battlefield-1943 posts (Subscribe to this feed)

Concluding its streak of daily deals during the holiday season, the Xbox Live version of Battlefield 1943 will be on sale for 50% off, tomorrow. EA's official Battlefield 1943 Twitter account revealed that the New Years Eve sale (and final daily deal on the Marketplace) would slash the popular shooter's price to 600 ($7.50 USD), for one day only.

While we're avid fans of the WWII-themed shooter, we're still irked that the game hasn't received proper (read: any) DLC support, save for the unlocked Coral Sea "air superiority" map. Perhaps a rush of new soldiers will push EA to begin development on new content, but we won't hold our breath while we wait in that foxhole.

Ten-hut, soldiers! During wartime, the government is granted special powers and as such the Army is going to need to commandeer your personal computers. Before we send our best and brightest out into battle, we'll need to train them in advanced maneuvers via upcoming PC games Battlefield 1943 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Before you start packing up your 'puters, know the government has issued its guidelines for computer operations (via Shacknews). Report past the break to see if your computer meets these stringent requirements.

As our more astute readers likely gathered from this very post's headline, another week has gone, so it's about time we checked in with Major Nelson to see what made his list of the most-played games on Xbox Live. Unsurprisingly, Bungie's dynamic duo of Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST managed to do well, taking the first and third spots, respectively -- Call of Duty 4 was in the second slot, while Forza 3's demo managed to get some play time on folks' boxes, taking a tight turn into the seventh place spot.

On the XBLA side, Trials HD did backflips to the top of the list, beating out recent releases Zombie Apocalypse and Bust-A-Move Live!. The remainder of the XBLA list saw favorites Battlefield 1943 and Shadow Complex rounding out the bottom end of the top five.

The official Battlefield 1943 Twitter account has tw@ted that the EA Store is ready to take pre-orders for the PC version of the game. The three-map (four, if you count the aerial-centric Coral Sea) battle fiesta is expected sometime in 2010, along with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (and possibly Battlefield 3).

It'll certainly be interesting to see if the PC FPS demographic embraces the more casual-oriented Battlefield 1943 in the droves that brought the console version to its knees -- at this point, we'd be happy if the development of the PC version simply brought new maps for all.

[Via VG24/7]

We spoke with Battlefield 1943 producer Gordon Van Dyke at PAX and asked him why there hasn't been any DLC at all for the game so popular it crashed servers and broke sales records. The main reason? DICE is busy. Apparently it's working so hard on the next two Battlefield games that it doesn't have time to show BF1943 any extra love at all, which is a bit perplexing given the popularity of the title.

Gordon told us, "We don't have any immediate plans right now, but it's not ruled out. There's a lot of pressure on the team for Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ... we don't want to stretch things too thin and and make something that's not up to quality. Battlefield 1943 is a huge game with a lot that we can pull from. We just want to make sure we keep our options open, and make sure that the decision we land on is what's best for everyone. We don't want to be that company that pushes out DLC just for DLC's sake."

Fair enough, but we'd still like to see more maps and modes come to Battlefield 1943 like ... yesterday. Hey, hire some interns already!

Major Nelson has revealed the latest figures for Xbox Live activity, which once again sees Call of Duty: World at War being the most played Xbox 360 Live title. That's not to say it's all business as usual, as the Lost Planet 2 co-op demo managed to claw its way onto the list, along with a new Xbox Live Arcade pair, Shadow Complex and Trials HD.

Both titles made it onto the top two spots on XBLA's most played list, with Chair's Metroid-inspired adventure making its debut in first place. The remainder is comprised of usual suspects Battlefield 1943, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 'Splosion Man.

Sad news from the front, soldiers. DICE is not currently working on any new Battlefield 1943 maps or content for the downloadable hit, which has now drafted over a million players. Speaking with Joystiq, DICE Producer Gordon Van Dyke said the company is definitely working on the game's squad-swapping bug -- he believes it's a server-side fix that will hopefully be resolved soon -- but that all the effort at the moment is being put behind getting Battlefield: Bad Company 2 out the door.

