The drinks—of which, sadly, we have no nutritional information—are put out by Boston America, who are also the guys behind the Street Fighter energy drinks you may have seen doing the rounds.

Kotaku’s Night Desk would gladly chug these down by the case in an attempt to stave off naptime, were it not for the fact we’ve seen what happens to those exposed to too much Imulsion, and to be honest, glowing yellow veins clash with the colour of our sneakers.

Bonus treat: check out the drink’s Amazon page, which is able to sum up the Gears of War fanbase better than words could ever hope.

Gears of War [Boston America]

It includes the main game along with all post-release DLC, which comes to 19 maps and the bonus singleplayer level Dark Corners.

The extra content seems to have stopped the game from going Platinum, however, with the Gears 2 GOTY selling for $US40.

Kotaku AU Note: I’ll check with Microsoft to see if we’re getting this. It’d make up for not getting All Fronts on disc last month.

[GameStop]

Sure, Gears aficionados can also win a replica Lancer gun, but it’s the option to grill outdoors in pitch black that will probably get Japanese gamers excited. All they have to do is watch a Gears Of War 2 promo video at the game’s official Japanese site, find the hidden password buried within, then throw their name in the hat.

The company is also hosting a Horde tournament for Japanese Xbox 360 owners, netting serious Gears players things like a sweet new TV, 5.1 surround sound headphones and other prizes. But hey, they’re giving away BBQ set. Two of ‘em! You probably stopped reading at BBQ set.

マイクロソフト、Xbox 360「Gears of War 2」発売に合わせてランキングイベントなどを実施 [Game Watch]

While Dark Corners comes packed with seven new maps for multiplayer gaming, the thing that really sets this bundle of download content apart from the rest is the inclusion of a lost level cut from the middle of the game and now playable as a stand-alone mission. The level, introduced with a short video by developer Cliff Bleszinski, even introduces a new mechanic, stealth, to the game.

Is this a worthy addition to Gears of War 2 or was Epic right to cut it before shipping the game last year?

Loved
Road to Ruin: The Road to Ruin single-player campaign is presented as a level cut from the original game. This is a sort of director’s cut of the game. The level takes place after the emotional reunion between Dom and his wife Maria in the underground lair of Locust. The level has players traverse an underground highway on their way to find the queen. The Road to Ruin can either be played as a typical stop-and-pop Gears level or a stealth level. That’s right, this particular level introduces the ability to put on some Theron Guard armour and become nearly invisible to most Locust. If you decide to sneak through the level you’ll spend most of your time following on Dom’s heels as he creeps past guards for about two-thirds of the level. Both the stealth approach and traditional approach culminate in the same room filled with lever-controlled pop-up barriers and a flood of enemies. The whole thing wraps up neatly with a boss battle before segueing back into the original Gears of War 2 plot. While short, it took me just 45 minutes to play through the game on hardcore difficulty, the lost level does give gamers a chance to drop back into the game and experience something new. The stealth mode is mostly wasted on the level, delivering something more tedious than exciting. Despite the lacklustre mechanic, I do wish they had included Road to Ruin in the original title, the impact it would have had emotionally on gamers when played directly after the scenes of the reunion between Dom and Maria would have been significant.

Seven New Places to Play:Dark Corners also comes packed with seven new multiplayer levels, most of which are a welcome addition to the current stable of maps available to gamers. None of the maps are bad additions, but a few really stand out. In particular I enjoyed the interesting, overly-ornate setting for Way Station. My favourite map of the bunch, though, was Nowhere which features an abandoned gas station and garage.

Hated
Cliffy: Don’t get me wrong, I like Cliff Bleszinski, I just don’t like having to watch him talk about the reasons behind the decision to cut Road to Ruin every time I want to replay the level. Could they have made the relatively short video be a separate item instead of attaching it to the beginning of the new gameplay? It’s also unfortunate that the level wasn’t delivered in a way that lets you play through the “deleted scene” in-line with the rest of the game. I would have loved to see what the missing piece of the game felt like as a whole, instead of relying on my memory to see how the plot and cut-scenes fit together. Instead gamers select the new level from the main menu and the game creates an entirely separate game save for the Road to Ruin play through.

Calling Road to Ruin a deleted scene makes we wonder why Gears of War 2 or other games don’t release director’s cuts. I’d love to replay a more bloated version of a game I really like to see what was cut out, what was tweaked. Delivering a new level for an old game is fantastic fan service, but it is also quite frustrating when it comes unleashed from the source material.

