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EA Store discounts Bad Company 2 PC downloads
The EA Store is currently offering the PC version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 -- one of our favorites of 2010 -- for ten bucks, half off its usual $20 price. The "Vietnam" expansion has also been discounted to $7.47. Deploy your (credit card) charges at the EA Store to nab the deals.
Xbox Live April schedule: Bad Company 2 DLC, Comic Jumper discounts
Microsoft has revealed some of the content and deals coming to the Xbox Live Marketplace in early April, which include quite a few discounts. It kicks off this week with the launch of DLC for Mass Effect 2 and You Don't Know Jack, as well as some discounts on Comic Jumper, Deadliest Warrior and the "Dead Money" DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. Hit the jump for the full list.
Battlefield 1943 and Bad Company 2: Onslaught canceled on PC
Battlefield 1943 for PC is not going to happen. Posting on the official Battlefield blog, Karl Magnus Troedsson, general manager of DICE, confirmed that both 1943 and Onslaught, a co-op add-on for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, have been "officially canceled." He states that the team is focusing all energy on Battlefield 3 in order to make it "the best Battlefield game ever" and "the biggest launch in DICE's history." (Good luck getting into a game during the first three days!) Battlefield 1943's delayed trek to PC had become hopeless in recent months, though company reps believed it was still set to deploy at some point when we followed up last summer. The downloadable experiment has been a resounding success on consoles, netting $16 million for Electronic Arts.
PSA: Bad Company 2 PSN downtime tonight
Hey you! Stop capturing that M-Com station for a minute and listen: The PS3 version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be offline for maintenance from midnight to 5AM ET tomorrow, February 3. The official site notes there may be some short-lived stats issues once the game is back online.
Activision successfully adds EA to countersuit, redacted email suggests MW2 map pack delayed for Bad Company 2 launch
Late last month Activision filed a motion to amend its countersuit against Vince Zampella and Jason West; specifically, it sought to include Electronic Arts as a cross-defendant after discovering that its largest competitor had schemed to "inflict serious harm on the company." Today we learned that Activision's request has been approved and Electronic Arts – and the $400 million request for "actual and punitive damages" – has been officially added to the existing countersuit. Also added, or in this case removed, from the cross-complaint: the protective order responsible for many of the redacted sections that Activision insisted were "not truly 'confidential,' but merely embarrassing and damaging to Electronic Arts and its co-conspirators."%Gallery-114781%
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 musical plants a C4 charge on our heart
Look, we don't want to step out of line here, but we think we love Battlefield: Bad Company 2 player DCRU Colin. He's managed to simultaneously convey our appreciation for the game while also satiating our need to hear remixes of hit singles from the '80s.
Bad Company 2's Operation Hastings map unlocked for PS3 and Xbox 360 players
Although PS3 and Xbox 360 players didn't quite measure up to the challenge, DICE has unlocked the final map of the Battlefield Vietnam expansion, Operation Hastings, for everyone. PC players were able to get up to the requisite 69 million team actions in a matter of days, far outpacing console players (with 34 and 46 million actions, respectively). The sudden change of plans is apparently to "start this new year with a big of a bang as we ended it." Well, what are you waiting for? Time to start playing that map you all (sort of) worked for! [Thanks, Zach!]
Joystiq Top 10 of 2010: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Your squad is in a helicopter, quickly approaching the objective. An engineer in the back repairs the ride while it feels the full brunt of the enemy's defensive placements. It's time to bail -- a homing dart hits the hull and as the subsequent rocket nears its destination, all too happy to relieve you of your up-to-that-point very useful conveyance, the whole squad jumps. Once on the ground, your Recon guy drops a mortar strike on the objective and, through this generous application of explosive force, your team finds ample enough cover to assault the objective. Your Assault guy drops some ammo and you all run into the fray, ready to detonate the box. It's a scenario that sounds fantastic ... and it happens all the time in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
BFBC2 Vietnam's 'Operation Hastings' unlocked on PC
The PC warriors in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam now have access to the "Operation Hastings" map, having completed the required 69 million team actions. Vietnam combatants on Xbox 360 are more than halfway through the unlock challenge, while PS3 players are approaching 30 million actions. Team actions require you to assist your teammates by spotting enemies, healing, reviving, repairing and resupplying ammo. And when you're not doing those things, you're probably setting your flamethrower on the opposition in DICE's excellent $15 expansion. %Gallery-111584% [Thanks, Peter]
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam review: Enjoyable quagmire
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam occupies a very strange place. It's a great addition to the Battlefield franchise, no doubt, but whether it was originally intended as a standalone game à la Battlefield 1943, or as an "expansion" to Battlefield Bad Company 2, is a question that lingers. Of course, it's hard to focus on such questions while you barbecue the enemy with a flamethrower. Vietnam is, the way publisher EA and developer DICE sell it, a multiplayer-only "expansion pack" to this year's hit, Battlefield Bad Company 2. The $15 upgrade includes four new maps (a fifth will unlock shortly) and ramps up the overall game's tension by turning back the clock on weaponry. It occupies a separate location in the BFBC2 menu and the maps are not part of the core game's rotation. For all intents and purposes, Vietnam is such a different Battlefield experience that you'll forget it has anything to do with Bad Company 2. %Gallery-111584%
Track BFBC2 Vietnam's 'Operation Hastings' unlock status
DICE flipped the switch today on public stat tracking for the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam "Operation Hastings" map unlock challenge. The developer is now counting down to the 69 million team actions (per platform!) required to unlock the new map on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. What's a team action? Think: healing, spotting, repairing, reviving and resupplying comrades. A similar, more homicidal challenge was issued when Battlefield 1943 became available on consoles, with Xbox 360 players completing it shortly before those on PS3. As for PC, they're not only still waiting to unlock that map, but the game in general... yeah, we should check up on the status of that again.
