I guess it was inevitable that BF3 would be on the horizon but I’ve been satisfied with Bad Company 2 and haven’t been checking weekly for an announcement for a new one!   No details on the era but my guess is that it will be much like BF2 with a new version of the Frostbite Engine and Destruction (BC2 runs on 1.5 and 2.0, respectively).  Maybe we can get a new release of Strike at Karkand as a released map!   Speaking of which, where’s Wake in BC2?

The Medal of Honor announcement page:

Get Access to the Battlefield 3 Beta

Want to be among the first to get hands-on with Battlefield 3? If you own Medal of Honor Limited Edition you will receive an invitation to the Battlefield 3 beta within 12-months following the release of Medal of Honor.

Medal of Honor Limited Edition features other special content out-of-the-box including the MP-7, a weapon utilized by real-world Tier 1 Operators in the field.  With its light weight, high rate of fire as well as its ability to penetrate body armor, the MP-7 handles like a pistol yet allows targets to be engaged like a rifle.

BATTLEFIELD 3 BETA DETAILS

Beta offer is contingent on Beta availability within 12 months of Medal of Honor release. Beta will be available for a limited time only and offer expires upon close of Beta events. Participation in Beta requires acceptance of Beta Agreement. Must be 18+. Xbox GOLD membership required for Xbox users. Visit www.ea.com/beta for details, including availability.

Got the requirements, did the pre-order of MoH last month. w00t!

Pre-order Medal of Honor Limited Edition at Amazon:

Surprised I didn’t post this, I think I was too busy spreading it around to everyone else.   Looking forward to my favorite era of War FPS hitting my favorite game of the moment!  Bird bird bird, bird is the word….

While sitting on endless support calls on my exciting Saturday afternoon, I decided to download and take a look at the Halo: Reach video talking about Forge World.  Very cool looking stuff.  I find it amazing that Bungie and Microsoft are bringing a very nice editing tool to the console while Activision and EA are dumbing FPS games by taking more and more away from them.  Cool vid, check it out.  Welcome back Blood Gulch!

Gotta say that I like it so far.  I did the pre-order and now it’s open to people who bought Battlefield Bad Company  2 on Steam.

While it’s only two maps it seems like they tried to make it some middle ground between Modern Warfare 2 and BFBC2.  It doesn’t seem to have the constraints of MW2 but not quite the open gaming of BFBC2.  I figure that a lot of MW2 hardened vets will hate the game because they can’t use the same strangleholds that they do in MW2.  They also won’t like the fact that it doesn’t have tons of combo kits that MW2 does but I actually like that. While I like trying to master kits in MW2, it typically feels like overkill.   If you like it, good for you but it’s not my thing.  The linear feel of MW2 is also something I’m not fond of that MoH seems to overcome.  I’ll admit that I’m a fan of Dice games and sour to Activision and the entire IW “ousting” that they did and honestly wasn’t that fond of them before that for the constriction that they seemed to promote in the CoD series after the early games.

Regardless, if you have the chance to try it, give it a try.

I’m really surprised that they’ve already used the frostbite engine based on the issues and glitches in the game.  Xbox players losing stats, PunkBuster issues on the PC, horrible support for the veteran program and general glitches.  I’ve been playing through single player and jumping in late on multiplayer in hopes that the reduced load means I can get some decent games but the decent games I was getting before the latest patches have been plagued with Punkbuster issues.

Single player is a lot fun, I finished a map that was sniper heavy and it was great getting the hell kicked out of me trying to find where the snipers were.  In this same map, I ran into an issue where I picked up a gun that didn’t give me the credit for finding it, not a big deal really but it also started showing no ammo for my other guns but I could fire.  The crew just kind of sat around while I was waiting for them to move forward and finally I ended up moving along on my own, found the objective and finished it.  Things were fine after the cut scene.   My big grip with SP is that they have quite a few that have too much intensity to not have an extra save.  In particular, you take out the ground forces and face 2 helicopters at the end.  It would be nice to have a save before facing somewhat of a “boss” challenge.  Instead I died a few times trying to take out the heli’s and I had to respawn and go through the same ground troops again.  Annoying as hell.

Nelson Bay on the Rush mode is probably my favorite right now.  There was another in conquest that I really liked that had close action in buildings but I don’t recall the map name.  Not too heavy on the armor and reminded me of Strike on BF2 with regards to the infantry fights.

Overall, it’s another DICE release which usually means it’s dicey at launch which I don’t really understand.  1942 was their entry and I could see the issues occuring but they’re using an engine that ran the first Bad Company and they have 4 FPS games under their belt, I’d think they’d be ready for this crap.  As far as I remember 2142 was a decent release and an extension of BF2 much like Vietnam was an extension of 1942 but had more issues.  They had finally gotten a lot of issues out of the way with BF2 / 2142 and I would think things like saving your default guns for each class would be there from the beginning but I have to choose every class again from game to game.

It’s frustrating but I’ve been down the road before, the game play is incredible and there’s no doubt they’ll get things worked out but I only hope it’s not after a year or more like BF2.

I put up some shots from the game, you can check them out here. Here’s a few from single player and multiplayer.  I also put up a forum.