Getting Personal with Battlefield 3: Close Quarters

EA released the second trailer for the upcoming expansion for Battlefield 3, Close Quarters. This trailer highlights an intense firefight on the Donya Fortress map with seemingly enhanced destruction. In contrast to the map packs for Call of Duty, expansions for the Battlefield series tend to centralize around a theme, Close Quarters focusing on tight maps for short-range combat. In addition to the new maps, the expansion will include new weapons and vehicles. Battlefield 3: Close Quarters will release sometime in June for the all three platforms (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC) with PlayStation 3 players accessing the content a week earlier than the others.

First Crysis 3 Gameplay Trailer

Despite its reveal earlier this month, EA released the first trailer for Crysis 3 today, showing off some of the literal concrete jungle that is New York City. The trailer shows a quarantine dome placed over the city with remnants of the Ceph still inside and it’s up to Prophet to take back the city. A new addition to the Crysis series is a compound bow, which assumingly can execute stealth kills from afar.

Crytek told Joystiq that DirectX 11 support would be available at launch, in 2013, for PC users. “Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're going to have that,” said Rasmus Hojengaard, Director of Creative Development. “I don't know if we've announced that yet, but obviously we're going to have DirectX 11 support since we already did it for Crysis 2. We basically started from a Crysis 2 DX11 patch, as starting point, and then we developed our technology from there on. We'd be pretty stupid not to capitalize on the technology we did for that and utilizing that from the get-go.” Crysis 3 will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC sometime in spring 2013.

Gabe Newell speaks up about EA games on Steam

In June, Electronic Arts pulled Crysis 2 from Steam, followed by Alice: Madnress Returns, citing new regulations regarding DLC as the reason. Alice eventually made it back, but Crysis 2 remains absent. Dragon Age 2 disappeared last month as well, just as its newest DLC, Legacy, arrived. Electronic Arts has been pretty vocal over the ongoing on-then-off-then-on-again presence of their games on Steam, but Valve has been quiet on the issue. In an interview with Develop, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell spoke about the cause and how it can be resolved.

“I don’t think Valve can pick just one thing and think the issue would go away if we fixed that,” he said, “We have to show EA it’s a smart decision to have EA games on Steam, and we’re going to try to show them that.”

Newell noted that companies have to earn the right to install content on their customers' PCs on a regular basis, and Steam isn’t any different. “We have to prove we are creating value on an ongoing basis, whether it’s to EA or Ubisoft or whoever. We really want to show there’s a lot of value having EA titles on Steam. We want EA’s games on Steam and we have to show them that’s a smart thing to do.”

He added that Steam is continuing to improve and that those improvements will show companies like Electronic Arts that Steam is a platform where they can grow revenue, “I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games.”

BioWare Sequel Celebration

Since its release less than two weeks ago, BioWare’s Dragon Age II sold over 2 million copies, and now BioWare wants to reward their fans. Being called the BioWare Sequel Celebration, everyone who purchases a copy of Dragon Age II and activates its online pass by 11:59 PDT on April 30, 2011 will be given code to enter at the BioWare Social Network. The code will enable a free copy of the PC version of Mass Effect 2 through the EA Download Manager.

"Thanks to gamers like you, Dragon Age 2 is off to a great start - breaking the one million mark in less than two weeks and faster than Dragon Age: Origins," BioWare said. "We appreciate your support. As a special thank you for helping with the game's early success, BioWare would like to present you with a download code for 2010's Game of the Year, Mass Effect 2 on PC."

In addition to Mass Effect 2, the code will also grant access to the Cerberus Network, the system Mass Effect 2 uses to distribute its DLC, which includes Zaeed - The Price of Revenge, Cerberus Weapon and Armor, Normandy Crash Site, Cerberus Arc Projector, and Firewalker Pack. Be sure to check the site’s FAQ for full details.

