With Microsoft taking over the Call of Duty expansion packs, DICE has announced that Battlefield 3 will see its expansion packs released exclusively on PlayStation 3 one week before Xbox 360 owners get their hands on it.

But that’s not all for our PlayStation fans! You’ll be happy to know that beginning with our first expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand (to be released later this year), all full-blown upcoming expansion packs for the game will appear one week early exclusively on PS3, brought to you by Sony!

As a reminder, the Battlefield 3 beta takes place from September 29th to October 10th and is open to all gamers on PlayStation Network. To enter in the beta all you have to do is go to the PlayStation Store, head into the Battlefield 3 section and download the demo from there.

Battlefield 3 releases on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and PC on October 28, 2011.

Via PlayStation Blog

Electronic Arts’ Gamescom press conference just wrapped up this morning and sent over a new batch of Battlefield 3 screenshots. The presentation focused on co-op on a PlayStation 3 system live on stage.

The game so far seems to be wrapping up development as the release is nearing closer and closer. Don’t forget that if you pre-order the game you’ll be offered the Limited Edition version of the game. The Limited Edition includes the Back to Karkand multiplayer map post-launch for free. Check out the rest of the screenshots below.

EA is running a livestream of Battlefield 3 for the next four hours. Apparently the stream will show a few videos, have some interviews and will hopefully have some live gameplay. Feel free to join us in watching it right here with the fancy embed you can see above these here sentences. Expect some awkward military dudes talking about games confirmed.

EA and DICE have just announced a multi-platform open beta for Battlefield 3 at EA’s E3 2011 press conference. The beta will begin in September, so look out for it then. We’ll be throwing up a gameplay video from the game later so keep your eyes open for that when it hits. We’re currently watching the game now on EA’s livestream (http://live-event.ea.com/e3/press) and it’s shaping up to be something special. We have also managed to get a snippet of footage of the game’s multiplayer too, which is available after the jump. It’s 49 seconds long, but that’s more gameplay than you’re going to see of The Old Republic and other titles this E3!

A quick one just before EA’s E3 press conference, here’s a lovely little gameplay trailer for Battlefield 3 that has just been pushed out to the internet by EA and DICE. Expect to hear more about this explosive game later this evening during EA’s E3 press conference. As always, we’ll keep you up to date on any important developments.

We’ve got a few new trailers for you coming up today. The first being a new Battlefield 3 trailer coming from EA and DICE. This new trailer focuses on a sniper compromising your position on top of a skyscraper in the city. You and your team move into cover to draw him out and take him out.

Battlefield 3 will release on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC this Fall.

DICE has come out and confirmed some lovely details for Battlefield 3. The PC, PS3 and 360 FPS will have improved visuals and apparently an “exponential leap” in destructibility. It uses the Frostbite 2 engine to create all the new destructible effects apparently. The more important news is that jets have returned and you will be able to go prone.

PC players will be even more excited, as their version will support up to 64 players in the game’s online multiplayer. The console titles have a limit of a respectable 24 players. Also expect a single-player campaign and co-op for great justice. Today’s teaser trailer (see above) says that Battlefield 3 will be released this autumn. The game’s website has just gone live too.

DICE has finally decided to put a line under the Battlefield 1943 PC saga by officially canning the game. The title was released to favourable reception on the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network back in 2009. We really enjoyed it, and believe it holds up well to a bit of light play now and then. PC owners were initially told they would be getting the game, and it was actually accidentally released on the EA Store at one stage which is why it’s so strange that DICE has decided to bin it.

Moreover, Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s Onslaught mode will never be hitting the PC either. DICE have decided that these two projects were taking up too many resources that could otherwise be spent on Battlefield 3. They really want the game to be the pinnacle of the series, and a betting man would assume that they do not want to cannibalise their sales with their previous titles in the franchise.

Battlefield 3 will be using the Frostbite 2 engine, so expect lots of lovely destructible things to blow up for great justice. Other than that, we don’t really know much more about it. We’re hoping that it will be launched this year and will see the return of full-blown planes, but you just never know what those crazy cats at DICE are up to. Regardless, we’ll update you when we find out more. Expect something around E3 time.

DICE has unlocked the Operations Hastings map for Battlefield Bad Company 2’s Vietnam expansion pack. The developer did challenge gamers to reach 69 million team actions on their system in order to unlock it, but console gamers aren’t exactly known as team players. 360 and PS3 players only racked up 46 million and 34 million respectively, whereas PC gamers did it in a matter of days. Despite their failure, DICE let console gamers access the new map because they want to “start this new year with a bit of a bang as we ended it”.