Super Meat Boy for $3.75 and much more in Steam's Holiday Sale
If you've been looking for the perfect gift for your PC-gaming friends, then look no further: You'll need that money you were going to spend on them to buy stuff for yourself in this year's 14-day Steam Holiday Sale. As it does all the time, the digital retailer has discounted a bunch of games, though these deals are uncommonly good. Most notable among today's "Daily Deals" is Super Meat Boy for $3.75, a price so good you should consider it now even if you're waiting for the Mac version (thanks to Steam Play, when you buy the PC version, you'll get the Mac one when it's released); Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for just $6.79 -- just in time for the Vietnam expansion; and the Oddworld Oddboxx for $12.49. There's also a one-day "Holiday Bonus" each day of the sale, which run until January 2, contingent upon ownership of another game. Today, you get an extra 10 percent off Portal if you have Half-Life 2 in your Steam Library. Steam is also offering crazy discounts on publisher packs -- like every Valve game for $50 and every Square Enix/Eidos game on the service, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Just Causes 1 and 2, and Front Mission Evolved, for $74.99. These publisher packs will be on sale through January 2.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam launched with latest trailer
Tomorrow marks the debut of the first major expansion to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, with the Vietnam War acting as the backdrop for a whole new set of classes, weapons, and maps. Today ... well, today there's a trailer for it. We do what we can, folks.
New games flood App Store before impending holiday release freeze
The App Store is in constant danger of new release bombardments, sure, but many companies adhere to a regular, weekly bombing run beginning each Wednesday, through the wee hours of the night (UTC), dropping their new iPhone and iPad games on Apple's marketplace while many of us are snoozing. Last night was no exception -- actually, scratch that. It was exceptional! Pending the start of the "iTunes Connect Holiday Shutdown" next Thursday -- a six-day lockout period when developers will be unable to release or update apps, including games -- an army of companies, armed with their big holiday releases (for little iDevices), launched a massive attack on the App Store last night. What began as a few warning shots yesterday grew into a full-on assault, led by Gameloft's crisp clones, NOVA 2 and Shadow Guardian, and Square Enix's surprise (and apparently rushed) port of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Even Sega couldn't resist launching a few more classics in Altered Beast and Sonic Spinball. And what's this ... Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3? Hey, if Street Fighter IV worked ... Pursue our complete list of new release highlights after the break, and then make double-sure "Santa" knows you've been good enough for an iTunes gift card this year.
Pure gameplay of Battlefield: BC2 Vietnam's Hill 137 and Vantage Point maps
Tired of cinematic CGI trailers that show no gameplay? Well, EA has a Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam trailer that offers pure in-game footage of maps "Hill 137" and "Vantage Point." The multiplayer expansion will be available December 21 on consoles, and December 18 on PC, for $15.
Battlefield 1943 has earned EA $16 million
We've known for quite some time that Electronic Arts' Battlefield 1943 "experiment" was successful, selling over a million units on Xbox Live alone, but now CFO Eric Brown has revealed some numbers on the game's development cost and revenue. The EA exec stated at UBS's 39th Annual Media and Communications Conference that the game cost "single-digit millions" to create and netted (after Sony and Microsoft took their cuts) a healthy $16 million for the publisher. Brown explained that EA expects digitally distributed product to make up 20 percent of the company's revenue this fiscal year. Beyond Battlefield, Brown also noted significant revenue from FIFA's Ultimate Team mode, along with full-game PC downloads. With BF:1943's success, it'll be interesting to see how the Battlefield: BFBC2 Vietnam expansion experiment works out. Boiled down, Vietnam is essentially the same downloadable game concept as 1943, but called a "multiplayer expansion" that requires a copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to play.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam includes unlockable team challenge map
Much like it did with Battlefield 1943, developer DICE will add an additional map, Operation Hastings, once a community challenge is met in the multiplayer expansion Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. However, this time DICE isn't making the challenge a collective kill count of 43 million. In keeping more with the spirit of cooperation in the game, the map will unlock once the community accomplishes 69 million team actions (double entendres abound). In order to unlock the fifth Vietnam map, you'll have to heal, spot, repair, revive and resupply as often as possible ... but you were already doing that, right? BFBC2 Vietnam will be drafted into service on December 21. Check out the Operation Hastings challenge video after the break.
Highlights from this month's Xbox Marketplace deals and releases
Major Nelson has posted his monthly preview of upcoming Xbox Marketplace content, which receives the obligatory winter "wrapping" this time of year. Additionally, Microsoft is offering 400 points back for purchasing a pair of qualifying XBLA titles this month. Complete details are after the break.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam strikes Dec. 21, VIP Map Pack 7 Dec. 1
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam can finally toss away that pesky "Winter 2010" release window to celebrate an official December 21, 2010, launch date. The expansion will also be available a little earlier on PC "exclusively" through the EA Store and Steam on December 18. Not only that, but DICE has rolled out a double dose of good news, noting the free VIP Map Pack 7 will hit on December 1. VIP Map Pack 7 will include four new(ish) maps, while Vietnam will be a $15 multiplayer expansion with four more maps, along with new weapons and vehicles. Check out the latest trailer after the break.
Bad Company 2 Vietnam video reveals weapons, vehicles
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam hid its "winter 2010" launch date so cleverly in the brush that we're not sure if it can even find it now. It turns out that Russian intelligence (from 32bita) may be able to give us some intel on the game. Sure, it's not a release date, but some spy has posted all the weapons and vehicles that can be found in the multiplayer expansion. Fair warning: it's spoilery. As in: these are the guns you'll get. Granted, there are many guns like them, but these are the ones that will be yours. [Thanks, Tom]
