I expected as much - Gears 1 didn't release in germany because of it's glorification of violence and Gears 2 seems to take that aspect of the franchise even a step further

people who want it here in germany will just import it from austria, because they get uncut german versions .. and shipping costs are quite low and there are no taxes for imports within the EU

^^ I did see Gears 1 on my blockbuster-like store... but it was in the back room with the porn and really violent horror movies... our system here is screwed up since years back this kid did a highschool shooting and it turned out he played Counterstike a lot... so politicians jumped on that... ignoring that the parents should have been aware that a kid wit nazi flags in his room might be screed up... but as always the gamers who really wan the game will get it...

Gears is only at a little over 3 million? I thought it was over 5!

*Goes and checks the chartz.

@ kitchen: it's at 5.26 million here

^^ Perhaps it has cooled down a little... still politicians and the media like to bash videogames instead of talking about real social problems... recently I saw two different documentaries about videogame addictions (both mainly about WoW), one was pretty stupid and one sided, portraing vidogames as leagal drugs and making games look like social out casts with no life... the other one was quite interesting, it analised the causes of videogame addiction and what facinates gamers about them... still both made gaming look dangerous... I guess there is a very fine line... maybe no line at all between making a game fun and making it addicting... trying to make a game as addictive as possible to make more cash is wrong... but making it as fun as possible has the same effect... only the Wii seems to get good press around here...

^^ Agreed... I think I saw one of the TV documentaries on the "horrible" effects of WoW floating around the net... if your interested I could dig it up... it was kinda interesting to see how different poeple react to games like WoW... it wasn´t that negative but the undertone made WoW look like a addicting drug... I guess it is for some people...

That blows.....everyone should be able to experience the awesomeness that will be Gears 2!

That sucks and it´s pointless, since who really want it will get it. Just makes people upset. They should make the same aproach that they have with movies. Don´t forbid the game comletely, just rate it. In this case, when there´s no rating, just assume the rating as Free. This should force them to rate the game and everybody is happy.

I'm really surprised about it not being available in Japan. I remember playing gears early in the morning and would play against some guys from Japan that were crazy good.

Hopefully it will ship eventually it would be a shame for them to miss out on a potential game of the year.