GoW2: Linked achievements unlock in-game content

by Dustin Burg { Jul 27th 2008 at 2:10AM }

Big Gears of War 2 news coming out of San Diego's Comic-Con. Gears 2 is going to utilize linked achievements! Huzzah! Oh, you don't know what link achievements are? Quite understandable. Utilizing linked achievements means a game recognizes previously earned achievements from another game and unlocks new content based on their unlocked status. In Gears of War 2's case, it'll be looking at which Gears of War achievements you've already unlocked and, in turn, unlock Gears 2 goodies. Which Gears achievements will unlock what content in Gears 2? Not all are known quite yet, but thus far we are aware that:

Unlocking the "Completed Act 1" achievement in GoW unlocks Anthony Carmine in GoW2 multiplayer.
Unlocking the "A Dish Best Served Cold" achievement in GoW unlocks General RAAM in GoW2 multiplayer.
Unlocking the "Time to Remember" achievement in GoW unlocks Minh Young Kim in GoW2 multiplayer.

We just can't wait to see what our "Seriously ..." achievement efforts unlock in Gears of War 2. Maybe an instant-win mode? That'd be sweet.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Tags: achievements, epic, epic-games, gears-of-war-2, gow2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

eminemd12obie @ Jul 27th 2008 2:16AM

wow this is both cool and/or stupid... so will people who have never played GoW1 be able to unlock those characters at some point? if so then this is great and for people like me who have most of the GoW1 achievements its a great thing... can't wait to hear more

E.J. @ Jul 27th 2008 4:07AM

wouldn't be a bad way to get people that have missed out on Gears 1 to get up to speed.

Aero @ Jul 27th 2008 8:06AM

These are only multiplayer skins. Multiplayer skins that someone won't know and care about if they never played Gears 1 anyway.

007craft @ Jul 27th 2008 9:58AM

yeah skins are useless. I dont think I even once checked which character skin I had selected in a GOW1 match, and I played that game for months (got seriously)

Unless they have some sort of maps or weapons which can only be earned with GOW1 achievements, I dont think any of the new GOW2 gamers have anything to care/worry about.

kevin @ Jul 28th 2008 6:35PM

It'd be nice to look different then other people, i like the idea. I never played the first one on my system so I'm gonna borrow it from my cousin and play it though before the new one comes out

Sev @ Jul 27th 2008 2:35AM

"Gears 2 will use what's being called Linked Achievements. Players who played Gears 1 and completed Act 1 will be able to play as Carmine in Gears 2's multiplayer."

"You'll see Carmine brother Anthony in the game."

"Unlocking the "Completed Act 1" achievement in GoW unlocks Anthony Carmine in GoW2 multiplayer."

Wut?
---------------------------
Anyways, sounds interesting. Now I know I play as mister clean if I ever want to xD

Dustin Burg @ Jul 27th 2008 2:47AM

I'm not sure what they're smoking, but Anthony is Carmine's first name. His brother, I'm not sure, but Carmine's first name is Anthony. (Tony for short ;)

Aero @ Jul 27th 2008 9:44AM

In the game Carmine will probably just say he is his own brother to stop people wondering how he keeps coming back to life.

Mrblonde @ Jul 27th 2008 2:42AM

Thats awesome. They should do that with more games. I think its a neat thing.

Mrblonde @ Jul 27th 2008 2:44AM

Ugh. Fix the comment system guys.

Cody @ Jul 27th 2008 2:49AM

hopefully Gears of War for windows achievements will have the same effect

Andrew @ Jul 27th 2008 4:01AM

What does X3F Staff mean?

CB @ Jul 27th 2008 4:43AM

Read this, I saw it from DaMan09: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/24/aol-makes-big-budget-cuts-across-blogs/

Andrew @ Jul 27th 2008 6:07PM

Wow, that sucks. Basically anytime anything posted under X3F Staff that means whoever really put up the post isn't getting paid due to budget cuts.

Smokeydogg7 @ Jul 27th 2008 4:45AM

good thing i have 1250 points for gears ill get all the unlocked goodies as soon as i pop in my gears 2 disc

CB @ Jul 27th 2008 4:40AM

"# People think Jon DiMaggio is hilarious. Especially when he converses with himself in the Bender and Marcus Fenix voices."

Ahh! I would have died to see that!!

SadisticHam @ Jul 27th 2008 4:44AM

i just hope there exclusive unlocks, I have 1250/1250 in gears so It'll be nice to see what we get for Seriously.

