Battlefield 3 Open Beta Available Now!!
DICE and EA have made available Battlefield 3′s multiplayer beta to all those who have been gobsmacked with amazement by one of this years most beautiful and must have title.
Today, the beta was released on both Xbox 360′s Live Marketplace and Playstation 3′s Network. For those who have beastly PCs and opted for that version, Origin is the place to be. Those of you who live under a rock, Origin is EA’s answer to Valve’s hugely successful Steam client.
Updated: We’re in! Our first impressions of the Battlefield 3 Open Beta
Back to EA and with beta’s in general, nobody can predict how successful they will be until it’s made publicly available. When BF3′s beta was classified as open to all, server performance would have taken a huge hit as countless numbers of eager gamers try to log on.
Yeah, I’m one of those guys!
Having spent a good hour waiting for the Xbox 360 version to download (all 1.3 gigs worth), I have attempted to join the fight well over 30 times, only to be greeted with connection lost error messages. For all those attempts, I had hit the server once and managing a measly five minutes worth of actual game time.
So, as I try yet again to get on EA servers, who has managed more than five minutes? Did you like what you saw? Or is Battlefield 3 lacking something? Leave your thoughts below… And then try and get back on them servers!!
Battlefield 3′s multiplayer beta is available until the 10th October, with the titles’ imminent release on the 25th. Those gaming with PCs, the recommended system requirements are stated below:
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ Dual Core (Core 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR Athlon X2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): DirectX 10.1 Compatible with 512 MB RAM (ATi Radeon 3000, 4000, 5000 or 6000 Series, with ATi Radeon 3870 or higher performance)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): DirectX 10.0 Compatible with 512 MB RAM (Nvidia GeForce 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 or 500 Series with Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher performance)
SOUND CARD: DirectX Compatible
Keyboard and mouse
DVD ROM Drive
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: Quad-Core CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: DirectX 11 Compatible with 1024 MB RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or ATi Radeon 6950)
SOUND CARD: DirectX Compatible
Keyboard and mouse
DVD ROM Drive
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Crysis For Consoles Out Early October
Crysis, the formerly PC exclusive title, is making its long awaited debut on consoles a few months after Crysis 2 hit store shelfs.
We all know the impact this one title had on the PC gaming scene back in 2007, and developers Crytek are hoping to emulate that level of excitement when the console iteration is released on both Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on October 4th.
Improvements have been made, one of which is graphical. This is due to the game being redesigned with Crytek’s CryEngine 3.
The Crysis remake will be downloadable on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in a weeks’ time, costing 1600 Microsoft Points or $19.99/£15.99 on Sony’s PSN.
So are you still willing to buy this classic? Or has it’s time passed? Leave your thoughts below.
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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Achievements List
The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Achievements list has been leaked onto the net, so you can see what you will need to do to fully complete the game and get the full amount of achievements when it’s released, although obviously no DLC is included in the list yet.
And obviously the list and details contain spoilers, so if you don’t want to have any of the game revealed before you play it, we’d advise you to stop reading now…
But if the temptation is too much for you, here’s the full list:
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Achievements:
- Back in the Fight – 5G: Start the Single Player Campaign on any difficulty.
- Too Big to Fail – 10G: Destroy the Jamming Tower. Complete “Black Tuesday” on any difficulty.
- Wet Work – 10G: Take back New York Harbor. Complete “Hunter Killer” on any difficulty.
- Carpe Diem- 10G: Escape the mountain safe house. Complete “Persona Non Grata” on any difficulty.
- Frequent Flyer – 10G: Defend the Russian President. Complete “Turbulence” on any difficulty.
- Up to No Good – 10G: Infiltrate the village. Complete “Back on the Grid” on any difficulty.
- One Way Ticket – 10G: Make it to Westminster. Complete “Mind the Gap” on any difficulty.
- Welcome to WW3 – 10G: Save the US Vice President. Complete “Goalpost” on any difficulty.
- Sandstorm! – 10G: Assault the shipping company. Complete “Return to Sender” on any difficulty.
- Back Seat Driver – 10G: Track down Volk. Complete “Bag and Drag” on any difficulty.
- We’ll Always Have Paris – 10G: Escape Paris with Volk. Complete “Iron Lady” on any difficulty.
- Vive la Révolution! – 10G: Reach the church. Complete “Eye of the Storm” on any difficulty.
- Requiem – 10G: Escape the city. Complete “Blood Brothers” on any difficulty.
- Storm the Castle – 10G: Discover Makarov’s next move. Complete “Stronghold” on any difficulty.
