Gears 2 patch detailed, adds new achievements, set for Jan. release

by Dustin Burg { Jan 6th 2009 at 9:30AM }

There's no denying it, Gears of War 2's online multiplayer is less then perfect. Ever since Gears 2's launch, the community has been demanding a patch to fix the various (and numerous) game bugs. Finally, Epic Games is speaking out about the patch, what it'll fix and has even informed us that they expect the patch to release sometime this month.

Over on the official Epic forums, Epic's Mark Rein detailed exactly what the Gears 2 patch will fix and the enhancements that'll be made once the patch is released. You can view a comprehensive listing of all the fixes that'll be included in the patch after the break. And from what we can tell, the patch should resolve most (if not all) the Gears 2 exploits we've heard about including that dreadful melee through the wall exploit. Oh, we should also mention that the patch will bring some new Gears 2 achievements based on the DLC. How 'bout them apples?

Gears of War 2 Patch Details

Fixed invisible shield exploit.
Fixed melee through walls exploit.
Fixed infinite Lancer ammo exploit.
Fixed shield with two-handed weapon exploit.
Fixed bug where shotgun and boomshot shot into the ground when shooting from the hip.
Increased penalties for quitting matches early.
Additional spawn protection from grenades and chainsaw attacks.
View Submission flag carrier destination using Tac/Com.
Achievement progress numbers added to War Journal.
Client side shotgun hit detection improved resulting in more reliable data in high latency games.
Increased frequency of in-game Achievement tracker notifications.
New DLC based achievements.

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

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Tim @ Jan 6th 2009 9:39AM

Its about time. They also stated that their poor communication skills will improve after the patch(anything is better than "be patient it is coming" bs they where giving us).

After seeing how poor GOW 2 debut was, maybe they will do a beta for GOW 3 so that multilayer is a little more playable?

colt4by5 @ Jan 6th 2009 2:10PM

Yeah, what were CliffyB's comments on betas again? :) I believe they included... A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, "yeah, I f*cked her."

I wonder if his views on betas have changed :).

Jimmy Greer @ Jan 6th 2009 9:40AM

That is not all they are fixing.

ericvitale @ Jan 6th 2009 9:40AM

His post doesn't mention fixing matchmaking.

DarkNightRJ @ Jan 6th 2009 3:20PM

thats because it is not broken. works fine for me.

Phizzy @ Jan 6th 2009 4:39PM

Yeah, the Matchmaking's fine, and there was no Holocaust.

Marrvia @ Jan 6th 2009 9:27PM

Matchmaking is perfect!! (if you want to wait 10 minutes to get into a laggy game with uneven sides)

Mark @ Jan 6th 2009 9:40AM

I'm going to miss my infinite ammo. :'(

SadisticHam @ Jan 6th 2009 9:46AM

Mhmm that's all dandy and I'll hold off my opinion till i see these changes in action.

They claimed to fixed bugs countless times in gears 1 and they never did, people just found other ways of doing them.

The shotgun had best be improved if there not changing the chainsaw, it's to weak right now so it should be interesting to see what they do to it.

Bravo6 @ Jan 6th 2009 9:47AM

How about fixing River so the leader can't hide behind the generator in the buildings for guardian matches too.

Nick @ Jan 19th 2009 5:36PM

good job telling everyone who didn't already know about the exploit :P

Josh @ Jan 6th 2009 2:15PM

Too Late

brytdavis @ Jan 6th 2009 9:50AM

I want to know if this patch is going to address the co-op achievement glitch ... still can't figure out why I haven't gotten that ... and yes, I did go back and do "Train the Rook" on co-op. Still nothing ... grrrr.

nohandle @ Jan 6th 2009 10:05AM

I had the same problem and it was the result of lost connectivity of my coop partner. Try going through any levels that you had any kind of lag.

Hope this helps.

Paul @ Jan 6th 2009 12:33PM

is there any way to tell which levels you may have not completed? my co-op lagged out a few times throughout the game but we always got back in at the last checkpoint. i beat the game and don't have that acheevo either and it's pissing me off.

brytdavis @ Jan 6th 2009 1:03PM

We didn't have a lag problem while playing ... been looking on the internets and it seems like this is a wide-spread problem ... tried everything I've read and still get the cheeve to pop.

nohandle @ Jan 6th 2009 1:46PM

Well, when I was playing through. I didn't get the coop achievement, but the other guy did. We had been playing through the who campaign together, so it was strange.