Nathanical @ Jul 27th 2008 9:13AM

so basically, you dont get the full game unless u buy gears one first? pfft. I spose thats a unique way of charging extra for content that already comes on the disk.

webster1990 @ Jul 27th 2008 12:46PM

not really, it's just a way of rewarding people who have stuck with the series, plus i wouldn't say anyone who hasn't played the first will be missing out or even care about a few extra MP characters.

Kevin @ Jul 27th 2008 9:23AM

This is cool but i hope seriously doesn't unlock something kick ass. It is so jacked-up. Tons of people, me included, have way over 10,000 kills and no seriously achievement. What gives? Don't have a glitched achievement and then link game content to said achievement. Otherwise, cool idea.

007craft @ Jul 27th 2008 10:00AM

Just keep playing. My friend recently got his at 16000. I was lucky and got mine at 9500.

Nick @ Jul 27th 2008 10:44AM

Works for me. GoW 1250/1250

xFenixKnightx @ Jul 27th 2008 11:25AM

Same here baby 1250/1250 club! w00t!!!

*Gives Nick High Five!!

mean mach1ne @ Jul 27th 2008 11:13AM

man this sucks i had most of the achievements on my old account until some sad fuck hacked it and had 2 start a new 1 :/ this sucks there just doing what ea was going 2 do with battlefiled

Anticrawl @ Jul 27th 2008 12:24PM

Bah, lame, I haven't played one ranked match because the public match players are wound up enough for me. Can't imagine how insane and obnoxious the players must be in ranked matches. I could easily have all the ranked achievements in about a week or two if I bothered with them, but I don't like dealing with the sorts of people that frequent the cesspool that is GoW ranked matches. Not to mention Gears of War has to be the most casual shooter on the 360 right now, which has to be some sort of contradiction considering how violent and drab the game is. If you don’t understand what I mean by casual and take offense to my comment then you clearly need to open your eyes. Doesn’t matter either way, Gears is a great game.

MDJ2010 @ Jul 27th 2008 1:00PM

I know what you mean, just do what i do, stick some music on and turn down the volume on your TV, as obnoxious as some players are they can't do anything about the mute button.

SadisticHam @ Jul 27th 2008 1:30PM

Good luck getting 10 thousand kills in a week or two. Lol.

Gears has one of the biggest douche bag community's, not casual they've all moved on. Unless you've decided to create your own version of casual in which case you'll have to excuse me my mind reading powers are broken. :O

Anticrawl @ Jul 27th 2008 1:37PM

The game is casual, the community is not and the theme is not. But there is not a more casual shooter on the market for the 360, in terms of gameplay, pacing, skill requirement and overall fell of the game.

Vcize @ Jul 27th 2008 3:55PM

I played Halo for less than 2 months. I finished at level 34. That said, I had tons of matches where I ended up with crazy ratios like +19, etc.

CoD4 I played even less, and was not very good at. Yet, I often when on 15 kills streaks, or again finished matches around +15 or higher.

In Gears, you almost never see a weaker player (like I was in CoD4) finish a map with ~15 kills in a first to 4 set like the really good players do consistently. Any joker can find a good spot to camp in that game and finish +10.

The big difference in Gears is that there are much fewer really good players that use the intracacies of the game and how it's not about aiming, but rather body control.

dylan @ Jul 27th 2008 12:38PM

What do you think I'll get for my 80 points I have in Gears? I'm hoping it unlocks Jimmy the Shoeshine boy as a playable character.

Leatherface @ Jul 27th 2008 12:45PM

"I could easily have all the ranked achievements in about a week or two if I bothered with them..." Bullshit.

Anticrawl @ Jul 27th 2008 1:41PM

With the exception of the seriously achievement all the others woulld take less than 2 weeks to get. Would probably take me about 10 weeks to get the seriously achievement if I were to only play at an average pace the days I'm off from work.

Vcize @ Jul 27th 2008 3:46PM

In Gears (especially with as long as it takes to set up a ranked match, and some not counting if the wrong person drops) it takes quite a while to get 100 kills in a day. Hours.

At 100 kills a day, you'd have to play for 100 days to reach 10,000.

10 weeks is 70 days if you played EVERY day including weekdays, workdays, etc.

Anticrawl @ Jul 27th 2008 8:35PM

When I use to play the game nightly after classes online I'd average around 8-16 kills a match, with a buddy of mine hosting. We'd usually have about 15-20 matches a night easy, plenty of time to rack up enough kills 5 days a week for 10 weeks to get 10,000 kills. And don't start with me about games that are about placement, movement and awareness. Gears of War is a very casually paced and played shooter, you want to test your awareness, strategic movement, etc in the most challenging setting possible play shadowrun.

