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Bad Company VIP Map Pack 2 trailer (realistically) falls apart
EA has released a new trailer for the upcoming VIP Map Pack 2 for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. As the name of the DLC implies, this DLC is for VIP members only. Much like Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network, VIP membership is free for those who bought the game new. Meanwhile, those with used copies on Xbox or PlayStation 3 will have to fork over $15 (1200 on Xbox) for a VIP membership. PC players (lucky dogs) are exempt from all this business and will receive the pack as an update. It's worth noting that the map pack doesn't actually include any maps. Instead, it unlocks the Conquest Mode in Arica Harbor and Rush Mode in Laguna Presa. Still, it's essentially new gameplay for free, so it's hard to complain. Unless you aren't a VIP, of course. The DLC releases tomorrow, March 30.
PSA: Activate Bad Company 2's M-COM stations early to avoid picking up kits
DICE informed us at PAX East that it will continue to support its hit title Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with patching -- however, one thing it won't "fix" is players accidentally picking up kits from corpses when trying to activate M-COM stations in rush mode. With millions of copies sold so far, the kit kerfuffle is a problem we've consistently heard and experienced. Little did we know that there's been a remedy to the issue all along, as Bad Company 2 producer Gordon Van Dyke told us that players can press the M-COM activation button early. He expressed that BC2 players should spread the word. It turns out that if players hold the M-COM activation button (example: the B button on Xbox 360) before the prompt displays, they'll be able to initiate (or deactivate) the station once in range. This avoids the frustration of picking up kits off the stacks of bodies that inevitably pile up next to the boxes. It's a rather simple solution to one of the most frustrating elements in the excellent multiplayer shooter.
No further plans for Battlefield 1943, 'another type of 1943' possible in future
Just exhale if you've been holding your breath for any Battlefield 1943 DLC, because it seriously sounds like the sun has set on the Pacific war. Speaking with DICE producer Gordon Van Dyke at PAX East, we asked if he could finally end the hopes and dreams that its successful downloadable experiment would receive more content. He informed us, "There's no plans. There's no plans for DLC." However, the PC version is still planned, and there is a patch incoming to address console issues, including mic problems on PS3. Van Dyke told us that Battlefield 1943 was a cool way to express a classic game like Battlefield 1942 using the company's Frostbite engine. He said that it opened up a lot of eyes to showing off what an older Battlefield game could be like with the new engine. When asked to elaborate if other classic Battlefield games would receive a reimagined bite-sized release he said, "I can't. There's no specific plans. The success of [1943] has given it an existence within our lineup, in our thoughts. You could possibly see another type of 1943 in the future. But it doesn't mean it's going to be based on 1942." When pressed, he continued, "Seriously, all options are open. We haven't closed our mind off to anything and we haven't locked down that we'll do anything specific." %Gallery-63331%
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sells 2.3 million
Not content to wait for March to end, EA went ahead and announced that "Battlefield: Bad Company 2 tops March sales charts." The somewhat hasty press release goes on to explain that with 2.3 million copies sold so far, Bad Company 2 is "on pace" to be the top selling title in March 2010. It is already, according to EA, the best-selling March release yet, which lends credence to EA's early claim of March dominance. We look forward to seeing if this claim rings true at the end of the month, after Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have had two weeks to sell. Or maybe that's why EA issued the "we won" press release now?
Bad Company 2 'F.R.A.G.S.' video continues Modern Warfare mockery
Hey, you remember when Infinity Ward released that unbelievably offensive "Fight Against Grenade Spam" video starring Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels to promote Modern Warfare 2? Yeah, we were trying to forget it too (sorry to remind you!), but Battlefield developer DICE just released its own variation of the video (found after the break) starring New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia to explain why grenade spam isn't so much of an issue in Bad Company 2. According to CC, due to the variety of other gameplay options (destructible environments, a handful of different vehicles and "adrenaline pumping weapons"), grenade spam isn't the same problem that it is in "competing games of this particular genre." (It probably helps that each class only starts with one grenade too, huh?) Rather than being sponsored by the notorious acronym that closed out Infinity Ward's ad, this one ends with: "Friends Really Against Grenade Spam." Oh, and for those of you playing along at home, this is at least the second advertisement for Bad Company 2 that directly parodies Modern Warfare 2 promos. We're still holding out hope that all this culminates in a cage match between Robert Bowling and Patrick Söderlund.