Battlefield 3: Episode II - Good Effect On Target

EA and DICE released the next trailer in their Fault Line series for Battlefield 3. In the video, a team crosses a rooftop to take out a sniper in the building across. Rather than deal with the sniper conventionally, the team uses a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, showing off the extent of destructible environments with the Frostbite 2 engine. Part three of the Fault Line series will be released on March 30. Battlefield 3 will be available this fall for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Battlefield 3 at GDC

Remember the trailer that EA and DICE released last week, showing off the first bits of gameplay for Battlefield 3? It was apparently only a short teaser to their presence at this year’s Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, Ca. At an event last night held off-site from the main conference, EA showed off some of their games releasing later this year, including Alice: Madness Returns, Shadows of the Damned, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Crysis 2, Gatling Gears, and Battlefield 3. A new trailer was shown titled Fault Line Episode 1: Bad Part of Town, extending the gameplay we saw in the teaser trailer into a much more coherent and cinematic format, allowing the power of the new Frostbite 2 engine to shine through. DICE is setting Battlefield 3 up to be the Crysis of this generation, meaning, it will be first game to really show what is capable in the next generation of computing power. "If you don't have the right tech, you can't build the right experience," DICE executive producer Patrick Bach said. Check out PC Gamer’s first impressions of the game’s demo at GDC and Joystiq’s article on “Balancing Realism in Frostbite 2.” The follow-up trailer Fault Line will be released on March 16. Battlefield 3 will be available this fall for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Battlefield 3 Declares War

Developer DICE and publisher EA are making their mark on the first-person shooter genre with Battlefield 3. Their first step in this goal was today’s release of the first gameplay trailer for the game. The trailer, as seen above, might be confused for a cinematic but DICE and EA said that the action seen in the trailer is gameplay footage. If you blinked and missed something, check out the screenshots from the trailer.

Today in Gaming

The Worst Game in the World

Fox News posted an article yesterday asking, “Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?” They quoted several psychologists talking about the game’s violence and its effect on younger audiences, even though clinical studies have been inconclusive. One psychologist was even quoted as saying, “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.” However, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the per-capita victimization rate of rape has declined from about 2.4 per 1000 people in 1980 to about 0.4 per 1000 people, a decline of about 85%. Beyond the fact that their statements are false, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reached out to the three psychologists for follow-up statements, but only heard back from one. Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research, was quoted as saying, “Games without sufficient quality of gameplay -- games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content -- often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention. This tactic typically fails, as can be seen in the poor sales performance of titles such as BMX XXX and Postal,” but that’s only about a quarter of what was actually said, check out the rest here. Bulletstorm follows all of the ESRB’s guidelines for both gameplay and marketing and to be labeled as worst game in the world by Fox will only help in its promotion. Keep up the good work Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and People Can Fly. Bulletstorm will be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on February 22.

Battlefield 3 Officially Announced

In case you missed it, Battlefield 3 was officially revealed last Friday as Game Informer’s March cover. Battlefield 3 is the third proper release in the Battlefield series that started in 2002 with Battlefield 1942, and its sequel Battlefield 2, released in 2005.

Duty Calls: The Calm Before The Storm

Electronic Arts marketing did it again. Last month EA unveiled their ad campaign for Dead Space 2 called Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2. To promote their new title, Bulletstorm, the people at People Can Fly and Epic Games released a free downloadable game titled, Duty Calls. The game is a parody of modern military shooters, particularly the Activision series Call of Duty, and pokes fun the various first-person-shooter tropes which in the past were received by fans as taking themselves too serious.

They’re Coming Out of the Walls

This whole Infinity Ward v. Activision suit is really getting out of hand. New information seems to be coming from everywhere about who schemed with who. After filing a motion last month to amend its countersuit against Vince Zampella and Jason Wast, former heads of Infinity Ward and now founders of Respawn Entertainment, Activision let loose a bevy of documents today that could prove EA’s indirect involvement in the whole debacle.