Coming in at 1600 Microsoft Points, Dark Corners is well worth the money to any fans of Gears of War 2. It bolsters multiplayer gaming with seven new maps, but much more importantly, it gives you a tantalising taste of brand new single-player Gears.

Gears of War 2: Dark Corners was developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 on July 28. Retails for 1600 Microsoft Points. Played through the single-player level on hardcore both in stealth and not. Played all multiplayer maps at least three times each .

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Dude and Rod will be joined by Gears of War movie scriptwriter Chris Morgan, Gears of War comic book author and Gears of War 2 scriptwriter Joshua Ortega, and Gears of War movie director Len Wiseman. It’s gonna be busy!

Jump through to read the liveblog.

Gearsiverse

The main focus this year at the NECA booth seems to have been Street Fighter IV and Gears of War, the two great tastes that sounds great together when said out loud. We’ve seen many of the figures already, but a few are new. I’m really digging their take on urban vinyl for the two properties, and I definitely need a Crimson Viper figure so I can profess my love for her in person.

Thank goodness I didn’t say that out loud.

The Dark Corners DLC pack hits Xbox Live on July 29 for 1600 Microsoft Points. The chief attraction is multiplayer, thanks to the introduction of seven new maps, as revealed back in May.

But there’s also a “deleted scene” from the campaign called Road To Ruin. This is a short chapter apparently chopped from the final game, as Cliff Bleszinski explains in a quick video just before you start playing. Like the rest of the campaign, Road To Ruin can be played solo or cooperatively. It takes place after you learn of Maria’s fate and details the brief journey Marcus and Dom take to Nexus.

What’s a little different about it is the option you have right up front to play it stealthily or go in guns blazing as the Cogs always do. Opting for the latter rewards you with a level consisting of half a dozen typical Gears skirmishes leading up to a fittingly larger scale finale.

It plays out like Act 4 from the original campaign, albeit condensed to just one level. Early sections are open lengths of underground highway, dotted with all the bits of cover you’d expect, and deliver a really satisfying mix of long and close range combat. Later sections bring in those toggleable barriers you’ll remember seeing in the original campaign the closer you got to the palace, culminating in a frantic final battle that has you using them to defend a spot under siege on several fronts.

So, go in guns blazing and it’s the same Gears of War 2 you know – and possibly love – only slightly more of it. I completed the scene in around 30 minutes on Normal difficulty, flying solo.

But what happens when you choose stealth?

Here, Marcus and Dom don Locust clothing and try to bluff their way through. You traverse (mostly) the same route through the level, but instead of fighting your way, you’re walking. The locust goons won’t recognise you in disguise, but they will be smell your humanity should you get too close.

It sounds interesting, particularly to a fan of stealth games like me. But Gears of War 2 was never built for stealth. Sadly, it simply boils down to waiting for the patrolling Locust to move out of the way and then jogging past them. Occasionally you’ll need to “distract them” by flicking a lever somewhere to send a crate crashing down nearby.

Stealth doesn’t factor into the AI at all; you’re either at a safe distance in plain sight or you’re too close and they’ll start shooting you. It’s all highly scripted and offers no room for trying your own thing. It’s even scripted in that at a certain point you’ll be forced to start shooting anyway.

As lame as the stealth approach may be, it’s just about worth doing to see the couple of different areas the path eventually takes. It also nearly doubles the play time you’ll get out of this. Which is nice. Still, you’ll have seen everything on offer in under an hour.

Of course, as mentioned up top, the Dark Corners DLC is really a multiplayer map pack with bonus campaign content. If you don’t play online, there’s nothing here worth your 1600 MS Points. And it’s worth even less if the idea of Gears 2 played stealthily was what had you interested in the first place.

Yes, whether you buy the pack from Xbox.com or from the 360 dash itself, it doesn’t matter, it’s there, it’s available, you can download it and (our readers tell us) you can play it, and you can do all that for only 800 MS Points, half the price it was originally advertised at.

If this is a marketing sneak attack from Microsoft, it’s a welcome one. If it’s a mistake, quick, download it now before they yank it off and jack the price back up.

[thanks everyone who sent this in!]

But Gears designer Dude Huge (aka “DH” aka “Cliff Bleszinski”) is ready to move on.

“Stylistically though,” he says, “I’d love to play in a different field in the near future in regards to what your typical expectation of a Gears of War game actually is.” Lots of pastels, please!

Gears of War 2 is a slight departure visually from the first game — nothing radical, though.

Huge currently has “five projects going on right now” and says that he and his company Epic Games are going to take more risks in the future as well as make “a few safe bets that people won’t be surprised to see coming.” Gears of War 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, anyone?

Cliff Bleszinski: shifting gears [Develop]