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.

You can view this at Steam as well.

The Left 4 Dead Survival Pack is now available for the PC and Xbox 360, free of charge to all owners of the game. The full change list for the PC release is below. In addition, both the retail and Steam versions of the game (PC and 360) are now available for a special price. Check Steam and local retailers for pricing details. For more information about L4D, please visit www.l4d.com

Survival Mode

• New gameplay Mode
• 16 maps including Last Stand
• Leaderboards
• 7 new achievements

Versus Changes

• 2 new versus campaigns
• Fixed a case where versus team score would continue to be recalculated after the score panel was displayed
• Fixed an issue with recalculating the versus score health bonus for a player when they are rescued from being incapacitated
• Fixed being able to start a swing as an infected, then teleport to the survivors and have the claw swing hit a survivor
• Fixed a case where teleporting to the survivors would not reset the ability timer
• Fixed an exploit where you could load the chamber of a weapon with bullets by holding down the melee key
• Fixed a case where it was not possible to join a game while it was in a finale
• Fixed a rare case where listen servers would speed up the game over time
• Removed convars related to melee fatigue
• Fixed a case where infected players would get a respawn time on their initial spawn into a map

Server Changes

• Made ms_force_dedicated_server not require cheats
• Add a message when queuing a heartbeat
• Simplified setting of game mode
• Removed convars director_no_human_zombies and director_holdout_mode
• Added mp_gamemode [coop,versus,survival]

General
Added lobby join and leave messages

Coming Soon!  Love the first commercial spot I saw with Old Time Rock’n'Roll where they tie the guys up to the tree.   Unfortunately I can’t find the damn thing but… here’s a few others…

So here’s another…

The Official Trailer(?):

Versus Mode Changes

• Tank melee attack can now hit multiple Survivors in one swing
• Fixed Tank punch being able to hit targets behind walls
• Fixes to ‘Tank parking’. The Tank will now run back and attack the Survivors if he becomes AI due to two players expiring the frustration meter
• Fixed a case where a Tank frustration meter could run out right as he was in his death animation and he would come back to life
• Fixed a case where the Tank was moving too slowly while crouching and being shot
• Tanks now have the possibility of spawning in a slightly different position for the first and second teams (more…)

Rest in peace Battlefield Series. I somehow missed the hype a month ago about BF1943 but then again I’ve not been as active with gaming the past month with the flu, root canal’s and other enjoyable things or maybe with a shitty past month the gods of gaming knew I couldn’t take the blow….

Regardless, I find that Battlefield 1943 is being released… complete and total excitement runs through my body! “At last, they’re bringing a new game to the series” I thought (out-loud). I then read…

The 24-player game will also grant players unlimited ammunition, as well as automatically regenerating health. While these steps are being taken to ensure that the game has wide appeal, they also remove the team-centric strategy of past titles.”

This is when my heart sinks.   Great, they’re taking a game that’s not meant to go head to head with Call of Duty (more…)