EA Releases Battlefield 3 Details For E3

While EA has been busy tweaking Battlefield 3 for its upcoming release they decided to show off a bit at E3. The announced on their blog “we will be showing both single player and multilayer game play at E3! You can expect new trailers and screen shots as well as in-depth press previews hitting next wee” There will be a playable map for press available at the show named “Operation Métro,” Some of the features of BF3 are to “temporarily disable vehicles, go prone, mount weapons, lay down suppressive fire and more.”

They aren’t laying it all out at the show though, they are saving the co-op campaign, Team Death Match, and the Battlefield web destination, featuring “powerful social tools, feeds and detailed player stats. Battlelog also lets you manage your friends lists, squad up, create platoons, use voice chat and follow your friends’ progress in real-time, and more 

All at zero dollars / month (take that MW3), thank you EA / Dice!!!

The Blog post from EA can be found HERE

E3 Starts This Monday, Here Is Why You Need To Pay Attention

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 to its friends will kick off the 2011 show in LA. Each year this event ushers in numerous gaming related announcements that you will not want to miss. Although we are not able to attend this year’s show we will be keeping you up to date with all the events and all the major announcements.

 There are several expected announcements at this year including specifics on Sony’s new PSP replacement dubbed NGP. Nintendo may release some details regarding the Wii2 Console (rumors persist about a camera embedded in the Wiimote and a truly impressive graphics engine) . Details on some major games such as the “3s” IE Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and Mass Effect 3 are also expected. There is often an announcement out of the blue, so stay tuned for an exciting week ahead.

Call of Duty Elite a cash grab ?

Activision Looks For Another Few Bucks With Call of Duty Elite

Activision today has released some details on the new Call of Duty Elite service. With more than 30 million people having played a "Call of Duty" game online this year, with the average player spending an impressive 170 hours a year they have an attentive audience all vying to be the best and now you can be better, for a fee. The new service will allow you to do the following:

1) Connect with people you want to play with
2) Compete in tournaments and events
3) Improve your gameplay with stats and strategy videos with tips for weapons and maps

They will allow users to test the new service for free with Call of Duty Black Ops with the focus of the service being the fall release of MW3. There is two levels of service with a free basic service and a premium one with a rumored $10 / month fee.

Playing on a PC you can already easily join your friends matches using steam and the stats are already available in black ops (although they may be more detailed which is to be determined). The real value to me seems to be in the tournament play (as all tips will be released online the day after it makes it to the Elite service). For console gamers these may indeed be features but why aren’t these already built in as a part of the games initial cost.

We have increasingly seen additional content (DLC’s) being released after a games release. The sad part as we saw with MW2 is that a majority of the content (if not all) was already created at the time of the games release but was left out so they could charge you for it later. To me this was a blatant cash grab of which this new Elite service is a further extension of. I wonder now though what will be new and exciting in MW3 that will justify the upgrade besides just having the pleasure of also paying a monthly fee. Battlefield 3 please do not follow the same route.
So what do you think?

Use the comment section below to let me know your thoughts, is Elite a cash grab or money well spent and a worthwhile addition ?

The release video for the Elite service below:

-

Apple Unveils Streaming Music Service iCloud

Apple has officially confirmed a cloud based music streaming service Apple iCloud. It will be officially unveiled at the WWDC keynote speech by Steve Jobs on June 6^th in San Francisco. In addition to the iCloud service we see a definite focus on software with releases of ‘Lion’ the eighth release of the Mac OSX as well as the iOS 5 which powers the mobile platform used by the iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone.

-

When Hot Wheels Comes To Life!

Tanner Faust Broke the world record for a distance jump in a four-wheeled vehicle at the Indianapolis 500 on May 29th 2011 The jump broke former record holder Johnny Greaves' mark of 301 feet. The record breaking jump was set with a 10 story drop down 90 feet of orange track and flew 332 feet through the air."

Foust said: "You're basically going down a really poorly designed rollercoaster, because there are no guard rails... We accounted for everything you could imagine outside of the weather."

Microsoft loves Android, PS4 a go, Battlefield 3 love, Paypal VS Google

Lots of great stories out today in the tech world, Microsoft making a pretty penny off of Android phones, the new Playstation 4 console is underway, Paypal declares war on Google and why I will choose to play Battlefield 3 and not Modern Warfare 3.




Microsoft is making a ton of cash from Android phone sales, and more to come
Citi analyst Walter Pritchard released a report this morning that revealed Microsoft is receiving $5.00 per HTC Android phone sold. This fee is collected thanks to a settlement with HTC over patent infringement. The kicker is that Microsoft is suing other Android phone manufacturers as well and is looking to receive between $7.50 and 12.50 per device sold.
For the full story check out the article from Business Insider HERE

-
Work on the PS4 is “already under way”
According to the Sony’s Chief Financial Officer Masaru Kato “For the home equipment the PS3 still has a product life," said Kato. "But this is a platform business, so for the future platform - when we'll be introducing what product, I cannot discuss - but our development work is already under way.”
Thank god is all I can say, I had previously read reports that they were going to try and string along the 5 year old PS3 for another 5 years. Now we can look forward to E3 2012 where we might get some substantial info on the new console.
You can find more info on this topic HERE
-
Paypal sues Google for stealing mobile payment secrets (and employees)
I haven’t had much love for Paypal in quite some time and currently only use their service under great duress. I was quite happy to see that Google launched their Wallet service yesterday and although I wish they would have their checkout service have greater adoption first it was still a step in the right direction. Then today I find out that Paypal is suing Google for stealing secrets and recruiting employees. Paypal isn’t fighting a little retailer now with the mom and pop shop, Google has the resources to drag this one out for a while.
PC Mag has the whole scoop HERE
-
Battlefield 3 VS Modern Warfare 3
The two big war gaming franchises are set to collide this fall with new releases. There is one major difference though. While MW3 is developed for the consoles first and foremost (After all this is where the big cash seems to be these days). The PC version of the game that gets released feels clunky and restrained by the limitations of console hardware.
I personally have many gaming friends that flat out refuse to buy another Modern Warfare title at this point after the huge disappointment of MW2.
On the other hand Battlefield 3 embraces the PC and is one of the only companies in recent times to release a premier title for PC first and will make console versions second. As a PC gamer this is music to my ears. For those that fight in the multilayer battles BF3 will support up to 64 players! This will feel like war and not simply a block party with guns.
Ben Kuchera's article on this very subject can be found on ars technica HERE