Gears patch before Christmas

By Tom Bramwell Published 8 December, 2006

They're racing to get it done.

Epic Games' Mark Rein hopes we'll see a little "housekeeping" patch for Gears of War before the end of the year.

"The first update we do will be some housekeeping to take care of a few things we need to adjust. We hope to have that in the pipeline before too long," he told Planet Gears of War.

"Unfortunately the certification group at Microsoft shuts down relatively early in December so we're racing against the clock to try to get it finished and certified for release through the Xbox Live update system."

Rein also confirmed that the patch would sort out the bug that results in a squished image on non-widescreen VGA monitors.

"We're also fixing a few minor problems and making a few small changes and improvements," he added.

"I don't want to go into too many details because we have not finalized the update but once we know what made it in, and passed certification, we'll put some news up on our forum which I'm sure will start other passionate threads about what we have/have not gotten around to so far. There is more to come for this game in the future."

Rein also revisited the recurring rumours that Gears will make it to PC some day.

"There's nothing to announce at this time. We've said all along that, at some point in the future, we could adapt Gears of Wars for PC," he said.

"Based on past experience we've learned that it takes approximately five years for an [operating system] to fully take hold among the gaming population.

"So unless it takes us five years to bring Gears of War to Windows, we certainly expect to keep supporting Windows XP users."

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • masterson #1 6 years ago

    "We're also fixing a few minor problems and making a few small changes and improvements"

    I guess 4P co-op falls kinda outside that remit huh? :(

  • Lonestar #2 6 years ago

    Hooray for the Patchbox !

  • tourlord #3 6 years ago

    Fingers crossed for the voice comms bug to be fixed then.

  • peterfll #4 6 years ago

    Hooray for the patchstation and patchwii too eh?

  • Hunamster #5 6 years ago

    5 years for an OS to take of? Most windows OS's havent lasted 5 years! Hell XP is barely 5 fucking years old!

    /ticks another Mark Rein is a fucking moron box

  • kangarootoo #6 6 years ago

    I wish a had graph where I would chart people who raved manically about GeOW along one side, and people who have expressed great hate for patches on consoles along the other.

    I think some interesting head explosion situations could be predicted with reasonable accuracy.

  • mattigan #7 6 years ago

    Yawn

  • Yossarian #8 6 years ago

    "They need to balance out grenade tagging"

    yeah, it's kinda ridiculous the lengths they went to to ensure the instant-kill chainsaw had to be revved up, could be interrupted etc. ... and then allowed anyone to skip merrily around with grenades, tapping B, and rolling away for cheap kills.

  • Xerx3s #9 6 years ago

    The only things that really annoy me are the voice com bugs and the invite bug (where you cannot invite anyone).

    They need to balance out grenade tagging

    >:D

  • nickthegun #10 6 years ago

    5 years for an OS to take of? Most windows OS's havent lasted 5 years! Hell XP is barely 5 fucking years old!

    /ticks another Mark Rein is a fucking moron box

    5 years for it to reach a common saturation point. How many peoples work PCs still use 2k or how long did it take everyone you know to get XP?

    Think before you speak.

  • TelexStar #11 6 years ago

    They need to balance out grenade tagging

    They do, but a swift close range shotgun shell soon sorts the fuckers out. I wouldn't mind seeing a fix to the voice comm/player match issue. Playing ranked games is proving annoying with all the people leaving mid-game.
    Edited by TelexStar at 08/12/06 @ 15:09

  • IAmBatman #12 6 years ago

    > They need to balance out grenade tagging

    You need to learn how to shoot.

  • TelexStar #13 6 years ago

    > They need to balance out grenade tagging

    You need to learn how to shoot.

    To be fair, if you can tag a guy when you're 4 metres away then it needs looking at.

  • Hunamster #14 6 years ago

    ''How many peoples work PCs still use 2k'' Thats kind of a non-point, as im not talking about such systems as work or colleges now am i, the college i was at has only just upgraded to XP, but when it comes to games, gaming was dominantly xp after at most 2 years, and with direct x10 being vista-fied, i expect the same there...

