Backorder Bonus: Win Gears of War 2 Flashback Map Pack!

When Gears of War 2 launched, the pre-order hungry gamers got a few extra multiplayer maps for free. The maps were then released on the Xbox Live Marketplace for 400 MSPoints. The map pack included five maps for an astonishingly reasonable price. Some people hated the idea that they were just “remake” maps, but Epic recognized that and made the maps essentially $1 each. The remade levels from Gears of War 1 multiplayer in this map pack are: Gridlock, Subway, Canals, Mansion, and Tyro Station.

Maybe you didn’t pre-order your game, maybe you bought the game used, and maybe you just have no intention of paying for old maps! Either way, if you still don’t have this map pack and you’re interested, here’s your chance!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this thread between now and 12:00 NOON EDT on Friday, April 9th. A comment will be chosen at random and then sent a code. If you leave your gamertag, I can easily send you the code over Xbox Live. If you do not leave a gamertag, I will only be able to contact you if you are a registered user of WinBreak.com.

Four Xbox Live Indie Games reviews

After looking closely at the site XBLA Ratings, I thought how very useful it could be for future players and people new to Xbox Live. I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen the site to check it out, and contribute to it, as I have.

That’s right, I took the time, today, to write up a few things that I had been considering doing write ups on for my own site, and contributing them to theirs. I believe what they’re doing is worth while, and though I may not be any huge name in the industry or anything, I just wanted to put my support behind them. I have contributed four reviews for various Xbox Live Indie games, in an attempt to bring more attention to a unique service that Xbox Live offers, and to help out some of those independant developers. Check each one out below:

Colosseum, Review.

Felix: Tale of the Night, Review.

Neo Terra, Review.

Streets of Fury, Review.

UPDATE: Weird ODST Content BACK on the Marketplace!

The picture above was discovered months ago by the folks at Joystiq. These thigns were wiped from the Marketplace a long while ago. But I figured, with the game launching

    soon, they might just reappear. And sure enough, yesterday, they did.

    Everyone paying attention to ODST knows that Sgt. Johnson will be available to players in Firefight Mode as a bonus download for preordering. Haven’t preordered the game? Want Sgt. Johnson? Rich? Go ahead, try and download him! “Something Special” – when plugged in to everyone’s favorite search engine, reveals that the “Something Special” DLC is actually none other than Sgt. Johnson – now for the remarkably low price of 99999 . “EN Dolphin Data” has made a triumphant return to the Marketplace, as well, though attempts to download it fail repeatedly. This one is still a mystery.

    It should be noted that these items do not show up with the rest of the game’s Marketplace Content.

    UPDATE 1: Something popped in to my head today. Will still can’t verify exactly what “EN Dolphin Data” was – but in the recent Bungie Day ’09 Podcast, someone (I don’t recall who) had mentioned that there may be another piece of DLC. Well, nobody specifically mentioned DLC, but they mentioned that there may be a use for your Halo PC “yellow sticker” CD-Keys. I believe he was meaning those keys for the Halo 2 “Games for Windows Live” game, and not just “Halo CE” keys from a decade ago. But the game’s “CD-Key” is, infact, 5 sets of 5 characters (a “5-by-5” if you will)… the same as the codes for the Xbox Live Marketplace. It’s very likely that, whatever this Dolphin Content is, might be unlocked by Halo 2’s CDKey. But what will it be? This 4MB file of “EN Dolphin Data” could be it, but who knows exactly WHAT it is? Perhaps I’ll give that a shot? Looks like it’s still wait and see

Halo Wars' "Historic Battles" Screen Shots!

Yesterday, we received confirmation of the existence of new achievements and the “Historic Battles” Map Pack coming to Halo Wars for a lovably low 800 MSPoints. Still, if you wondered what these maps are going to look like, check below!

Click each of them for the largest ‘available’ resolutions. I hope to get higher res shots soon.