The Vietnam-based expansion to DICE’s immensely successful Bad Company 2 opens with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Fortunate Son’ playing over the menu; a move that sets the tone for the rest of the game. Prepare to relive all your favourite moments from every ‘Nam film – from Platoon to Apocalypse Now – all alongside your multiplayer buddies.

At its core, Vietnam is simply more of Bad Company’s core formula with a lick of 1960’s paint, but such a paint job has been flawlessly applied. The weapons all have beat marks and engravings of clichéd ‘Nam troop slogans: from the peace symbol to ‘Make War, Not Love’. There’s a much more used feel to the weapon models, with scopes full of dust, dirt and crack marks, which really emphasise the dirty nature of the conflict. There’s more of a punch behind the rifles too, which adds to the feel of throwing yourself into the fight.

In terms of weapon choice, Vietnam offers up a pretty slim inventory with only three weapons available to each class. At first it’s easy to feel cheated after the vast offerings in Bad Company 2, but when settled in these options prove worthy. There are, as usual, several weapons that are interchangeable between classes, and whilst we’ve all seen the Thompson and M1 Garand before, the Flamethrower is a real game-changer and adds a new significant element to squad combat.

Squad tactics have always been important in Battlefied, but here it feels more paramount than ever. The four maps on offer are exceptionally well designed, offering not only that burnt-out jungle atmosphere that we’d expect from a Vietnam-based piece, but also plenty of various action points. The Vietnamese were known for tunnelling through the ground, and as such tunnels between bunkers are present here, where firefights become painfully hectic. The flamethrower really comes into its own here, and alongside a squad sporting sub-machine guns and shotguns, storming tunnels and trenches becomes a real highlight.

The rocky and heavily-wooded areas are prone to plenty of sniper combat, and on one map in particular I found that almost our entire army was being pinned down by enemy sniper fire, which was both annoying but also promoted real team tactics in order to break out of the situation. Like I said before, Vietnam really promotes team work and if you plan on gunning it alone, you’re probably going to find this a lacklustre expansion.

Vietnam’s soundtrack also demands a mention, featuring almost fifty tracks from the era, which above anything else makes gunning down troops from a helicopter the ultimate in cool. Unfortunately these are only available in vehicles, but it’s enough to make you wish that soldiers fighting in the conflict had access to MP3 players.

The Verdict: The Vietnam expansion to Bad Company 2 is everything you loved about the original game with a cool paint job. There’s not anything to unlock which is probably the game’s biggest crime, but it also provides one heck of a team-based multiplayer rollercoaster. If you love the era and everything that comes with it, for a mere £9.99 this is a great amount of bang for your buck.

DICE is trying to implement a greater focus on teamwork in Battlefield: Bad Company 2/Vietnam, by rewarding that style of play with access to a new map for the Vietnam expansion. Everyone playing the game or the Vietnam expansion will have to get loved up with each other to complete 69 million team actions. If they do so, the fifth Vietnam map will be unlocked. You’ll need to buy the expansion to play the fifth map from it, if we didn’t make it obvious enough. The map is called “Operation Hastings”, which isn’t very helpful to us normal people that don’t know about all this military rubbish and just like shooting people.

Regardless, the event combines totals from PC, PS3 and 360 players and DICE will start counting team actions on 21st December. That’s the same day that the Vietnam expansion is released. If you don’t know about BC 2’s team actions (you’re probably American), they are: resupply, heal, revive, spot and repair. Expect lots of people to be following tanks and people around in a stalking motion akin to the forever alone guy confirmed.

EA has finally dated Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam. The downloadable expansion pack will be released on the PC on Saturday 18th December, with the PS3 and 360 releases on 21st December. It will cost £9.99 on the PC and PS3. 360 owners will have to pay more, however. Their fee is 1200 Allards, which is in all fairness 29p more.

Moreover, VIP Map Pack 7 will be arriving on 1st December. It will be free for people that brought BC2 brand new and used their VIP download code that came with their copy. Otherwise, you will have to pay for VIP membership to download it.

EA has sent word that they are releasing some patches for the PC and 360 versions of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. As a result, the game might be a bit laggy until 9am tomorrow morning according to DICE. We believe only the PC version will be a bit laggy, but there is good reason why. EA’s PC patch clocks in at an insane 2.5GB. The update adds the necessary hooks for the upcoming BC2 expansion Vietnam and Map Pack 7. This is the official list of what the PC patch fixes/adds:

* Acog and Red dot scope now equippable on MK-14 and G3.