EA completes Battlefield: Bad Company 2 server maintenance
[sugree] EA assures us via Twitter that, after a rocky launch period, the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online servers have now been stabilized. Pretty much every iteration of Bad Company 2 has seen issues arise when connecting to EA's servers for online multiplayer, with Xbox 360 kicking some users all the way out to the Dashboard and PC users experiencing authentication issues with PunkBuster. The developer now says that those issues have been addressed, due in no small part to new servers being added over the weekend. "All new hardware is in place and ready to serve your BFBC2 needs," the tweet reads, backed up by a Q&A on the Battlefield Blog with more info. While some players may still experience a stat loss issue, EA and DICE are actively looking into a fix and encourage anyone who experiences said glitch to report it online. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got dudes to sneak up on and knife in the back. Source 1 - Twitter Source 2 - Battlefield Blog
GDC: EA DICE on building a bite-sized Battlefield
EA DICE has been a fairly prolific developer during the current console generation, churning out both a high-profile title based on original IP (Mirror's Edge), as well as ones based on established franchises like Battlefield. EA was searching for a way to capitalize on the downtime between these blockbuster releases -- a game which would be relatively quick and painless to create, while still standing up to the quality standards set by their previous releases. Thus, the idea for Battlefield 1943 was born. Battlefield 1943 producer Patrick Liu explained the studio's unique design philosophy while making the game, which boiled down to "make the game as long as resources last." They maximized the amount of content they produced under this strategy by settling on the somewhat smaller scope of the game early, and focusing on recreating the Battlefield experience to adhere to that scope. Some decisions made under this philosophy include making ammunition and health auto-regenerate, cutting down on tiresome resource runs back to your home base. This decision led to others, including the removal of the medic and engineer classes. It also let them focus on perfecting a handful of maps and gametypes, which, while iterated from previous installments in the franchise, also saw major adjustments in 1943. The result was a project developed by 15 series veterans at once, at one-tenth of the cost of a full DICE game, which broke day one, week one and month one downloadable sales records. It's no surprise that Liu expressed interest in developing more "games of this size and scope" -- when handled correctly, it sounds like a miniature entry in a major franchise can be quite the profitable cash cow. %Gallery-63331%
Bad Company 2 to offer free March 30 'mapathy' cure
Oh man, EA's pursuit of Modern Warfare 2 just got hot, as DICE has announced via the Battlefield Blog that on March 30 -- the same day the Stimulus Package DLC will boost Modern Warfare 2's map count -- Battlefield: Bad Company 2's VIP members will receive the free "VIP Map Pack 2," which adds a Conquest mode scenario to the Arica Harbor map and Rush mode to Laguna Presa. Both maps aren't new to the game, however neither has been available for play in the "unlocked" game modes noted above. So, that kinda qualifies as a "map pack," right? Regardless, it's free, as DICE boldly proclaims in its jab at Activision and Infinity Ward: "How to avoid 'mapathy' without paying!" [Thanks, Qwaint]
Valve on Mac piques interest from other game developers
Now that Valve has committed to offering full support for the Mac for both its in-house games and Steam, its digital game delivery system, other developers are expressing interest in the Mac as a gaming platform, too. Gas Powered Games, creator of Supreme Commander 2, Kings and Castles, and Dungeon Siege, has said of the Mac: "We, as a developer, will include a Mac platform option in all of our proposals moving forward. We're in 100 percent support of it, absolutely." Chris Taylor, founder of Gas Powered Games, says that porting games over to the Mac is relatively easy since Macs and PCs now have largely identical internal architectures. Intel processors and ATI or NVIDIA graphics cards are common to both platforms, making game porting far easier than it was back in the PowerPC days. Taylor also says that recent rises in Mac sales are another contributing factor making the Mac a more attractive target for game developers. Swedish gamemaker DICE, best known for the Battlefield series of games, may also be throwing more support behind the Mac -- one of the company's lead developers has said that "We're currently investigating the possibility of making [Battlefield: Bad Company 2] available on Mac." That's not as big or flashy a commitment as Valve or Gas Powered Games, but considering the popularity of the Battlefield series, it still goes a long way toward improving the state of gaming on the Mac. Over the next year or so, many other developers are likely to be watching Valve's success (or lack thereof) on the Mac with a very keen eye. If Valve manages to make a healthy amount of money by selling games to Mac users, it may only be a matter of time before many more gaming outfits follow suit.
