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In order to kick this Independence Day off Gears of War-style, Epic Games‘ Rod Fergusson has informed Gears of War 2 players via the game’s official forums that a double XP weekend will begin Friday July 3rd.

Running through until Monday July 6th, players will be able to grab Title Update 4 before the proceedings start which adds in multiplayer experience to the Horde mode. Watch out for a massive increase in those exploding Tickers too:

Starting Friday morning you’ll be receiving double XP as well as a 500 XP bonus awarded to the winning team. And to give a little extra bang to Horde we’re bringing the Ticker squad (a group of Tickers that all spawn at the same time) into full effect.

They’ll be showing up a lot more throughout all the waves of Horde and they’ve completely infested every 10th wave with nothing but Tickers. So if you’ve been having trouble with Bloodmounts, this weekend is a good time to get your Horde on and get further than ever before. And don’t forget that TU4 will give you experience for every wave you beat.

Title Update 4 also serves as a pre-emptive patch for the July 28th release of Gears of War 2’s Dark Corners map pack — which comprises of 325 new achievement points, seven new multiplayer maps and the Road to Ruin campaign chapter.

Around 12 hours ago the Internet exploded with breaking news stating that Blizzard Entertainment had quietly filed three new game-related trademarks last Friday. All three pertain to the name “Cataclysm” and while speculation is currently off-the-charts, we do know that they broadly cover computer game software, online gaming and paper products.

The rampant speculation runs the gamut from suggesting that this is tied to the next World of Warcraft expansion pack, Diablo III, StarCraft II and even Blizzard’s unannounced MMORPG project. There’s a chance it might even be Blizzard’s secret fifth title too.

World of Warcraft site wow.com added fuel to the fire when it did some digging:

We noticed the domain wowcataclysm.com expired on June 26th, 2009. The domain was previously held and parked out in Australia. June 26th is the same day the trademark was filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office. The domain is also now held by GoDaddy, who we know handles Blizzard domains. That’s just a little too much coincidence for us to stay quiet about. It’s entirely possible Blizzard just acquired the domain name.

Blizzard is notoriously tight-lipped about all of its properties, but with this year’s Blizzcon a few months away, perhaps fans will get to hear the first official rumblings of what Cataclysm might be.

If one multiplayer demo of Naughty Dog’s upcoming Uncharted 2: Among Thieves wasn’t enough for you, relax. According to the transcript of a developer chat found on the official U.S. PlayStation blog, gamers will be able to look forward to a second multiplayer demo from the eagerly awaited sequel pretty soon.

Naughty Dog Creative Director Amy Hennig and Co-President Evan Wells chatted with Sony’s Chris Morell and answered questions from the community. VG247 sums it up:

“Yes, we’re going to have another multiplayer demo before the game hits shelves. The exact timing isn’t finalized yet, but it should be available to an even wider group this time, so if you missed the last one I don’t think you’ll have any problem getting in this one.”

Hennig also told participants that while the fall release date of the game still holds true, an official release date will be announced “very soon.”

Starting July 9th, Skate 2 owners will be able to grab the latest downloadable content pack, called the Maloof Money Cup Pack. Based on the world’s largest pursed professional skating event, the Maloof Money Cup Pack will cost 240 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 users and $3 for PlayStation 3 owners.

Skate 2’s Maloof Money Cup Pack will feature separate gameplay events both online and offline – freeskate, single player vert and street contests that put gamers against world class pros, and an online mode in which gamers will be able to compete against their friends in new activities and challenges for bragging rights. Xbox 360 gamers get an added bonus as there are 250 achievement points up for grabs.

The Maloof Money Cup presented by etnies and Monster Energy boasts the largest purse in the history of professional skateboarding with nearly $450,000 in cash and prizes.

Check out a handful of new screens captured from the Maloof Money Cup Pack below.

Wedbush Morgan has released a new report which takes a broad look at the state of the videogame industry. VG247 has been picking apart the report and stumbled on some pretty interesting speculation.

Essentially, the company reckons that if Nintendo decided to launch a new version of the Wii with HD support by the end of next year, it would seriously hamper Sony’s chances of a comeback with the PlayStation 3.

Our vision is that Nintendo will wait until the cost of a console with technical specifications similar to the Xbox 360 (1080p output at 60 frames per second) is sufficiently low that it can launch close to the $199.99 price point. We would expect such a console to be fully backward compatible with the current Wii, but would expect the new console to have additional features and functionality. It is possible that Nintendo will redesign the existing Wii controller (the “Wiimote”) to include builtin Wii Motion Plus, and also possible that the Wii Plus (our best guess for the name of the Wii HD) will include a hard drive.