* Fixed an issue where the Bullet Tracers wouldn’t display

* Fixed an issue where Play Now wouldn’t work

* Added Ticket Count for Conquest end of round.

* Added the server info to the objectives screen.

The 360 patch list is even longer:

* Acog and Red dot scope now equippable on MK-14 and G3.

* Fixed a bug on PC where the G3 would do less damage than intended.

* Reduced VADS push back and damage to balance it with the ZU23.

* Fixed a bug where Vehicle Countermeasures would fail to remove tracer darts at high speed.

* Reduced the reload time for Vehicle Countermeasures.

* Slightly increased the AT4′s damage vs armor to emphasize its anti vehicle role while keeping it balanced vs armor.

* Increased the AT4′s top speed and acceleration so users spend less time exposed when firing.

* Increased the AT4′s splash damage so it competes with other AT weapons vs infantry. The AT4 still has the least splash damage of all AT weapons.

* Reduced the splash damage of the Carl Gustav to bring it in line with other explosive weapons. The Carl Gustav still has the most splash damage of all AT weapons.

* Increased the 1 shot kill range of the M95 body shot to counter its lower rate of fire.

* Fixed a bug with the SVU that gave it better close range damage than other semi auto weapons.

* Reduced all weapon damage to the MCOM by 50%.

* Fixed a C4 vs MCOM exploit on Atacama Desert.

* Fixed a bug with FOV when aiming the M1911.

* Lowered the close range damage of the AN94 to highlight its long range role.

* Increased the accuracy of the F2000 on the move to highlight its role as a mobile AR.

* Increased the close range damage of the shotguns to give them a greater advantage vs slugs.

* Slightly lowered the damage of the M60 to balance its accuracy advantage vs other LMGs.

* Slightly lowered the damage of the MG3 at close range to balance it with other high rate of fire weapons.

* Slightly increased the damage of the UH6

The PS3 version was patched last week.

EA has confirmed that they will be releasing new downloadable content for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It’s called “VIP Map Pack 7”, and includes four maps. There’s Oasis and Harvest Day from the original Bad Company as well as Cold War and Heavy Metal from 2’s single player campaign. VIP Map Pack 7 is coming soon, and will be free for VIP gamers on PC and consoles.

EA has announced Battlefield: Play4Free. It’s a realistic-style free to play PC FPS set in the modern day world of war and guns. Apparently it’s designed to appeal to the hardcore market, unlike Battlefield Heroes. Currently, Play4Free is in development over at Easy Studios at DICE, the team behind Heroes.

Don’t let that put you off though, this sounds much more promising. It has 32-player battles, vehicular warfare and sandbox gameplay. It also includes Battlefield 2 maps with Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s classes and weapons.  There are 16 vehicles to choose from, including the F-35 jet fighter and the Russian T-90 tank. Also expect career progression, like most online FPS’ at the moment. Players can learn skills and buy new stuff to personalise their soldier.

Play4Free will be funded by a micro-transaction based business model. You won’t be forced to buy stuff, but it’ll make your character stand out apparently. Interestingly, there will be some link-up between Heroes, Play4Free and Battlefield 3 in the future. You can sign up for the closed beta right now. The closed beta will go live on 30th November. The open beta will begin early next year.

EA has released this rather lovely trailer of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. The downloadable expansion pack seems to be coming on well, and it’s still down for an intriguing “Winter 2010″ release. We’ll let you know more about it if we find anything else interesting to post. Hopefully a release date will be unveiled soon.

With the dominance of the Call of Duty franchise, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about the Medal of Honor series. It hasn’t been seen of since 2007’s lacklustre entry: Medal of Honor Airborne and one could argue this was a good thing, with the series seeing a significant diminishing in quality since the days of Allied Assualt. But Medal of Honor is back, rebooted for the Modern Warfare age and set in Afghanistan for an authentic and gritty battle experience. Or so this is what EA would like you to believe.

The singleplayer campaign of Medal of Honor is developed by Danger Close, and with all the media coverage over the last few months you’d be forgiven if you believed MoH was going to be the videogame version of the TV show Generation Kill. After the Michael Bay-esque cinematic action of Call of Duty, Danger Close promised their game would be an authentic portrayal of a real on-going conflict, seen over by real combat operatives to ensure this is a true depiction of the tasks ‘our boys’ have to endure. And when this is the case, Medal of Honor is an absolute joy to play. Moving from shadow to shadow as a Tier 1 operative, attempting to infiltrate a Taliban base to plant trackers on their vehicles is stunning in its execution; terrifically tense and emphasising the use of tactics over balls-to-the-wall fire fights. And even when Medal of Honor wants to pull out the big guns, it can do with grit. A defensive sequence in which you must fend off attackers as you wait for an extraction is tense, nerve-destroying and actually stressful to play as you fear for your own life. Never in a game has the feeling you may die here – completely outnumbered by the enemy – seemed so frighteningly real.

