Some quick notes on BF1943

Well bf1943 was 96% done when I got it so I didnt have to wait long for it to finish. However the servers for the game are currently so overloaded most people cant get on at all. EA are bringing more servers online but its going to take a while to sort the problem out. After about 20 tries I luckily got into a server. The game seems to be built on an enhanced version of the  Dice’s frosbite engine because you can pretty much take out whole buildings now unlike bad company. There are 3 classes of which I have played all, Rifleman sniper and anti tank. All have their purpose although it seems a bit of a sniper frenzy out there right now. The vehicles are cool with the tank able to demolish most things in its path and the planes being reponsive and easy to control. The maps are pretty much exact remakes of their 1942 counterparts with a few terrain and object adjustments, and look really nice in the new engine.

All in all I am enjoying playing it and it seems good value for the 1200 microsoft points it cost.

Decide the Contents of the Next Bad Company Map Pack

There is currently a vote taking place on the Bad Company website that will allow you to help choose the contents of the next map pack. This map pack will contain four of the 6 singleplayer maps converted for conquest mode. The community get to vote on two and DICE will choose the other two. The map pack will thankfully be free which is a suprise considerin EA are not usually the ones to pass up on milking gamers  for money. At the moment Par for the course is leading in votes, for those of you who cannot remember thats the golf course level. With Acta Non Verba looking to be the second community selected map.

click here to vote!

Red Alert 3 Beta: Empire Unit Showcase

Here is a collection of screenshots from the final team in the Red Alert 3 Beta. This team being the newcomer to the series is likely to interest a lot of people. The Empires units mainly consist of robotic vehicles, some of which transform. There is also a telekentic school girl and sword wielding/smoke popping infantry. Check out the cool screenshot of the psychic school girl sending an engineer up in the air before being left to fall to his doom.

The Empires buildings are trained as units then unpacked.

The Empires air units consist of land and sea units that have transformed into aircraft.

The Empires naval fleet

The school girls way of killing people

The empires infantry, some wield swords as well as guns.

The Empires land units consist of mainly transformer like robots.

Red Alert 3 Beta: Sandbox mode

You may have read that I have been getting all my screenshots using the sandbox bug in the beta. A moderator on the C&C forum actually explains how to do this, but its pretty hard to find in between all the other information on there so here is how its done.

As posted by TheMystic (C&C forum moderator)

Thanks to a bug it is possible to play a game without an opponent, this is called Sandbox mode and is great for just experimenting with things:

Go to automatch, after it’s searched for a bit you’ll notice the stars freeze for a second, at that exact point click create game and (don’t enter a game name) and you’ll be in sandbox mode.

Every time I try it my stars never freeze. Instead I alt and tab out of the game and leave it for 5 minutes before going to create game and it usually works. Let me know if you have any luck, or problems getting it working. Hope this helps some people out there wanting to play with the beta without getting rushed in 5 minutes.

Red Alert 3 Beta: Soviet Unit Showcase

Here is as promised the soviet teams units from the beta. The soviets are my favorite team so far, mainly because I love the kirov airships. The soviets also have alot of vehicles with legs, their telsa boats have legs so they can come out of the water. This teams most impressive land unit is the apocolypse tank which is very powerful, and has a beam to drag in and crush units. The soviet commando has a sniper rifle and can call in airstrikes.

Copters tow vehicle ability

bullfrogs launch infantry ability

Kirovs bombing, and exploding

Conscript molotov ability

Soviet air power

Soviet infantry army

Soviet Land Units

Soviet Naval Power

Classic Flag Capturing Coming to Bad Company Thursday

Anyone who has the game will probably know that Dice have been working on a free conquest mode update to the game. This adds the flag capturing conquest mode from the previous battlefield titles. It should freshen the game up somewhat and hopefully introduce some new tactics because of the difference in objective. The new mode is out this thursday according to Xbox Live insider, which is a nice suprise fo those who forgot about it.

Red Alert 3 Beta: Impressions

I received my eagerly awaited Red Alert 3 beta invitation at the weekend and could not wait to start playing it. The beta is very generous, giving you the choice of all 3 teams with what looks like most of the units as well. There are 2 maps, a two player and a four. It is multiplayer (online) only so you will need a key to join in. I got my key from Kanes Wrath but I am not sure if there are other ways to get one.

So how is the game shaping up? Well after the disastrous Kanes Wrath, it seems EALA may have something promising to offer for forgiveness.

Kanes Wrath still not fixed in 4 month patch

Just as EAs reputation is steadily growing with me, EALA have to go and pull this one off. I purchased kanes wrath back on the release date only to find that the multiplayer was pretty much broken. The game constantly de-synchronised unless you played 1v1.  I wanted to play with my friends not in a tournament match vs one other player so I waited for the promised patch. After much

“the patch has been delayed because we are too busy working on  RA3 and Kanes Wrath 360 having problems allocating resources to the project”

And FOUR months later…

They brought out a patch that supposedly fixed the dysncs and balanced the game a bit better. While the balance changes are nice, they are a bit pointless seeing as the game still dysncs constantly with games over 4 players. Apparently this is OK, as according to one of the community moderators as there statistics show that players only play 1v1 or 2v2 anyway. This is a joke because how can they get reliable statistics from broken multiplayer game and how do they know how people play it on LAN.

All I have to say after this is Command and Conquer is dead, Long live Starcraft!