In our view, if Nintendo can offer such a device by year-end 2010, it will be in a position to seriously damage Sony’s chances of a comeback this cycle. We would expect publishers to support such a move, given that the cost of porting an Xbox 360 game to the new Wii Plus HD format would likely be lower than the cost of building a ground up Wii game (we estimate under $5 million).

This particular section of the report wraps with the notion that if Nintendo could convince publishers such as EA to support a new HD Wii machine with its full catalog of EA Sports titles, and if Take-Two signed up the likes of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, then it could convince consumers that it would be the last console they would ever need to purchase.

Bored of using the same old improvised explosive devices? Tired of destroying the same old buildings and shooting up the EDF’s rank-and-file? Did that last massive explosion feel just like the countless others you’ve engineered? Today THQ announced a series of three downloadable content packs for Red Faction: Guerrilla that should make your terrorist (or freedom fighter, depending on your perspective) activities feel fresh and exciting once again.

It starts with Demons of the Badlands, set for release on August 13. This update features a single-player mission arc that takes place in a new section of Mars outside of the core game’s world. It’ll cost you $9.99 to grant Alec Mason access to this new chapter.

An interview with Bungie’s president Harold Ryan in The Seattle Times sees the studio head comment on his enthusiasm for Microsoft’s recently revealed Project Natal motion-based controller system.

The article says that Bungie’s upcoming 2010 release of Halo: Reach could end up being “Natal enabled.”

Bungie also received an early look at the “Project Natal” motion-sensing controller Microsoft is developing for the Xbox. Studio President Harold Ryan said he’s enthusiastic about the device and it could be used in “Reach,” another version of “Halo” expected in the fall of 2010. “I absolutely think ‘Reach’ could be enabled with it,” he said.

While Ryan doesn’t truly commit to the notion that Halo: Reach will require the use of Natal, it’s interesting to think that a core IP such as a new Halo game could be tied to a non-traditional control scheme.

We like saving money. What better way to save lots of extra cash than to have both Sony and Microsoft axe the retail pricing of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360? Well, that’s the rumor according to Ars Technica.

The story claims that the two console manufacturers are set to drop the price of their respective platforms in the fall. According to an inside source that apparently is rarely wrong about such things, Sony will look to launch the PlayStation 3 Slim which potentially would replace the original PlayStation 3 hardware once stock is sold through. There are no specifics as to how much the cost of a regular 80GB or 160GB PlayStation 3 would drop by, but there will definitely be a drop.

Microsoft is expected to terminate the Xbox 360 Pro line and replace it instead with the Xbox 360 Elite. The article suggests that current Pro pricing will be the amount paid for an Elite system starting September of this year.

These moves all make sense: the systems are becoming less expensive to build, and hard drive space doesn’t cost much to add… although it does make a good story when you have more storage to offer consumers. With Microsoft selling entire games through Xbox Live, the Elite has become far more important.

While this information will remain rumor and speculation almost all of it makes sense and could well happen. We’ll be keeping tabs on price drops and new hardware accordingly.

John Madden’s not getting any younger. This year represents the 20th year that Electronic Arts ‘ football game has existed. Today’s new screenshots (there are 36 to check out by the way) include teams like the Seattle Seahawks, the San Francisco 49ers and the St. Louis Rams.

We’re hoping that Madden is around for countless years to come, and EA’s Peter Moore has stated back in April that although Madden has now officially retired from broadcasting, EA will still be working on future Madden NFL titles. Check the new images here.

Back in February of this year we reported that the joint Aliens RPG game being developed by Obsidian and published by Sega might have run into some trouble. Since then rumors persisted that the project’s stability wasn’t too strong, and now, thanks to an official post on Obsidian’s forums we learn that the game is no longer in development.

An administrator called The Guildmaster has posted confirmation that the developer is no longer working on the game, and furthermore, that development has ceased.

Hi guys, The Guildmaster here. Rumors have circled around a bit regarding the fate of the Aliens role playing game that Obsidian and SEGA had been working on. Unfortunately, it is true that we are no longer working on the game, and we wanted to finally announce that officially to everyone who has been following its development.

We’re going to keep this forum up for another week for archival purposes and to allow you guys to finish up any open threads, and then we will shut it down since it is no longer a product that is in development.

One comment in the forum thread appears to have a quote from Sega on the matter which reads “The Aliens franchise offers us so much content to choose from that we feel it important to take a step back and carefully consider the type of game we want to release.” The validity of this quote is not confirmed.