Gears of War 3 patch adds spectator options, fixes exploits

Between Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and now Halo Anniversary, it's a busy year for shooter fans on Xbox 360. You could hardly be blamed for forgetting that Gears of War 3 was first out of the gate in September, but players are still slamming into cover and curb-stomping with the best of them. Today Epic is issuing the second title update for the game, offering a few improvements, and fixes to bugs and exploits

The patch notes detail all of the changes. In the improvements category, a spectator mode has been added to private versus matches, apparently to let gaming leagues broadcast the matches. A few medals and mutators are easier, and you can turn off the HUD if you want a nice clean set up for video or machinima.

The Onyx Field Engineer medal and overhead beams in Drydock are no longer exploitable, and players can't take hostages, pick up weapons, or revive teammates while stunned by a Smoke Grenade. A few general fixes include better host migration, stat-tracking adjustments, and better random map selection. It also includes "potential" fixes for rare issues like lost progress and profile freezing.