don't you even try to explain frag tagging to me, cuz if you have half a brain you know that's supposed to be a sneak attack thing. Bottom line is that you're not supposed to bull rush people unless it's 4 on 1.

Also, why would they rip off Halo like that? I know it's been done before, but Halo cemented Dual-Wielding. So there's no point in beating an almost dead horse.

2. Daggers. This one was a little interesting at first. They do carry daggers, and I wondered why there were just "there". by playing the game, you'd think that the developers wanted to make sure you had access to all different kinds of weapons. I mean, you have a gun w/ a chainsaw duct-taped on in. Looking back, it wouldn't make sense to add now. they wouldn't waste time adding new animations for it, cuz it'd be a waste of time and probably be too buggy at first to make it worth doing. then, using old animations it would feel cheap and dumb. None of the weapons stab, and who wants to slash w/a dagger? Another problem would be deciding if it was a one-hit or two-hit down, or even an instant kill. You cannot melee anyone w/ one hit and down them, so it'd be too easy, but if you're going to stab them, why not go w/ a death blow? it just wouldn't please everyone and there's probably be some backlash about it.

3. Flamethrowers. Holy $&#*, where do I even start? This addition would have created complete pandamonium if released. First of all, ALL of the physics of the game would have had to have been redesigned for fire, the visual creation of fire would have required overly-extensive coding since it's a download and not on the disc, and who's to say how much damage fire does to you? or what do you have to do to put the fire out? Rolling would make sense, but you could just light them up again as soon as they do. But, as i hinted at the biggest problem a second ago, it would be a massive update. You'd have to redesign every multiplayer map to handle fire, on the trees, on cars, plants, etc. also, creating visuals like water and fire are very hard and complex and would require a lot of coding. Forget about the playing side of it, just to put it in the game would probably knock out a sizable portion of your hard drive.

Then there's the question of how much damage it would do. EVERYONE would be complaining about this. I can even hear it already. Some 11 yr old punk w/ a squeaky voice, who shouldn't even be playing the game anyway, as it's rated M for MATURE, would be screaming "omg, it's fire he should have been killed!!", or "omg that flamethrower is stupid. it's way too strong." Unfortunately, both cases are true. How do you accurately decide how strong the fire is? How do you decide how much ammo to give it, and how would you even keep track? It could be like the plasma rifle from the halo series, but giving it a count down based on how long you hold the trigger would be very "un-Gears" like. THEN you'd have the question of how fast does the ammo deplete. You see? this is stupid.

 

So, to recap it all...

No dual-wielding = good. No dagger = good, in the long run. No Flamethrower = good and a ridiculous idea to begin w/.

 Yes new match type = eh, it depends on what you're in to. I'm burnt out on king of the hill myself. Yes fix the roadie run glitch= good, but it was easy to stop in the first place and now you get stuck on everything as cover.... Yes fixing a bunch of other glitches = good, but most you can still do.

 

Looking forward to those new maps!! and if you're not willing to pay a little bit of $$$ for them, then you need to loosen them pockets.

Later.