[+] Unlockable - Achievements (Expansion Pack)

Unlockable - Achievements (Expansion Pack)New Annex and Hidden Front comes with new achievement points:

All That Juice (30) - Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Process multiplayer map

Green Thumb (30) - Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Garden multiplayer map

Inconceivable (30) - Win 20 rounds of multiplayer matches in Annex by fewer than 5 points

Mind the Gap (30) - Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Subway multiplayer map

Nub Pwn3r (30) - Win 20 rounds of multiplayer matches in Annex by shutting out the opposing team

Purdy Mouth (30) - Win 20 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in any game type on the Bullet Marsh multiplayer map

THIS! IS! ANNEX! (40) - Complete 100 multiplayer matches of 3+ rounds in Annex and capture 3 objectives in each match

You Down With E.P.I.C? (30) - Win a multiplayer match of 3+ rounds in any game type on 6 different downloadable maps

Submitted by voodootorque (beast-187)

[+] Hint - Animation Exploitation

Hint - Animation ExploitationWhen playing multiplayer on Xbox Live, you may notice when you are using the chainsaw or curb stomping that you cannot be hurt.

In fact, during a curb stomp you can reload your gun. since you cannot take damage while you are stomping someones face this is a very good time to reload, come out of your animation and continue battle.

[+] Unlockable: Secret Gamer Pic

Unlockable: Secret Gamer PicYou must finish the game on Insane difficulty.

[+] Hint - New Gamertag Icons

Hint - New Gamertag IconsYou get unlock three more gamertag icons for your profile by meeting three achievements:

(1) Beat the game on the Insane difficulty level.

(2) Accrue 10,000 kills in ranked multiplayer matches.

(3) Finish any ranked versus match (so don't drop out even if you're losing).

Submitted by 13laz3r

[+] <A HREF="http://guides.ign.com/guides/747891/index.html">Gears of War Online Strategy Guide</A>

<A HREF="http://guides.ign.com/guides/747891/index.html">Gears of War Online Strategy Guide</A>Tying your shoelace with one hand is tough. Scoring a date with the hot chick on campus is tough. And blasting through your average shooter is tough. But there's nothing tough about Gears of War. This $#!@ is hardcore.

Gear up for one of the most challenging battles you've yet faced. In our hardcore Gears of War guide, we'll turn any green soldier into a killing machine, both online and off. Read up and take notes before hitting the battlefield, or be just another dead grub on the pavement.

In this Gears of War strategy guide, yo'll find:

• BASICS // General strategies for all level of players, plus details on the best weapons in the game.
• WALKTHROUGH // Complete Gears of War walkthrough to guide you through every stage on hardcore difficulty, plus screenshots and info for hidden Cog Tags and weapons.
• MULTIPLAYER // Multiplayer-specific playing tips and map info with weapon locations.
• SECRETS // Collect all thirty Cog Tags and unlock every achievement.

Get the Gears of War Online Strategy Guide

[+] Hint - Advantage Co-Op

Hint - Advantage Co-OpThe best way to defeat General Raam on Insane is to go with co-op. You have twice the smart firepower allowing one person get the Torque Bow and the other the sniper rifle.

The bow carrying player should have at least ten arrows. The Torque Bow is the only weapon other than the grenades that will hurt the boss seriously when he has his Kryll shield. The explosion of the tips will also send the Kryll flying, allowing your partner to get in a nice head shot with the sniper rifle for a good one-two combo.

[+] Hint - Wretched Fun

Hint - Wretched FunWretches are most annoying since they swarm your soldier and kill him almost instantly on medium and hard. The best method to deal with them is with a shotgun or the alien repeater, since those weapons let you slug them without the dangerous downtime of the chainsaw.

The shotgun is the best for the in-close situation, since you can forego the left trigger and hip fire the shotgun quickly to catch the wretches as they hop around. Smacking them if they get close is the only way to counter, short of using A to dodge.

[+] Hint - Corpser Corpse

Hint - Corpser CorpseWhen you are pitted against the Corpser in the Act 3 mines, there's a quick way to win. The Lancer's (chainsaw rifle) constant stream of fire makes it the weapon of choice here. Shoot at the belly of the Corpser, working any angle you can between its legs.

