Prize Processing Has Begun

Attention GoW3 Brotherhood Challenge winners: Payment processing has begun! US winners will start receiving checks after the Thanksgiving holiday, and participants from other countries will start receiving them in the weeks following. Please be patient, we have almost everyone's contact info. Congratulations and thank you to all who participated in this great event.

The Bitter End

After thirty days, we have finally arrived at the end of the Gears of War 3 Achievement Challenge. First place goes to Like Taking Candy From A Baby while second place goes to both The Unvanquished and Brothers til the End or until you need 830. We will have information tomorrow regarding how to contact us to claim your share of the prize pool. For now, let's take a moment and reflect on just how much Gears of War 3 all of you have played in the last month. Over 2,000 gamers unlocked over 200,ooo gamerscore in just 30 days. That is a lot of points in a short time. I want to thank each and everyone of you for taking part and helping to make this event a success. Stay tuned for future 360voice challenges, including our annual Holiday Mega Challenge.

World War Gears

We'll up the stakes with under two days to go and instead of talking fellow Xbox 360 community sites and how they're doing (which has now become "Not as well as the 360voice home team"), let's talk sovereign nations. Hollands Glorie, a team comprised solely of Dutch gamers, is far and away the most successful national team. 23 spots behind the Dutch, you can find the Coalition of Ordered South Africans in 27th place. That's not bad for a team that is sporting only 35 members. In addition, there is a large European population spread out over a number of Brotherhoods, meaning that in the top 5 Brotherhoods, we may just have more Euros placing high then we do Americans (or Canadians). Go through the roster of Brotherhoods and a few small New Zealand and Aussie Brotherhoods can be found alongside a Puerto Rican Brotherhood. With no hyperbole needed, the Gears of War 3 Achievement Challenge was a true global event.

A Battle for Site Supremacy

For the curious, I have been mostly sidelined by a battle with the flu this past week. I should have gone and received that flu shot. We have our top two..errr....top three teams locked into place, which means the final stretch of this challenge is no longer about money, but about honor. Oh, and bragging rights. Among the specific community-site teams, it is the AchievementHunter leading the way by 5 points over the 360voice populated Pics or It Didn't Happen. As usual with competitive events, it's the TrueAchievement team coming in behind 360voice. CheapAss Gamer's B team is proving to be tougher then their A team, as the original CheapAss Gamer team is even down behind the second TrueAchievement team and the second 360voice team (Sera's Salvation). The teams from Co-Optimus and Seasoned Gamers are, like some Hollywood starlets stuck in their mid-20's. All told, I expect the 360voice home team to take home the bacon and at least beat out the TrueAchievement teams. That's assuming we don't see a 2011 Red Sox level collapse out of Pics or It Didn't Happen. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go watch my 2004 ALDS DVDs and forget this past year ever happened.

Photo Finish

So both The Unvanquished and Brothers til the End or until you need 830 managed to secure the maximum possible score on the same day last week. Fshguy and myself have concluded that yes, it was an exact tie for 2nd place. We are unsure as to what will happen with the prizes and have conferred with those responsible for the payout. Ultimately the decision will be made within the next few days and everyone will be informed as to the results. Amazingly, with this crazy finish, I am happy to receive quite so many messages about the fun participants had gaming with friends and meeting new people. Such messages are appreciated by everyone that put a lot of time and effort into putting this together. While we've had some bumps along the way, it seems that overall it was a positive experience for many of you. I guess 6 hour long sessions of Horde mode will do that. We will be tracking scores for the next week, so those of you competing with friends should keep at it, and you could also help a certain 360voice staff member get through the campaign on Insane.

Seriously 3.0 will claim many a turbo controller

Like Taking Candy From A Baby has claimed the number one spot and only had to leave a reasonably sized trail of blood and broken bodies in their wake. Brothers to the End!!! is well on its way to grabbing the second spot, but that's not why we are here today. No, today it's all about Seriously 3.0 and the fact that some people, notable Candian gamer extraordinaire Buckswana, already have 15+ Onyx medals. That is crazy. I understand that by using a turbo controller it's easy to grind out some of the medals, but even then, this is really looking like the longest achievement grind in history. Just remember, stats will be tracked all the way through to October 20th, so it really is a great time to get together and form some boosting parties for those difficult achievements to get on your own, like the 4-player co-op playthrough. See, it's tough to get on your own since it requires 4 players. I'm here all week, don't forget to tip the waitress!

12 days down, but more importantly, I finished Horde mode

Perhaps it is just me, but the new and improved Horde mode in Gears 3 is an amazingly fun time. I had the privilege of running through waves 1-50 alongside some of the competitors in this event and it was a blast. Thankfully they were able to carry me, since I am the only person to ever miss a Grinder with a shot from the Boomshot. In related news, the top teams are also running through the more esoteric Gears of War 3 modes at the moment in an effort to secure the top spot. Brothers Til The End!!! is making it a very, very tight race with Like Taking Candy From A Baby. I expect to see these tow finish in some combination of 1 and 2, but who gets to be the bride? Somehow, we also still have 17 Brotherhoods that have yet to score a single point. While We doan got dat stinkin game!!! does not surprise me with a score of 0, the others do. How many will be scoreless at the end?