But that’s about where the good points end. The remainder of Medal of Honor’s five hour campaign is a mix up of ‘Me too!’ Call of Duty clone moments, aggravating squad AI and exceptionally dull sequences. The opening sequence is almost indistinguishable from Modern Warfare 2, even featuring a not-so-realistic slow-motion gun fight that shatters the gritty illusion Danger Close have emphasised. When it’s not attempting to be cinematic and bombastic, the more realistic events are ruined by shoddy squad intelligence, with team mates constantly running across your line of sight and disrupting your fire. And not only are your team completely stupid, but so are the Taliban. These fearsome terrorists in real life are here recreated as men whose combat training is nothing more than running at the enemy in a straight line and hiding behind rocks. They do nothing to flank you, very few attempts are made to flush you out of cover, and as such combat is reduced to you waiting for them to pop up from behind their rock and to double-tap them in the head (headshots prompt an indicator to appear on the HUD to notify you of your accuracy, which again shatter the realistic illusion).

Elsewhere scripted events (of which the game is just one after another) force the game into feeling entirely cinematic and remove the feel that you are a soldier attempting to make the right decisions to survive. There are a lot of moments requiring you to spot targets from afar, but this target spotting can only be done from one location on the map, and you have to be stood on the exact spot before the game will automatically pull out your spotting equipment. This means having to sprint from your cover to another spot in order to complete objectives, rather than being able to have the spotting scope as a selectable weapon and being able to do it from a vantage point chosen by you. Sniper spotting missions are even worse, with the game’s characters shouting military chatter to you that will be only understandable by army vets or fanatics, meaning that unless you’re fluent in the jargon it’s difficult to find the targets their calling out.

On the plus side, the military chatter does add to the authentic feel, and alongside punchy weapons and excellent explosions this ensures the audio in the game is second to none. If you’re equipped with a surround sound system, Medal of Honor is a treat for the ears.

When you’re done with the campaign, the multiplayer is naturally the nest port of call, and the transfer over to it is jarring. Medal of Honor’s multiplayer is an entirely different game. It’s Battlefield in fact, which shouldn’t be that much of a surprise considering it has been created by DICE. But the fact that the multiplayer is actually Bad Company 2 in almost every element aesthetically and mechanically, it feels like a cheap and unpolished add on. The Frostbite engine looks and behaves exceptionally differently to the Unreal engine on which the single player is built, and so doesn’t feel part of the experience. Those familiar with Bad Company 2 will be instantly at home, with the game even using some of the weapon models from BC2. The button layout is the same as BC2 also, which is different to the singleplayer component, and is lacking functions such as leaning. The game itself isn’t bad – essentially a middle ground between Call of Duty and Battlefield – but offers nothing new and feels underdeveloped with poor menus and a lack of polish. Just three character classes ensure the game lacks diversity, and the destructible nature of the Frostbite engine is never truly explored here.

Verdict: Medal of Honor could (and indeed should) have been a gritty, realistic depiction of a conflict resonant to all who play. Whilst it hits this note a couple of times, the remainder is proof that Danger Close clearly never understood what direction they wanted to pursue, and as such the campaign is a story of highs and lows. The multiplayer is essentially redundant in a world populated by far superior competitors, and the jarring difference between it and the singleplayer element damages it. Overall, Medal of Honor is a very mixed package that will struggle to compete with its stronger rivals.

Online retailers have leaked news of a Battlefield: Bad Company 2 “Ultimate Edition”. They say it will be released in the UK on 3rd September and around that time in the US. Apparently, it will include Battlefield 1943, Bad Company 2’s Onslaught mode, limited edition unlocks and VIP downloads.

EA has finally announced Battlefield 3. Once again, it will be developed by DICE and beta access to the game will be included in the limited edition of Medal of Honor. EA are playing their cards close to their chest, saying that you can get an invitation to the Battlefield 3 beta “within 12 months following the release of Medal of Honor”. The beta will be available on the 360, PC and PS3, so it looks like the game will be too. It has been in development at DICE for the past three years and everyone that’s seen it seems to think it’s going to be pretty special. Well, at least the PC version.