If you hit the belly a few times, it will lift it's front legs and expose it's face. Immediately fire up at it's face and chin. It will shriek and move back.

Hurry, move up grab ammo and repeat. If you don't move fast enough wretches will arrive in waves and make things ten times harder. You must hit the Corpser's face three times.

You'll back it up onto a platform with two destructable joints. They're lit up and on the ground. Shoot them both and the Corpser will plunge into the Imulsion liquid. If you're quick enough you can kill the corpser before any wretches arrive.

[+] Hint - How To Defeat General Raam

Hint - How To Defeat General RaamIn order to defeat Raam, you need to have grenades and a sniper rifle which is supplied in the center of the room before entering the boss arena.

After entering the arena, stay behind the wall you ended the cut scene with. This is important because you need to maintain your distance from Raam. Also, it helps to command Don to "cease fire." This will make him run back towards you keeping him alive longer to distract Raam.

The trick is to get Raam's swarm away from his body. In order to do this, you need to throw a grenade at Raam. If successful, the swarm will disperse giving you clear head shots using the sniper rifle. Repeat until he’s defeated.

If you don't defeat Raam by the time he reaches your wall cover, move in the opposite direction he does and shoot when the swarm disperses. You will take damage from Raam’s machine gun, but you stay in the light which prevents the swarm from killing you.

[-] Unlockable: Insane Difficulty

Unlockable: Insane DifficultyYou must finish the game on Casual or Hardcore difficulty.

[+] Hint - Berserker Beat Down (Then Beat Yourself Down)

Hint - Berserker Beat Down (Then Beat Yourself Down)To defeat the Beserker at the end of act one, simply dive to the side when she charges at you. Run through the doorway to your right and continue to the door at the end of the room and face your back to it. Get the Berserkers attention by shooting at her or revving the chainsaw then, dive away at the last moment when she charges causing her to break the door down for you.

Continue this to get through the next two doors. When you finally lure her into the courtyard simply use the Hammer of Dawn twice to take her down. [If Dom is killed the mission is over, so revive him if he's knocked down]

[+] Hint: Finding Cog Tags

Hint: Finding Cog TagsThere are thirty hidden Cog Tags scattered throughout the game. They're small and sometimes hard to find, but there's a a mark you can look out for that'll make finding the Cog Tags easier. Look for large, red Gear logos pasted on the walls--if you find a room with this large Gear logo, examine the room and you're sure to find a Cog Tag somewhere.

[+] Hint: Fighting the Wretches

Hint: Fighting the WretchesWhen fighting wretches--the small, shrieking enemies that don't use weapons--attack with melee strikes. The best melee strikes come from weapons other than your grenades and Lancer chainsaw rifle. The chainsaw attack is too slow to combat the swarming wretches, so stick to quick-hit melee punches for instant kills.

[+] Hint: Regain Health

Hint: Regain HealthUnlike most games, you can regain all of your health in Gears of War without the need for health packs. Simple stay in cover for a few seconds and watch as the bright-red gear in the center of the screen fades away. When the gear has comlpetely disappears, your health will be completely full.

[+] Hint: Avoiding the Kryll

Hint: Avoiding the Kryll

We're going to go out on a limb here and assume we weren't the only people caught off guard when the Iron Man movie trailer came out and didn't look like complete crap. Don't get us wrong, we love Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau -- but comic book movies tend to bomb four out of five times, so you never know what you're going to get when that first trailer pops up.



Sadly, that feeling of impending doom is only intensified when you're dealing with a comic book movie-based game, but like its big screen brother, Iron Man seems to be set on defying the odds.



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Last week, SEGA dropped by the IGN lair and showed off Shellhead's exploits on the PlayStation 2 and PSP. Now, before you go getting your Marvel Underoos in a bunch, we're telling you upfront that we're combining our two hands-on sessions into one preview because the games are pretty much identical when it comes to missions and features. You want to hear about all of the missions we played without having to go to separate articles, right? OK then.



A third-person action game, Iron Man will pack 13 missions into your platform of choice, and while SEGA and A2M draw from it, the tasks won't be limited to the film. Whiplash, Iron Monger, the Controller, the Dreadnought and Madame Masque's minions will all be along for the ride to make Tony Stark's life a living hell. Downey and Howard are onboard to lend their voices as well.