PS3 Bad Company 2 VIP access patch 'hopefully' today; PC issues addressed
SCEA is currently certifying a patch that should allow PlayStation 3 owners of Bad Company 2 to gain access to their VIP content, according to DICE. The patch will "hopefully" go live today in North America, with Europe following "shortly after." Once patched, PS3 players will gain access to Nelson Bay (Rush) and Laguna Alta (Conquest) -- along with the ability to access all future content. The PS3 isn't the only console having problems. Every platform the game is on has had consistent connectivity issues with BC2 since launch thanks to EA's servers, but the PC version is having significant issues beyond normal network problems. DICE has posted some "temporary solutions for PC gamers" while the developer works on a "permanent solution." Answers to several of those issues can be found on the EA forums. Well, at least it's a great multiplayer game ... when it works.
Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (single player)
You know, it's so rare that my job feels like work. I mean, I play and write about video games for a living -- it's not a terribly taxing gig. I mention this not to brag about how great my life is (Twitter's the only appropriate place for that), but so you have some perspective when I tell you that almost every moment of Battlefield: Bad Company 2's single-player campaign felt like real, actual work. The campaign isn't terrible, in fact, it's largely competent. But because of a lack of inspiration and a pretty crummy checkpoint system, Bad Company 2's single-player game is just plain not fun. %Gallery-43916%
Metareview: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
While not quite the 94 review average that Modern Warfare 2 eventually ended up with, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is off to a generous start on Metacritic, averaging a 90 as of this writing. The developers at DICE have certainly kicked up some dust in challenging the monolithic multiplayer of MW2, but it remains to be seen what will eventually shake out online. For now, we've got the single-player reviews for you, just below: GamePro (5/5 Stars): "Bad Company 2's unexpected emphasis on survival skills caught me completely off guard ... The radical change in pace forced me to think and react differently to the situation than I normally would, and it made for an incredible experience. Bad Company 2 definitely has the necessary chops to give the current king of, well, modern warfare, a run for its money.." GameDaily (9/10): "Combat is both intense and exhilarating. Nothing beats unloading a few grenades at a house and watching the ammo tear chunks from it while dead bodies sail through the air. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is an immensely entertaining shooter that demands your attention" Official Xbox Magazine UK (8.0/10): "While the likes of Call of Duty and Gears of War lead you into bottlenecks where they can dazzle you with explosions and special effects, Bad Company 2 feels more like a diluted sprawl of ideas across a large canvas. This variety ensures things stay interesting but it makes it a solid rather than spectacular effort. You'll enjoy it, but will find that you struggle to recall any standout moments once the credits finally roll." Totally Video Games: (7/10): "While Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (on previous-gen machines) and the original Bad Company both featured standalone single-player campaigns, both fell well short of the kind of gameplay we've come to expect of the Master Chief or Sergeant 'Soap' MacTavish. Unfortunately, DICE still hasn't turned the corner with its single-player design in Bad Company 2." %Gallery-43916%
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 TV ad features explosions, accolades
You love explosions, right? You're a fan of head thrashing music, are you? Can't get enough of text flying at your face, you say? Well hold on to your underwear because the television spot for EA's upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2 includes all of those things and more. Developed by DICE and coming soon to the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 hits stores March 2 and will probably feature more explosions and generic rock music. Hopefully the lines of accolades will be omitted during gameplay -- being obscured like that would ravage our kill/death ratios.
