Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play

Gears of War 2, a game that by most accounts was shipped completely and utterly broken, is expecting to release a much-needed major title update sometime in the soonish undisclosed future. Hoping to go live before January comes to a close, it will patch various online exploits such as “the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through some walls, gain infinite Lancer ammo and equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously.” The update will also include “increased penalties for quitting matches early, adding additional spawn protection against planted grenades and chainsaw attacks, and adding the ability to see the Submission flag carrier destination by using Tac/Com” with the goal being to improve the overall online gameplay experience. If you ever decide to put this game back in your otherwise occupied disc tray, you will also be getting some new DLC achievements and a shotgun that has been improved to perform better under high-latency situations. Things not mentioned anywhere on the entire long-winded laundry list? Host migration. A quit option. Region filters. The reason they pulled the Gears Of War 2: The Ultimate Glitch Collection video by making a copyright claim. And Cliffy B’s fascination with Tubgirl.

As someone that has not ventured into this particular steroid-filled shooting arena, there is only one thing I would like to see patched and that is the fucking invite all bullshit that is constantly cluttering up my Xbox Live inbox. While I have no idea if it is an intentional feature or a where-the-hell-are-your-playtesters bug, hitting the back button in the Gears of War 2 “What’s Up?” menu sends game invites to everybody on your friends list. If someone is playing GoW2, they get an invite. If they are playing a different game, they get an invite. If they are completely offline, they still get a fucking invite. Obviously it was worse when the game was first released since nobody realized how extremely not enjoyable the lagtastic must-wait-30-minutes-for-a-game multiplayer (minus Horde mode) is, but the spamming still continues to this day.

I will tell you straight up that if you send me an invite to a game you know I don’t have, I will think you are an inconsiderate, egotistical dickwad. All of you on my friends list that unknowingly did this to me, you better believe I cursed your name when that annoying message intruded upon my already busy screen. Back in the days of the Halo 3 Beta, people often sent invites to friends they knew had not gotten in just to rub it in their faces. It was a douchebag move then, and it’s a douchebag move now. I’m more understanding at this point since I realize the fault lies elsewhere than the person sending the invite, but Epic is making their fans look like complete and total assholes by spamming the hell out of all 100 of their friends on a regular basis. Well, more of an asshole than they already look like since they are still actually playing this let’s-release-premium-maps-before-fixing-our-shit game. Fix the br spread you say? Fix the fucking spam spread please.

What, tell you how I feel? I believe I already did.

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