Gears of War 2 ARG Discussion

[J3DI]

This will be the official discussion for the GOW2 ARG. Discuss findings and clues. Post items and share techniques. This discussion is carried over from the news post which opened it all up (here (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=795)).

Find those tags!

[J3DI]

Directions and Clues:

1. When you enter the code provided by Co-Optimus, you either advance or get a screen where you can input your name.

If you advance you get an ASCII pic. Perhaps the name screen can be used later?

2. The screen seems to be through the lens of some type of probe. Click the light-blue indicators on the side (in order, top to bottom) to advance.

3. You should notice the cursor changing when you place it over certain objects, which will also be highlighted.

4. When you click them, you'll get an error, "cog tag missing." This suggests content maybe added later.

5. You should also pay attention to the background. You will many of the gears logos around (similar to when you found a cog tag in gears 1). Click them to get find the posters and other pics. Some sections don't have the gears logs... maybe I missed them.

Zooming into the ASCII pics show no legible words/code. I even converted to .png. Could be something there.

One of the ASCII pics and the icon pack that you find has a string of letters and numbers in the file name. I thought it curious because the other stuff didn't. First thing I thought of when I saw the alphanumeric string was a market place code... alas, it is too many characters :(

[TrackZero]

Zooming into the ASCII pics show no legible words/code. I even converted to .png. Could be something there.

One of the ASCII pics and the icon pack that you find has a string of letters and numbers in the file name. I thought it curious because the other stuff didn't. First thing I thought of when I saw the alphanumeric string was a market place code... alas, it is too many characters :(

The 2of2 ASCII pic indeed is full of legible words/text. Except it's all in Hiragana. If I had the time in photoshop I could tweak out the high-end red colour and sharpen the text so it's easily viewable and translate. But unfortunately, I don't have that time to spare right now (if someone wants to clean it up more first, have at it). But I can confirm for certain it's Japanese, I recognized at least a dozen characters in there (where the parts weren't blurry).

[rinichanraar]

Oops. I didn't see this earlier. Guess I'll just quote myself.

But yeah, it's kind of weird that ASCII picture number two has so many digits after the file name. And same with the zipped folder. I have a feeling that, at least for the ASCII wallpaper, it's just so you can't just edit the URL to find 2of2.

EDIT:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/gearsofwar2/downloads/ascii1of2.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/games/gearsofwar2/downloads/ascii2of2_9dda34ffd7ac447093c1882a3fdd643c.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/games/gearsofwar2/downloads/poster1of3.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/games/gearsofwar2/downloads/poster2of3.jpg
http://www.microsoft.com/games/gearsofwar2/downloads/poster3of3.jpg

[J3DI]

Oops, your right Track, I only looked at one of the ascii pics.

[TrackZero]

Ugh, the official "last day" forum on the epic boards is just painful to look at. Just kids screaming how they "got codes!", not even a since mention of deciphering the ascii backgrounds. Guess we'll have to do this shit ourselves.

Edit: I should also note that ascii 1of2 is way easier to read than 2of2. Apparently whatever filters they ran over these, they didn't realize how much more complex Japanese characters are then simple English numbers. Really wish I knew what filters to use to reverse the damage so it's legible to translate.