French Bad Company 2 ads ape military ad slogan
[Erwan Cario] If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, EA's marketing team (at least the one that handles the company's French ads) was really, really trying to flatter the French military with its latest Bad Company 2 ads. Adopting the slogan "Devenez Plus Que Vous-Meme" for its website ("Be More Than Yourself"), EA has seemingly borrowed the French military's strikingly similar "Devenez Vous Meme" ("Be Yourself.") "We are clearly in a situation of abuse of slogan ... So far, our campaign is working very well, we have very good returns," French army general Philippe Pontiès told Écrans. Allegedly, the posters will be altered sometime in the coming weeks, with the French military and EA reaching an agreement amenably. Perhaps unsurprisingly, EA has chosen not to comment. [Via GamePolitics]
Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC walkthrough gets into the nitty gritty
For those of you wondering just how superior the PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2 is to the console iterations, the answer lies at least partially in the above PC version walkthrough. Sure, stuff like kit selection and squad layout is a bit more in-depth, and there's the near-ubiquitous (for PC games) server browsing/dedicated server support -- multiplayer count also gets a boosted 32-player count over the console's 24 -- but other than that ... alright, that's kind of a lot. When you also factor in DirectX 11 support (for fancy lighting, among other things), the differences get starker. It would certainly seem that DICE hasn't forgotten its roots as a PC game developer. That said, even if you're a strident console-only gamer, the above walkthrough also gives us our first eyes-on with "Valparaiso" -- a multiplayer map apparently set in the Chiléan city. Here's a shocker: it looks just as impressive as everything else we've seen from the game thus far (even more so, graphically speaking, as it's running on a presumably tricked out PC). Bad Company 2 arrives on your console of choice (minus the Wii) in early March. %Gallery-43916%
Over 3.5 million people have downloaded the Bad Company 2 demo
Ever noticed how you rarely place bullets into the same dude during two consecutive games while playing the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo? There's a darn good reason for that -- according to a recent tweet from EA, over 3.5 million people have downloaded the sneak peek on 360 and PS3. We weren't sure Bad Company 2 would gain a ton of traction while sharing an audience with MAG and Modern Warfare 2, but apparently we were wrong. Maybe there's a special portion of the market set aside for multiplayer shooters/preposterous ATV stunt simulators.
Interview: Greg Grunberg at the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 celebrity challenge
Lots of the celebrities at last night's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 celebrity benefit tournament didn't know much about gaming, but Greg Grunberg is the exception. Even if he can't dive deep into the differences between next-gen shooters, he at least knows the audience, having appeared on Lost and Alias and controlled minds as Matt Parkman on Heroes. He was at the benefit in West Hollywood promoting the Epilepsy Foundation (his son deals with epileptic seizures, and Grunberg has done some advocacy work on his own as well), and right before he sat down to play BFBC2 alongside Chad Ochocinco and Marshall Faulk, he sat down to chat with us. Read on to hear about what Grunny is doing for Halo: Reach, his favorite iPhone games and why he's so sure there should be one more full season of Heroes.
EA hosts Battlefield: Bad Company 2 celebrity benefit tournament
As reported on these very pages yesterday, EA and DICE got a group of semi-celebrities together last night to celebrate the impending arrival of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with a charity tournament, pitting NFL stars and 90210 actors against each other in a bragging rights team match. The celebs also selected their own team names for an upcoming Major League Gaming tournament, and the winning team in that match (which you can predict right now on GameStop's website) will end up giving $25,000 to the winning celebrity's charity of choice. The event kicked off with a red carpet event, and Matt Lanter and Tristan Wilds of the new 90210 joined gossip blogger Perez Hilton to talk about crushes on their costars and how awesome Bad Company 2 was. Meanwhile, we wondered, where's the actual game? %Gallery-86003%
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 includes 'VIP code' for free day-one DLC
John Riccitiello's "Project Ten Dollar" endeavor -- in which EA looks to combat used-game sales by offering free DLC goodies with new purchases -- has another game marching under its banner: Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Just like Mass Effect 2, the game will ship with a code that enables access to free DLC. The first batch of add-on content for DICE's shooter will be a set of new multiplayer maps, MTV Multiplayer reports. "In the future you will get more content, for free, if you have this VIP code," noted producer Patrick Bach, describing a free content delivery mechanism similar to BioWare's Cerberus Network. Also of note: the VIP code will be attached to your EA.com account, so make sure you keep potential hazards in mind if you buy Bad Company 2 when it launches on March 2, 2010. [Thanks, Michael]
Xbox Live Marketplace Feb. schedule includes $10 Battlefield 1943 [update]
Update: Microsoft has issued a correction on this schedule. The Misadventures of P. B. Winterbottom will be priced at 800 ($10), not 1200 ($15). Major Nelson has a dropped a partial February schedule for Xbox Live Marketplace content, including a particularly nice Deal of the Week. Specifically, next week's deal, beginning February 15, will be Battlefield 1943 for only 800 ($10). If you've yet to pick up the game, $10 is definitely a good price. Also starting next week, both Resident Evil 5 and Beautiful Katamari will hit the Games on Demand service. The post also notes that this week marks the end of the second season of 1 vs 100. Tonight's episode (9:00pm ET/6:00 pm PT) will feature Magda Apanowicz from SyFy's series Caprica. For the season finale this Friday (10:00pm ET/7:00 pm PT), the game will feature 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor and Bungie's Marty O'Donnell. See the full XBLM schedule after the break.
