Gears of War 2, similar to its predecessor, is exclusive to Xbox 360 and will be released this November.

At the Drive-In is an American post-hardcore band from Texas that was active from 1993 to 2001. Their most recent album, from which GH takes the song, was released back in 2001 after which the band broke up due to creative differences and band members feeling they were being held back.

Guitar Hero 4 is expected sometime next year for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.

Unsurprisingly, the revelation of Mass Effect and Spore’s DRM, which was described as being “draconian” by many, caused uproar among fans. The DRM would require online validation every 10 days in order for the games to continue functioning.

Fortunately, that won’t be the case anymore, as EA and BioWare both announced today that it has removed the strict validation, saying that it will only be required when the player downloads new game content or patches.

Spore’s copy protection will similarly be changed to allow for offline play. The publisher additionally notes that the protection will allow users to authenticate each game on up to three computers. Approval of further authorizations will be handled by EA customer support on a case-by-case basis.

This money comes from agreements with multiple banks, including Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, BNP Paribas, and The Bank of Nova Scotia, among others. The whole offer would be increased to $3 billion it seems, though Take-Two has stated its intent to remain independent. The company recently got a major injection of money in the form of the GTA 4 release which brought in $500 million during its first week.

The tracks will be sold individually for 160 Microsoft points, or $1.99 at the PlayStation Store. As usual, the songs will be available starting May 13 on Xbox Live Marketplace, followed by a PS3 release on Thursday, May 15.

Though Tony Hawk may be getting a break, it seems Call of Duty isn’t. Activision’s biggest cash cow, a new entry in the series is being developed and will take place in a “new military theater,” according to company publishing CEO and President Mike Griffith.

Speaking at a conference call, Griffith revealed that the fifth entry in the series, unofficially called Call of Duty 5, will arrive on PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and DS later this year. He did not offer further details, though his comments suggest that the title may not go back to the World War II setting the series originally debuted with.

While no details were provided, job listings for Treyarch suggest that they might be taking on development duties, while speculation is going around that series creator Infinity Ward is already working on Call of Duty 6. None of this is confirmed though.

“It won’t be your father’s Tony Hawk,” he said during a conference call yesterday. “For competitive reasons we’re not going to talk about it today, but we’re very bullish on the kind of innovation it will bring.”

However, this year won’t be completely barren skateboarding wise, as the company noted that a new DS entry, developed by Vicarious Visions, is due out later this year.

The PC version of the game is said to include unspecified expanded multiplayer support, improved online features as well as “community driven” content. The studio is also aiming for high performance on older machines, revealing in a podcast that they had Paradise running on a two-year old laptop with 2GB RAM and a 1.8GHz processor. They also mentioned that the game supports gamepad and wheel controls in addition to keyboard.

First screenshots can be found on Criterion’s website. They are looking for feedback through their PC forum, so if you have something to say, do so there. No release date was mentioned.

Bringing sad news to gamers, Bizarre Creations community lead Ben Ward revealed that the studio won’t be creating any downloadable content for Project Gotham Racing 4 in the future. He said so while responding to a content wishlist by a fan on the game’s forums.

The studio is now part of Activision, but PGR4 was released when the company was working with Microsoft. Though the studio has released a Free Challenge Pack and Premium Challenge Pack DLC, future content updates will have to come from franchise owner Microsoft.

Codemasters has quite a few top-tier racing franchises, including the venerable McRae Rally series, TOCA Touring Car and the upcoming Race Driver: GRID. The company is also based in Europe where the sport is far more popular than in North America.

“Codemasters’ success and recent innovations in the racing game space makes the company more than appropriately tuned for the challenge,” said Codemasters chairman Chris Deering, adding, “The combination of Formula 1’s new momentum of expansion and Codemasters’ contemporary technology and past experience is the breaking of a new dawn for the sport, on the track and on the HD game screen.”