Our first mission was on the PSP and actually followed Stark's escape from the prison made famous by the film's trailer. Decked out in his original gray super-suit, Tony has to blast through a plethora of villains before he can escape the fortress and get his life back. The first thing we noticed about our limited time with Iron Man was that the game seems to keep the environments fresh. We started in the ordinary cave, blasted out to a stalagmite-filled room, ascended some steps and made it to the outside.



On the PSP, Iron Man works like a lot of the third-person games you've played in the past. The analog nub moves Tony's body, while the face buttons rotate the on-screen crosshairs and screen POV. When he's on top of an enemy, the right trigger lets Iron Man melee. When's he's back a bit, the right trigger fires whatever weapon Iron Man has selected via the D-pad. Tap and hold the left trigger to hover or double tap and hold it down to kick on your afterburner and tear up the sky. Although the layout is different on the PS2, the controls are fundamentally the same. The analog sticks control movement and your POV, while hover, the afterburners and weapon fire are assigned to individual shoulder buttons. Triangle changes which weapon you have armed and square is your melee attack.



Both control schemes use the D-pad as an energy manager. Seeing as how Tony Stark's such a badass when it comes to tech, it makes sense that he'd build a suit that can reroute its power on the fly. Need more speed for your boosters? Reroute the juice to your propulsion circuits. If you're out of ammo -- which can be picked up via crates in-level -- make it so that your energy-based repulsors are packing mega-damage. If you suck at the game, give a bonus to your armor until you can get to safety. When you start a mission, the energy is evenly distributed and swapping it means your other powers are going to be lessened until you return to the default.



The tradeoff is welcome, though -- especially when going up against enemies such as the Dreadnot. A gigantic tank with multiple turrets and weapon positions, the Dreadnot can fire off EMPs that render Iron Man's suit useless and leaves him vulnerable. When you're up against something that can take you down so easily, it's best to supe-up your weapons and take care of the behemoth as quickly as possible.

This need to take down bad guys as quickly as you can won't go away in Iron Man. When we swooped in and began an assault on the Maggia Compound, we were met with a cornucopia of guys who wanted to kill us. Some were simply mansion guards on the ground with machine guns, but there were also armored bunkers packing missile launchers, laser-shooting turrets and a couple of tanks with big time firepower.



Just like every action game worth its salt, Iron Man makes use of quick-time events. When we crashed to the grounds of this Spanish-titled mansion -- if you drop from the air, Iron Man lands with a thunderous shockwave that takes out villains -- we started a frontal assault on one of the tanks prowling the grounds. Once we wailed on vehicle to the point where it was falling apart, a button prompt appeared on screen. We tapped along, and Tony tore off the cannon before slamming it back onto the ride for a sweet explosion. A similar button game popped up when we were out in the desert and tossing some Jeeps, but the gameplay tactic shines when Iron Man falls in battle.



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Getting the hang of flying, hovering and fighting all at once can be a bit stressful, and as we took on some of the later-level foes, their bullets and bombs brought Tony to his knees. When this happens, a blue sidebar crops up on the left side of the screen. In it is a number of extra lives and Stark's heart monitor. See, Iron Man's heartbeat is flat-lining and you need to press a displayed button to restart it. If you hit the buttons correctly, Tony gets his pulse back and you keep on playing. If you screw it up, one of the continue slots is sacrificed to get him back into battle. If you're out of continue slots, you've just killed Tony Stark.



Captain America is avenged.



Of course, Iron Man uses a regenerative health meter so if your suit starts flashing red -- your cue that Tony's ailing -- you can just grab cover and heal up. On the weapons side of the suit, the more you use them -- ballistics, repulsors and explosives -- the more experience points you earn to unlock upgrades. As you play, you'll gain access to the multiple versions of Stark's duds such as the Mark I, classic and so on.



If you decide to pick up the PSP version of Iron Man, you'll get access to a few more suits and two types of minigames. Death Race has Tony flying around levels and trying to get through a set of rings as fast as possible, while Speed Kill wants you to exterminate every enemy as fast as possible.



Whatever version you decide to get, Iron Man seems like it's armed to fight whatever comic book/videogame curse you want to throw at it. The action is fun, flying feels smooth once you get the hang of it, and when we were wailing on bad guys, we felt like Iron Man. Will Marvel's golden boy be able to pull off a quality game come May? You'll have to tune to IGN to find out -- same Stark-time, same Stark-channel.