"We need to figure out what's the best thing for the community. What's the best thing for the franchise?" Van Dyke told us about why the online hit isn't getting further development attention. He currently has "no idea" about when the company will get to work on more content for Battlefield 1943. That certainly calls for a sad face emoticon, don't you think? :(

PC gamers have been patiently waiting for September to come around so they could join in the Battlefield 1943 fun, having been told that it takes extra time and effort to implement a Frostbite Engine game on PC. It appears that DICE originally underestimated the amount of time it would take. In other words, keep waiting. DICE is now targeting Q1 2010.

Producer Gordon Van Dyke tells The Feed that it's "a hard pill to swallow, but it was absolutely needed to ensure the features and functionality that PC Players have come to expect from Battlefield on PC are not missing." Those features include, Van Dyke says, "Things like support for DirectX 9 and 10, higher player count (up to 32-player matches), wide peripheral support; i.e., Joysticks for flying, VoIP and ranked server provider hosting."

However, if you can't wait, the console versions are there for you. If you find the idea of spending that much on a console distasteful, just tell yourself it's a really big video card.

Guys, do you ever play anything aside from four games? Major Nelson reports that last week's Xbox Live activity was very much the same as the week before ... and the week before that. Taking top spot was none other than Call of Duty: World at War, followed by usual suspects Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War 2. Madden 10 took last place, which isn't much of a surprise considering it released on Friday. Come next week, we're sure you'll be hearing more about that one.

On the XBLA side, it was all about Trials HD, as the title earned top honors. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled managed to shell shock the competition by taking second and DICE's Battlefield 1943 continues its sad story of decline, falling to third. Well, okay -- maybe it's not a sad story, per se.

Major Nelson's latest battle report comes as a bit of a surprise as Halo 3 was the most-played retail game of last week. With all of the new Gears of War 2 content, we were sure that game would be at the top, but Epic's title only managed to claw its way to fourth place yet again. It was bested by the usual double dose of Call of Duty action in Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: World at War.

On the XBLA side, the frenetic tag-based combat of Marvel vs Capcom 2 was too much for the competition. Capcom's brawler enjoyed top placement, finally bumping down Battlefield 1943 to second place. Coming in at third was none other than 'Splosion Man, Twisted Pixel's excellent follow-up to previous Arcade hit, The Maw.

No, silly goose, PlayStation Pulse is absolutely not the Sony version of the Wii Vitality Sensor, though we understand how the name could lead you to believe otherwise. It is, in fact, a once monthly roundup of all things PlayStation Network. On the July 30 episode, after a thrilling commercial break for Fast & Furious, the show's host reveals the top 10 PSN games for the month of July, with Battlefield 1943 taking top honors.

Notably missing from the list is Shatter, possibly due to it's July 23 release date. Worse? 60% of the list is made up of ports, which makes us feel kind of lonely inside.

[Via VG247]

According to our history books, the Belfast Agreement allows citizens of Northern Ireland to identify themselves as Irish or British, or both. After attempting to change the country associated with the account, EA tech support told SeenIt changing the region was impossible because Ireland is "not listed distinctively" and is included under Great Britain. Seems like a silly thing for Electronic Arts to put its foot down on, unless it's the first step to easily categorizing the world. Step two? All Canadians listed as hailing from "America's Hat."

[Thanks, Martin]

Sure, we could sit up here and do our usual Xbox Live Top 10 thing: Major Nelson posted the Xbox Live activity for last week. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2 were winners, and XBLA's most-played game was Battlefield 1943. All is as we expect with the world. However, we feel the Xbox Live Top 10 has a much more notable characteristic this week: 1 vs 100!

Major confirms that Xbox Live's game show will now be incorporated into the weekly lists. We're anxious to see if it will perform better in the future -- not that seventh place is a bad debut.

	0 Platinum 1 Gold 4 Silver 7 Bronze	Difficulty: Very Easy Online Trophies? Yes Time to Completion: 20 hours DLC Trophies? No
	View Trophy List	Read More About the Game

Put your rivalry to the side for a moment and join hands. Acknowledge that together, we, as XBLA and PSN users, have reached a tremendous milestone: 600,000. That number represents the to-date total of $15 transactions between us and our respective online services to purchase Battlefield 1943; and we did so, overwhelmingly -- and in record-setting fashion -- on the first day and week of the game's download-only release.

In just fifteen short days, we have sent a message to Microsoft, Sony and third-party publishers. We're willing to pay a bit more and spend it on a slice of good old-fashioned stuff we still get on our retail discs (even if it's a little rough during takeoff). Sorry, indies -- go put it on the App Store.