Unfortunately you won’t be getting any extra use out of your copy of Unreal Tournament 3 just yet, as the expansion pack I brought word of last month has been delayed.

The original plan was to give players extra levels, weapons, game modes and more from tomorrow on both PC and PS3. Epic has said that the pack won’t arrive until 19th March, two weeks from the original release date. Steve Polge posted an explanation on the developer’s official forums.

“Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of our control, the certification process for the PS3 patch and DLC has taken much longer than we expected. As a result, we have been forced to push back the release date for the PS3 version to 3/19.

The PC patch contains updates that will improve mods cooked for PS3, so we’ll be taking advantage of this extra time to work with mod authors to make sure the best mods for UT3 are cooked with the latest patch” - Epic

I suppose it’s not that much of a wait, but for eager UT fans looking to fresh content it’s just another two weeks of boredom. At least it’s free!

Epic Games has announced that it plans to release an expansion for Unreal Tournament 3 on 5th March. The ‘Titan’ pack will be free for the PC and Playstation 3 and will add new maps, units, vehicles, characters and awards for the game.

Will the ‘Titan’ pack be coming to Xbox 360? Epic Games is saying that “Given the file size requirements for updates on the Xbox 360 platform, we have no plans to release the Titan Pack for Xbox 360.” (Via Joystiq). Sigh Microsoft, why must you prevent things like this?

Anyway, there are a hefty 11 multiplayer maps that can be used for the Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes. If that’s not enough maps for you there’s also a further 8 maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version.

More content? As you wish! Two new game modes will also be along for the ride: Greed mode, which is a “tug-of-war” style point’s battle; and Betrayal mode, which makes you turn on your teammates to get a higher score. If that doesn’t sound good enough then the new Titan mutator turns you into a 15-foot tall Behemoth that grants you the effects of every power up in the game all at once. Now try telling me that this doesn’t sound awesome!

Last but not least there’s also some new equipment for you; which includes two new turrets, an X-Ray deployable field that instantly weakens all enemies inside it and new vehicles. The PC version also allows Steam achievements.

Phew, you can’t accuse Epic of not delivering! Head on over to Big Download to check out an in-depth preview of everything this amazing free expansion has to offer.

There’s no doubting that Gears of War 2 is an excellent game, but this excellence has been marred by persistent bugs, exploits and connection problems in the online multiplayer. There’s no point in owning one of the best games of 2008 if you can’t have any lasting fun with it. Thankfully a fix is now on the way.

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein has posted on the Gears of War forums with information about the next patch, which we can expect sometime this month.

“We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January,” Rein said.

Top of the list are fixes for a bunch of online exploits; including the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through walls and gain infinite Lancer ammo. Exploits like these are primarily the kind of things that have been ruining the game for players, as there’s always someone who will advantage of these exploits and, basically, cheat to win the game.

There will also be a few changes to the ruleset, including increased penalties for quitting matches early (I personally hate it when people do this).

Finally, achievement whores will be glad to know that some new achievements will be added for December’s downloadable content.

You can check out the rest of the changes here, plus Mark promises that a more detailed list will be posted soon.

If you don’t have Gears of War 2 yet then check out PriceGrabber for the cheapest prices.  Go on, treat yourself!

Gears of War 2 has only been in shops since Friday but the weekend saw sales sky rocket to over 2 million worldwide.  Of those 2 million more than half - 1.5 million - logged onto Xbox Live while playing the game, racking up 15 million hours and a record for concurrent players on Xbox Live. If you still haven’t had enough big numbers then ponder the fact that 19 million Achievements were also gained.

While bears that crap in the woods could have figured out that Gears of War 2 would have incredible sales you still have to give a nod to Epic Games’ idea of launching the game on the same day worldwide. Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski (who, I may add, is a legend) had this to say:

“We were so excited to launch Gears of War 2 on the same day all around the world, something virtually unheard of in the games business. We wanted our fans, no matter where they live, to have a shared experience on day one, and that’s exactly what’s happened.” - Eurogamer

With Christmas coming up you could be forgiven for expecting those numbers to double over the next month or so. I’ll be one of those buying the game at Christmas as I have enough games on my radar making my wallet suffer. Why not compare prices here on Pricegrabber and pick a copy up yourself?

Gears of War sells 2 Million Units (and we unlocked over 19 million Achievements) - Major Nelson