©2008-04-08, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

[+] Hint: Quick Reload

Hint: Quick Reload

Tony Stark has a lot of problems. The formerly selfish and self-obsessed business tycoon recently decided to become a superhero, he's got issues with the many women he's dating, and someone is trying to steal his advanced technology to shift the balance of power in the world. Oh, and he's starring in a videogame based on both a movie and comic-book property. Talk about the kiss of death! Good news is that SEGA's Iron Man looks likely to buck the trend of bad movie-licensed games and deliver a promising action title.



You play as Iron Man throughout. You won't be running around as Tony Stark making business deals. You're in the suit and the suit is awesome. The trick with making a game about Iron Man is that he has to be able to fight on the ground, hover in the air and fly at the speed of sound. Developer Secret Level managed to merge all three of these elements seamlessly.



Hovering is handled with the left trigger. Hold it down and you ascend; give a half-squeeze and you hover. Though you are hovering, you can move forward and even evade incoming attacks with the dodge button. You just won't move quickly, but that's often helpful in combat. Flight is mapped to the left shoulder button. And if you want to walk on the ground, well, just hit the asphalt and move forward. The transition between the three modes of movement is fluid and only disorienting for the first few minutes of gameplay. Once you get the hang of it, Iron Man becomes quite a unique experience -- at least in terms of movement.



The levels we played were smartly designed to give reason to switch between all three modes of movement. In one level, as Iron Man attacks a compound attempting to swipe Stark Industries' latest tech, you're attacked by several jets. You'll need to fly after the jets, either shooting with repulsor blasts while in flight or holding down the afterburner button to give a serious boost to your acceleration. You can't attack while using your afterburners, but you certainly can catch up to a speeding plane. Then it's a matter of hovering for a moment, locking on with your missiles and taking down the jet. Or, if you prefer, hit the grapple button as the jet passes and sling it towards the ground.



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At the same time tanks are bombarding you from below. You can hover and lay waste to them from the air or drop to the ground and go mano-y-tank. A few punches should do the trick. Or you can grab hold of the tank, rapidly tap the grapple button, and toss the tank against the hillside. While mission objectives are fairly standard (destroy this, blow up that), the levels are very open, giving you choices on how you approach your tasks.



Iron Man is not like Spider-Man or the Hulk. He doesn't have any true powers. It's just a rich dude in a very expensive suit. And that suit uses energy. Fortunately, your energy replenishes during combat, but it will drain from using afterburners or rapidly firing repulsor blasts. So you will sometimes need to be a bit conservative in what you do. Your suit also has the ability to auto-repair. This is one of the more sensible progressive health systems, since Iron Man's suit can, in fact, fix itself in the comics. Get pounded hard and your structural integrity weakens. If you can get out of the line of fire for a few seconds, you'll repair the suit and be ready to take more punishment. But should you lose all health, the suit falls to the ground. Fortunately, you are given three "reboots" for each level. So if you are knocked down, you will reboot automatically and continue the fight.



Managing where you direct the suit's power distribution is an important part of battle. Using the D-Pad, you can push the energy focus to weapons, melee, thrusters or life support. The switch is fairly quick, so if you are taking a lot of hits, you can switch to life support, heal fast, then switch back to thrusters to chase down a stray missile before powering up your weapons to blast the target out of the sky. Iron Man is a full throttle game that throws loads of enemies at you from start to finish. You will rarely have a chance to catch your breath.



While most of our experience playing through several levels of Iron Man was positive, the flight control isn't as responsive as we might have hoped. Things are fine above the city skyline, but zipping between buildings is more perilous than perhaps is necessary. And the levels seem fairly short. Judging by how long it took us to get through the first few levels, it seems you could probably beat Iron Man quicker than you could get an oil change. At least you can upgrade multiple aspects of your suit and carry those improvements through to a second playthrough. Fans can also expect several unlockable suits from Iron Man's long history. So while the game may end up being a bit on the short side, there will be some replay value.



Iron Man is a surprisingly promising game. It doesn't attempt to be anything more than an action game, but it does that quite well. Look for it to hit store shelves around May 2, to coincide with the release of the feature film.



©2008-04-08, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved