We have had our first Mark Rein spotting of the new year and it seems to be just in the nick of time.  Fans of the popular series, including myself, have been growing tired of the inconsistent online play and all of the exploits that have marred the game since it’s release.  It goes without saying that a patch has been a long time coming and Epic needs to work on it’s communication skills.

Gears of War 2 will be receiving the much needed patch sometime in January.  The patch will address oodles of issues that have been exploited by gamers along with new achievements tied to the DLC.  The list below includes all of the major fixes listed in the forum post but there are more to come.  Mark Rein has promised to do a better job of keeping the community updated on future fixes.  We will hold you to that Mark.

Just a few of the patch details:

• Fixed invisible shield exploit.
• Fixed melee through walls exploit.
• Fixed infinite Lancer ammo exploit.
• Fixed shield with two-handed weapon exploit.
• Fixed bug where shotgun and boomshot shot into the ground when shooting from the hip.
• Increased penalties for quitting matches early.
• Additional spawn protection from grenades and chainsaw attacks.
• View Submission flag carrier destination using Tac/Com.
• Achievement progress numbers added to War Journal.
• Client side shotgun hit detection improved resulting in more reliable data in high latency games.
• Increased frequency of in-game Achievement tracker notifications.
• New DLC based achievements.

The one fix that I don’t see on the list and probably the one that bothers me the most is the ridiculous amount of grenades in a single match.  I personally think the grenade respawn time needs to be throttled back at least a minute or two.  I hope it is just one of the items he has left off the list.

[Via Gears Forums]