Those who count themselves among the top in the Halo Wars leaderboards may have found themselves screaming a la Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. Microsoft has confirmed: "An Xbox Live technical issue wiped all Halo Wars Xbox Live Leaderboards earlier today."

Gears of War 2 executive producer Rod Fergusson has revealed that an all-new experience-based ranking system is coming with the game's third title update, acting as a precursor to the upcoming Snowblind map pack. Title Update 3 will also have a new auto-balancing feature that swaps in bots to replace players who drop out in the middle of a match and four new maps. Details after the jump.

We've got a bulk load of new details regarding the mulitplayer modes in Digital Extremes and D3 Publisher's Dark Sector for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The two multiplayer game types - Infection and Epidemic - look pretty interesting, so check out the full article and learn all about them. Oh, and there are some new screenshots too.

After much speculation, Sidhe Interactive has finally issued an official announcement about the PlayStation-branded video game GripShift (PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable) and its scheduled outing on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service.

"Veteran players and newcomers to the game will both find something to love in this definitive version of GripShift. We've added a substantial amount of new content," commented Sidhe Interactive Managing Director Mario Wynands. More details after the jump!

Okay, first things first. Depending on who you're talking to, Microsoft's TrueSkill ranking system is either pure genius or pure bull, but the fact remains that a lot of people were put off by the omission of the option to play ranked team matches in Epic Games' Gears of War. According to Gears of War lead designer Cliffy B., the omission was a "cert requirement." Alright, okay.

But then here comes FASA's Shadowrun (which will be published by Microsoft Game Studios). The word is out that the game will include ranked matches with parties. Apparently, FASA is opting out of using TrueSkill and is going to create their own matchmaking system to let players play ranked team matches. If this is true, then TrueSkill isn't mandatory for Xbox 360 games with online multiplayer features (which is good news for those looking forward to playing ranked team matches with their friends in Halo 3).

Apart from that piece of news, we have no details yet on how Shadowrun will handle ranked team matches. Epic Games is currently thinking about adding something similar to Gears of War in order to appease the public outcry, so we may see a little preview of Shadowrun's system when that becomes a reality.