The only thing I can recommend is playing through it again. I quickly got the achievement later because the level I "missed" was just the second chapter of act 1.

Jordan @ Jan 6th 2009 6:11PM

You need to beat all the campaigns in co-op including the training without resuming from a savepoint. For example, say you play acts 1 and 2, and then quit for the night on act 3 chapter 4, you MUST start chapter 4 again. Do not resume from the savepoint. It should work.

jaybird1905 @ Jan 6th 2009 10:02AM

Wow.

Are you even serious? Not one mention of matchmaking?

I paid $60 for a game where it takes 5-10 minutes a game just to find people to play with. I don't have friends who play Gears, which is apparently a big no-no, so I guess I'm just fucked.

Urza @ Jan 6th 2009 11:42AM

That was fixed in the first patch that came out a month ago. If you're still having problems, it's your router setup.

jaybird1905 @ Jan 6th 2009 11:44AM

Sorry to tell ya toolbox, but I'm far from the only one still having problems. It even says "more matchmaking fixes coming soon" on the news page on the game.

I've tried everything from opening NAT to plugging directly into my modem. Every other online game I own plays flawlessly and finds opponents instantly.

Please don't reply to comments to which you have little to no idea of what you're talking about.

ericvitale @ Jan 6th 2009 4:56PM

I made this same comment above. Anyone who says matchmaking is not broken is on crack. I actually like the responses to my comment.

DarkNightRJ said...
thats because it is not broken. works fine for me.

Phizzy said...
Yeah, the Matchmaking's fine, and there was no Holocaust.

jaybird1905 @ Jan 6th 2009 5:07PM

Amen brother.

My GT is jaybird1905 if you ever wanna team up and try to beat the "dont play by yourself" bullshit of matchmaking.

Bac0nator @ Jan 6th 2009 10:17AM

Glad to see EA releasing a patch to fix all the fuckidy up'dness multiplayer had. And Im always happy to see more achievements added to a game. mmmm cheevos.
In fact im just plain happy.

Jez @ Jan 6th 2009 10:25AM

EA? Also I hate having to pay money to access some of the achievements of a game I already own

Bac0nator @ Jan 6th 2009 10:36AM

Oh, im talking about mercenaries 2..

Heather @ Jan 6th 2009 10:17AM

About damn time!

Bobluling @ Jan 6th 2009 10:24AM

I don't care anymore, I don't think I'll even put the disk in to download this update. Even when matchmaking does work the game is still crap. One other thing they need to fix is the "Invite all friends" button, I f*king HATE getting on and having 50 invites to play a game I hate.

xFenixKnightx (In Memory of Benjamin Carmine RIP) @ Jan 6th 2009 10:34AM

I just hope this update makes Gears 2 more fun. If not I'm shelfing it again until the next update. :(

myabsolution @ Jan 6th 2009 10:43AM

The ONE biggest complaint.... shotty/boomshot hipfire glitch WILL be fixed? OMG THX!!

Seriously if ur not on host's team, try blindfiring with shotty right at start of match! It shoots the ground. Worst Glitch EVER.

The most common exploit ive seen yet is the invisible shield glitch. Glad that also made the list.

I report EVERY SINGLE person who cheats, and I hope to god they get punished in some form.

Thankyou Mark Rein for admitting youre communication to fans hasnt been up to par, and im glad he says he will improve that.

Good stuff!

willxcore @ Jan 6th 2009 10:55AM

Bought this game at launch on midnight but after I finished the campaign I haven't touched it since. Can't wait for these fixes because right now I don't even want to attempt to play online.

Mazrael @ Jan 6th 2009 10:58AM

how about AI fixes.. theyre overly bias on me, ignoring (AI) Dom in the campaign, while he fires a burst every 30 seconds & stats repeatedly jumping over the wall when someone jumps over to him. also where in a bots match, they can fire any direction, even ocassionly ignoring other AI teams on wingman, even moving through another team (they are the last 2 teams).. clipping on the boat when facing the big fish.. AI thrown grenades triggering as they pass you.. being tucked down behind cover (low wall), then blind throwing a grenade to your own feet..