  • IAmBatman #15 6 years ago

    > To be fair, if you can tag a guy when you're 4 metres away
    > then it needs looking at.

    You can shoot a guy from more than 4 metres away.

  • Muddtallica #16 6 years ago

    The title of this article makes it sound like they're trying to get the patch out in time for Christmas itself...I tell you what, that would be the worst Christmas ever.

    "And for you, little Timmy...it's a PATCH!"

  • IAmBatman #17 6 years ago

    Unless Timmy wants to be a pirate.

  • Xerx3s #18 6 years ago

    To be fair, if you can tag a guy when you're 4 metres away then it needs looking at.

    If they lower the distance, it probably becomes a suicide run.

  • coojam #19 6 years ago

    Arr!!!

  • coojam #20 6 years ago

    If they lower the distance, it probably becomes a suicide run. That's the point...you're not supposed to be able to do it head on...you'd have to sneak up behind someone.

  • kangarootoo #21 6 years ago

    @AdamOfEternia

    "So I assume EG will re-re-review the patched version and finally give this game the 10/10 it deserved in the first place? Get on it Shinji, make me proud."

    You can assume that, if I can assume you will hold your breath until it happens. Deal?

  • stuarty_2003 #22 6 years ago

    Pro Evo, Doom, and Gears all got updates today when I started playing them....any idea why?

  • kangarootoo #23 6 years ago

    @IAmBatman

    Why does everything have to turn into some kind of competition? If someone buys a game and then says an aspect of it isn't fun, there is always someone next in line to tell them it their own fault for not being l33t enough. /sigh

  • ronuds #24 6 years ago

    The tagging is definitely horrendous as is not being able to invite people to ranked matches.

    They say you can't invite to avoid having high rankings playing against low rankings, but I'm able to find the room my friends are playing in and they're all ranked a ton higher than I am.

  • Mordum #25 6 years ago

    The only thing I want at the moment is for the host not to be able to quit out near the end of the game, and waste everyones time.

    Just the other day I had the best game I've had yet (still learning the ropes). It was first to 8, on Escalation (Elevation? whatever it's called), we were 7-6 up, and in the next round I was left on my own to fight off the remaining three from the opposition. I grenade tagged two of them (don't hate me), and got into a pretty epic shotgun battle with the final guy, finally I managed to roll around the corner, shoot him in the chest from very close range and send him down to his knees, and all that was left to do was curb stomp him for the win! but no, up went my foot and.... the bastard host quit!! I was so annoyed, 20 minutes wasted, and the best game I've had meant nothing.

    Something needs to be done. It makes me appreciate the Halo2 matchmaking system so much more. Don't put gamers in control of games/matches, as too many of them are complete f**kwits.

  • IAmBatman #26 6 years ago

    > Why does everything have to turn into some kind of competition?

    Er ..... deathmatch is a competition.

  • asphaltcowboy #27 6 years ago

    I'm not too experienced in nade tagging so don't know much about it, but the thing they REALLY need to fix is the sniper rifle! It doesn't waver when you're aiming with it and are getting shot! Completely pointless! They can put a bullet in you (and kill you in one shot) before they take enough damage to be downed and the crosshair doesn't even flinch! Utterly utterly ridiculous!

  • Shadar #28 6 years ago

    The aspect ratio really is a problem, too. I have difficulty getting a grasp on my surroundings when the FOV and camera angles are fubaraed.

    But it could also be because I bought the game yesterday, and tried playing it for the first time when stoned after not having slept for two full days ... will give it another go this morning.

  • kangarootoo #29 6 years ago

    Lol. Whiiizzzzz (that the sound of my fishing reel).

    :)

  • smelly #30 6 years ago

    pah.. having ot patch games all the time was reasoin i stopped playing pc games.

    It's going to get to a point where games are released unfinished with developers doin day 1 patches.. mark my words.. Boooo! Hiss!!!

  • haowan #31 6 years ago

    Except people have been saying that since the Xbox and it still hasn't happened.