- Bad First Date – 10G: Find the girl. Complete “Scorched Earth” on any difficulty.
- Diamond in the Rough – 10G: Rescue the Russian President. Complete “Down the Rabbit Hole” on any difficulty.
- The Big Apple – 25G: Complete “Black Tuesday” and “Hunter Killer” on Veteran difficulty.
- Out of the Frying Pan… – 25G: Complete “Persona Non Grata”, “Turbulence”, and “Back on the Grid” on Veteran difficulty.
- Payback – 25G: Complete “Mind the Gap”, “Goalpost”, and “Return to Sender” on Veteran difficulty.
- City of Lights – 25G: Complete “Bag and Drag” and “Iron Lady” on Veteran difficulty.
- The Darkest Hour – 25G: Complete “Eye of the Storm”, “Blood Brothers”, and “Stronghold” on Veteran difficulty.
- This is the End – 25G: Complete “Scorched Earth”, “Down the Rabbit Hole”, and “Dust to Dust” on Veteran difficulty.
- Who Dares Wins – 40G: Complete the campaign on any difficulty.
- The Best of the Best – 100G: Complete the campaign on Hardened or Veteran difficulty.
- Strike! – 20G: Kill 5 enemies with a single grenade in Single Player or Special Ops.
- Jack the Ripper – 20G: Melee 5 enemies in a row in Single Player or Special Ops.
- Informant – 20G: Collect 22 Intel Items.
- Scout Leader – 35G: Collect 46 Intel Items.
- This Is My Boomstick – 20G: Kill 30 enemies with the XM25 in “Black Tuesday.”
- What Goes Up… – 20G: Destroy all the choppers with only the UGV’s grenade launcher in “Persona Non Grata.”
- For Whom the Shell Tolls – 20G: Destroy all targets during the mortar sequence with only 4 shells in “Back on the Grid.”
- Kill Box – 20G: Kill 20 enemies with the Chopper Gunner in a single run in “Return to Sender.”
- Danger Close – 20G: Take down a chopper with an AC-130 smoke grenade in “Bag and Drag.”
- Ménage à Trois – 20G: Destroy 3 tanks with a single 105mm shot in “Iron Lady.”)
- Nein – 20G: Kill 9 enemies with A-10 strafing runs in “Scorched Earth.”
- 50/50 – 20G: Complete a Special Ops Mission Mode game with the same number of kills as your partner.
- Birdie – 20G: Kill 2 enemy helicopters without getting hit in a Special Ops Survival game.
- Serrated Edge – 15G: Finish a Juggernaut with a knife in Special Ops.
- Arms Dealer – 20G: Buy all items from the Survival Weapon Armory.
- Danger Zone – 20G: Buy all items from the Survival Air Support Armory.
- Defense Spending – 20G: Buy all items from the Survival Equipment Armory.
- Get Rich or Die Trying – 25G: Have $50,000 current balance in a Special Ops Survival game.
- I Live – 10G: Survive 1 wave in a Special Ops Survival game.
- Survivor – 20G: Reach Wave 10 in each mission of Special Ops Survival mode.
- Unstoppable – 40G: Reach Wave 15 in each mission of Special Ops Survival mode.
- No Assistance Required – 20G: Complete a Special Ops Mission Mode game on Hardened or Veteran with no player getting downed.
- Brag Rags – 10G: Earn 1 star in Special Ops Mission Mode.
- Tactician – 20G: Earn 1 star in each mission of Special Ops Mission Mode.
- Overachiever – 40G: Earn 48 stars in Special Ops Mission Mode.
- Secret Achievement – 20G: Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement.
So as you’d expect, the majority of achievements cover the single player campaign mode, with the usual bonuses for choosing Hardened or Veteran options, and occasional story elements are given an achievement if you complete them in a set way. The multiplayer achievements are all for the Special Ops Survival gametypes, leaving you with no tangible achievements for prestiging all the way in Team Deathmatch or the objective-based online games. Which is par for the course with Call of Duty, and hasn’t stopped us grinding our way through days, weeks and in some cases, months of time to get to 15th Prestige in Black Ops!
Where did all the Zombies come from? The undead gaming history
Zombies are now so synonymous with video games, you wouldn’t be surprised if they pop-up in Nintendo’s next Pokemon adventure. This months release of zombie-led FPS/RPG Dead Island has already achieved massive sales figures as our obsession for all things zombified continues to grow. But what exactly started the FPS genres love-affair with the undead? We’ve put together the following timeline to examine the zombie revolution.