UK31337 @ Jan 6th 2009 11:11AM

Actual numbers appearing in the War Journal? That's one thing that was sorely lacking, thanks for putting that in - I have absolutely no idea how many kills I actually have, I can only guess in between tracker notifications.

As for the other stuff, let's hope it's actually fixed unlike in Gears 1 when people found other ways to do it. Luckily I haven't seen half of these glitches in action yet (no, I've honestly never seen anyone doing the two-handed weapon with shield glitch) and thank God for spawn protection from grenade plants. Although I have been standing in a corner and the enemy team spawn in front of me and I can chainsaw all of them as soon as they spawn, I think that's what he's getting at. Thanks for punishing quitters too, that problem is rampant.

myabsolution @ Jan 6th 2009 11:15AM

"Luckily I haven't seen half of these glitches in action yet (no, I've honestly never seen anyone doing the two-handed weapon with shield glitch)"

consider yourself lucky.

I play every night for a few hours and maybe two/three games a night I see the shield glitches.

Word of advice: If you ever see someone crouching+slowly crouch walking towards you+has shotgun equipped... it means they have an invisible shield in front of them. So thats a two-in-one exploit.

Only way to combat it is to back away, throw a smoke... or use the snub pistol because for some reason it can shoot through the invisible shield (no other weapon can).

ZenGaijin @ Jan 6th 2009 11:28AM

What about the one of the larger problems the chainsaw? Please tell me that shooting people will actually drop their saw rather than just steamrolling throw a shotgun blast.

DemonJ @ Jan 6th 2009 11:39AM

This is great im more than happy with it and new achievements awesome, if only this was done on release!

demonjsblog.wordpress.com

MadamTampini @ Jan 6th 2009 12:42PM

The increased penalties for quitting matches is no good IMHO. I get disconnected quite often from matches before I even make it to the pre-game lobby. I REALLY REALLY hope this will not affect my rank.

Marco8YNWA @ Jan 6th 2009 1:45PM

I cant wait for this as i myself haven't experienced the slow match making process, i know that most people have experienced it.
However the new achievements will be something new to aim for rather than trying to achieve the boring Seriously 2.0 which takes forever.
I think this update will help alot of the online matches and i myself will defiantly be purchasing this.
I think the UK release is around June 15th but im not sure, can't wait for this.

Marco8YNWA @ Jan 6th 2009 2:11PM

Take that back ive now read that it should be released in February so even better news.

DMOB xSHROOMZx @ Jan 6th 2009 2:54PM

I didnt see nothing about tha lancer being tha ultimate weapon, and being able to chainsaw through someone shooting you..... or backing down tha chainsaw.... wtf??? I hope they include them into this update, thats a big issue also

icarusflu @ Jan 6th 2009 3:56PM

Too Little. Too Late.
Already sold it for World at War

Sev @ Jan 6th 2009 4:31PM

You made a bad switch, then.

Frazer @ Jan 6th 2009 4:02PM

"Increased penalties for quitting matches early."

What happened to the old Gears where you could just join and leave a player match at your will? Disappointing.

KeithLEONIDAS @ Jan 6th 2009 4:34PM

The game will forever suck because if you play a crappy team and start to beat them, they will always just quit out, and if you play a good(nerd) team and start to beat them, they'll just lag everybody out of the match right before they lose, THAT is what something needs to be done about, that and the unbelievably strong chainsaw, if someone is revving it and they are shot then they should be stunned 100% of the time

kevin @ Jan 7th 2009 5:11PM

why are they having a chainsaw duel in spawn?

FAnchax @ Jan 6th 2009 6:02PM

finally they pull heads out of their asses...

JohnHeist @ Jan 6th 2009 8:12PM

I like how they're fixing all those glitches..saw the flip-through-wall for the first time the other day.

My friends always see the shield glitch but I never do, they're never near me and they always kill the person doing it (shoot the feet!)

How about decreasing the "stun" time, both from a melee hit (to stop the really lame and cheap "two-piece" crap) and the smoke (to stop the other team from all throwing their smoke one after the other, and running in to shotgun the downed bodies)

Or how about fixing it so that being knocked over from a smoke concussion negates Execution rules?
(Try it; you can kill somebody by just shooting them. They never go "down", just die)