I easily average 15-25 kills a game, and that's only if I'm going easy on the other team. I play for the challenge, the thrill of the fight and the interaction with other human players that can't be read based on any sort of rational logic. I don't play for rank, and I hate people who take the game too seriously. There may be 5 other players in the entire Shadowrun community that can hold their own or best Shrumhouse, Surma Mayne and myself.

Unfortunately because Gears of War is so casual it hardly tests my awareness, mind or ability to read players. Until Shadowrun though it was the closest thing I had to such a game because of the somewhat unique movement aspect in the game.

That aside I'm looking forward to Gears of War 2 and a casual night of gaming with my friends against young children who think they're professional gamers (an oxymoron in and of itself).

Vcize @ Jul 28th 2008 10:15AM

I will resist arguing you because you like Shadowrun, which is one of the most underrated games ever.

MDJ2010 @ Jul 27th 2008 12:59PM

I'm along with the people who have 1250/1250 so this is just great news!

Joe H @ Jul 27th 2008 1:50PM

I don't see how anyone could see this as a bad thing. For games that are designed as a series like GoW, Too Human, Mass Effect, it would make no sense for developers to not take advantage of this, and if you're playing the second game in the series, chances are you've played the first anyway. All this is is just a little bit of a thank you for playing.

Delirium @ Jul 27th 2008 4:41PM

I wouldn't really have a problem with this if they allowed an alternative way to unlocking it. I mean, what about 10k kills in Gears 2? Could that allow me the same incentive with more work? With all the glitchy achievements that are on Gears 1, it would be make complete sense to offer an alternative.

emirabal @ Jul 27th 2008 5:51PM

Guys i just want to say that whats happening with aol and the blogging shit is just that. bullshit, i knew something was up when yesterday the blog posts were minimal.

i have already noticed the lack of posts and lack of information, and this whole x3f staff thing is a bit crap unless you guys are doing it as a sign of sticking together in which case its awesome and i admire the team effort there.

i hope that you guys get what you deserve and that you still provide us with info as soon as you usually do.

Faithful Reader
ROKA360 - emirabal

Dustin Burg @ Jul 27th 2008 6:08PM

Luay @ Jul 27th 2008 6:07PM

my thoughts exactly id like to see this used in more games. it will smack ps3's trophy attempt in the face

bugz @ Jul 27th 2008 7:32PM

This is a stupid idea and will lower sales for gow2. for example lets say this rumor is true and u do get something for seriosly lets say a custom shotty or a secret character or a gamemode people that dont have it will wanna get their seriosly so there for there gonna be playing gow instead of gow2 becouse of that fact and when they do then thats when there gonna want gow2 i think its a dum idea and will hurt its overall sales they should do it like nintendo just unlock content threw out the gow2 campaing/MP instead of using gow1 previos achievments cuz most people have 10,000 kills but no achievments most people are still working on there seriosly and people are still new to the gears franchise and havent played gow1 but want gow2. dont get me wrong i love gears i have 1250/1250 but my account got stolen so now i have only act2 and under acheivments.

Kevin Gass @ Jul 27th 2008 8:06PM

Or it will boost sales of Gears 1, then more people will also buy Gears 2!!! Brilliant!

Leatherface @ Jul 27th 2008 8:26PM

"This is a stupid idea and will lower sales for gow2" You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?

Viridium @ Jul 28th 2008 9:43AM

You're retarded. They're giving a few more multiplayer skins to people to played the first game, as a thank you. Nothing that'll alter gameplay at all.

If you don't like it, don't buy it and don't play it. I certainly won't mind if a douche like you doesn't end up in any of my games.

bugz @ Jul 29th 2008 1:59AM

hahaha this is stupid "oh here buy gow2 and unlock characters from gow1" that should already be in gow2 (unlocked) due to the fact that all the content is 2 years "OLD" yeah we nkow gow2 has new characters new guns maps modes yeah yeah how about NEW UNLOCKABLE CONTENT LIKE NEW ARMOR NEW HAIRSTYLES DIFFRENT CARMINE COSTUMES NEW STUFF NOT OLD STUFF . so there saying that gow2 is only gonna have dizzy,prescott,maria,tai kaliso as playable GOG characters for multiplayer only and the new 4 locust? unless u have achievments from gow1 so u can play 2 year old characters no one wants that WERES THE NEW STUFF U SHOULD ALREADY HAD SOME SECRET CHARACTERS THAT NO ONE HAS SEEN HOW ABOUT THOSE STARNDED yeah their in gow2 multiplayer but only as FLAGS(AI CONT.) YEAH I NKOW SO MAY PEOPLE ARE GONNA DISAGREE BUT YOU NKOW YOU WANT SOMETHING TOTALLY NEW!!!!