ID’s 1992 shooter Wolfenstein 3D is regarded as of the most influential PC shooters of all time and later levels pitted our hero, William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, against the Nazi ‘undead guard’. Dressed in purple and looking like a terrifying mixture of Fred West and Frankenstein, the enemy-type inspired ID to create the ‘zombieman’ model for their next shooter; a little game called Doom.
Lucasarts’ Zombies Ate My Neighbours (1993) took a more slapstick approach to the walking-dead as gamers were tasked with saving their neighbours from being eaten. Weaponry was less sinister then Wolfenstein, with water pistols and stink bombs making up the inventory. We are happy to report that the comedic value of a savable 16-bit cheerleader, calmly practising her routines in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, has stood the test of time.
Atari’s 1995 arcade shooter Area 51 was unique as it pitted players against alien-infused zombies. Levels included several sections of the infamous U.S. facility and scientist-turned-zombies were regularly accompanied by enemy martians. The FPS was successfully ported to the Sega Saturn and Playstation with light-gun controller support.
Arcade shooter House of the Dead, released in 1996, would make zombies the enemy of choice for exacting quick trigger reflexes. Followed by an endless list of sequels, the on-rails shooter made millions of us lose pocket money down the local arcades whilst grimacing at the games’ wooden dialogue.
1996 was a pioneering year for Zombie FPS’s with Resident Evil spearheading the trend. Tense corridor scuffles with slow-moving zombies would scare a generation of gamers as Capcom’s series went from strength to strength. Today marks the HD re-release of 2005’s Resident Evil 4 to Xbox Live Arcade and PSNetwork. The critically acclaimed game focused more on FPS-inspired gameplay, a move away from the series’ renowned slow paced survival-horror foundations.
Valve has long been the trend-setter for the FPS genre so when the developer delved into zombies, the rest of the industry took note. Left4Dead made 4-player co-op the norm as players were forced to tactically work together to progress past zombies that changed behavioural patterns game-to-game, through advanced artificial intelligence. Getting through a campaign without getting puked on by the disgusting boomer, would provide one of the most irritating achievements in recent history.
Unless you have been cryogenically frozen for the last 10 years and just awakened, you will know that Call of Duty has a firm grip over all things FPS. In recent years zombies have become a staple of the series as Treyarch’s add-on mode has helped make Nazi zombies a pop culture phenomenon. Zombie film maestro George A. Romero (director of Dawn of the Dead) even turned up in Black Ops DLC Call of the Dead, and the polished co-op round-to-round survival gameplay has left many fans eager for a full game dedicated to the mode.
And if you’ve got hopes for a zombie-based game, then potentially the success of Dead Rising, and particularly the DLC games Case Zero and Case West might make you hopeful. In addition to the full game experiences of Dead Rising 1 and 2, both downloadable games were big and profitable sucess stories for publisher Capcom, and show the benefits of smaller, snack-sized gaming. Throw in the revenue Activision has managed to carve from releasing a massive amount of DLC for the Call of Duty series, and the continuing plans for Call of Duty Elite, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see a CoD: Zombie game out in the near future:
And then there are other examples, such as Karma Online:Prisoners of the Dead, or the mildly-amusing third-person Stubbs the Zombie. There’s the genre-crossing Rock of the Dead and Typing of the Dead, and the intriguing 2012 release Lollipop Chainsaw.
But as far as we’re concerned, the only good zombies are those which we can dispose of with a shotgun to the head, so here’s to more first-person undead killing…
PS3 to get Battlefield 3 DLC early
PS3 owners will be delighted to hear their console will have timed exclusivity for future Battlefield 3 DLC. DICE have confirmed that all downloadable content will be released for the PlayStation 3 one week early.
DICE Jr. Product Manager Tommy Rydling said: “Beginning with our first expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand, all upcoming expansion packs for the game will appear one week early exclusively on the PS3.”
The Back To Karkland pack will include four classic Battlefield maps: “Strike at Karkand,” “Wake Island,” “Gulf of Oman” and “Sharqi Peninsula”, each remastered to work with the games Frostbite2 engine.
“They’re the most played and loved maps in the history of Battlefield,” said Lead Designer Niklas Fegraeus. “Combined, these four maps have been played for an incredible 25,000 man years!”
The Karkland DLC will also feature new trophies/achievements, weapons, vehicles and unique in-game dog tags. It is expected to be released around a month after Battlefield 3′s October 25 release.