On the 10th Day of Gears 3, My True Love Gave Me Ten Torque Bows

Ten Torque Bows is of course one of many acceptable answers to "What is better then 1 Torque Bow?" Today we also caught Like Taking Candy From A Baby in the middle of putting in more 830 pointers, so Brothers Til The End!!! are within spitting distance right now. Can it hold and will we see a lead change? Will The Unvanquished make a move for 2nd? Who knows? I'm sure Alec Baldwin knows but he isn't telling. Just because I know it's going to make them happy, We Cole Trained Anya's Fenix gets a shout-out for nearly pushing a 6 man team into the top 50. Remember, tomorrow is Gaming and Giving for Good and you can still donate to help support Children's Miracle Network hospitals: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&eventID=506&teamID=5548

9 Days and still not outta bullets

You will have to excuse a shorter update then usual amount of words I put into these, but with an upcoming 24 hour gaming marathon, I need my rest. If you have not already, go to the 360voice G3 team page and give us some support for charity! Speaking of charity, none of the Brotherhoods seem to need the gift of points as everyone is making it rain GS these days! I want to call out the Brotherhood of Dads for dropping over 7,000 points so far. That's pretty good for a Brotherhood with a lot of other commitments. Kudos as well to all you other parents out there pounding away against the Locust during your scant free hours of gaming. Let's keep those points coming and keep grinding away at those Onyx medals. Outside of the campaign and horde medals, what Onyx medal is going to be your first?

The Eighth Day, Now with Less Arnold

Like Taking Candy From a Baby has increased their lead for the top spot by having top scorers from other Brotherhoods go join them. Which is perfectly acceptable within the rules, though I do hope people understand that ditching their friends may have some consequences. Not from me of course, as I'm enjoying the log jam up top and the ensuing fight to the death between The Unvanquished and Brothers Til The End!!! as each group is fighting hard to cross the gap from number 2 to number 1. Nothing though can top the amusement of Not Playing ringing up over 500 points. Way to stick to your mission statement team! I'm waiting for Brotherhoods to make side bets with one another over final placement, though it seems CheapAssGamer, which I just noticed has a THIRD Brotherhood involved, is clearly the site to beat. Finally, head over to extra-life.org and help support Team 360voice as we raise money for the Children's Miracle Network of hospitals. I (Dog of Thunder by the way), have personally pledged to game 1 hour for every $5 I raise, with the requisite live blogging so that you know I'm actually gaming. Sounds like a great day to knock off my Insane 4 player Co-Op Arcade Collectibles run.

7 Days of Gears

We have been at this now for one week. Seven solid days of running up the gamerscore in Gears of War 3. Today, Like Taking Candy From A Baby has widened the gap over The Unvanquished while Brothers to the End!!! is showing clear signs of slowing down. All three are over the halfway mark but we still have 23 days to go. The congestion we had yesterday down to 12th place has been broken up with CheapAssGamer CoGs #2 dropping from the pace being established by Reapers Til The End. Special kudos is going out today to Hollands Glorie, the highest ranked country specific Brotherhood. In this case, as if Holland was not enough of a clue, the Brotherhood is 100% Dutch. Good showing for the casual gamers so far as the Dutch are currently sitting in 26th place with only 25 CoGs. I'm assuming by now that most of you have checked out all the modes in Gears of War 3, which means I can ask about Beast Mode. Is it a good addition or will you never look at it again once you get the achievements for it?

6 Days in the Trenches

6 days down, 24 to go and the points pace has slowed quite a bit. By now, I'm assuming most are either done with the first play of the campaign or close to it. Like Taking Candy From A Baby lost the lead over the weekend to Brothers Til The End!!! but they regained the top spot today. The Unvanquished made a move and are right on their heels. Both Reapers Til The End and AchievementHunters have fallen off the pace creating an ever widening gap between 3rd and 4th place. The 6 through 12 spots are all running close: We are all stranded now, TA Cogs, Generic Team, Pics or it didnt happen, Casual Cogs, CheapAssGamer CoGs #2 and Molneze's Brotherhood (I am not going to even attempt and type that one out) are ALL within 700 points of each other. It's going to be interesting to see how many people from the other Brotherhoods can max out with 830 points over the next two weeks, and if the top Brotherhoods will make an effort to recruit those people and boost their own totals.

Remember, you can keep recruiting new gamers all the way up until October 10th in order to make a move for the top recruiter prizes. Check back again tomorrow for another daily update as we continue to track the movement of that top pack of Brotherhoods.