What they are: A set of menu backgrounds to remind you that you really like playing Gears of War 2, while you wait to start playing Gears of War 2.

Why you care: Because your cellphone ringtone library is already complete and, damn it, you’ve just gotta spend two dollars!

Why we don’t: They can cost up to two dollars. What do you get for your money? Who knows, there’s no way to look at the images before you pay for them.  And to be honest, we still haven’t figured out where the menus with the third and fourth backgrounds are. Seriously, is there a third and fourth background?


Above: The two backgrounds we can find. Yes, we bought the Street Fighter dashboard... sorry

What they are:  It’s like getting a whole new game out of the game you already have, except it’s actually, like, the same game.

Why you care: Your illogically unquenchable thirst for bragging rights. It’s important to be able to say you beat the game on Hardcore, Extreme, Insane, Godly, Hard-boiled, Hardcore-Boiled, Boil an Egg or whatever the hardest difficulty is. We’re not sure why.

Why we don’t: We already played through the game once, and it’s not going to be any different the second time.

Cranking up the difficulty almost always has only two effects: bad guys do more damage and have more life. Here are a few other things games could do that we thought of during the daily lunch-nap: Spawn more normal-strength enemies, change the story, cut down on health regeneration, limit weapons or ammo, increase the frequency of attacks from higher-tiered enemies, make regular enemies attack in smarter ways or add severe restrictions for revival.


Above: One of these screens in on hard the other one is on extra hard. If you can’t tell, why should we?

What they are: Pictures of the game you’re already playing.

Why you care: Everybody’s got to unlock something.

Why we don’t: Could we unlock a hat instead? That would be better, and hats suck too.