beta

Battlefield Heroes will be free to all PC gamers under EA's new Play 4 Free business model. In-game advertisements and micro-payments will allow you to play as much of the game that you like for free.

New registration to beta test this game here: http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/

Register if you want to check out the game before it's released and be sure to give feedback to the developers.

Battlefield Heroes is a continuation of EA's Battlefield series. Many gameplay elements from that series carries over into this game. It features a modified conquest mode providing each team 50 tickets and two flags at the start of the round. Killing enemies will reduce tickets and holding more flags than the opposing army will grant a multiplier. It is possible to win by owning more flags than the enemy and by killing fewer of them. Matchmaking will also be a feature to keep players of the same level together. Players of each level will play with other players within a couple levels of their own. Developers of the game have talked about levels going as high as 40 or 50.

The two armies are called the National Army (possessing a red base color flag) and the Royal Army (possessing a blue base color flag). The game is third-person only at this point, but senior producer Ben Cousins has stated if first-person is really wanted, it may be added in at a later date. Spawn times are five seconds (compared to previous Battlefield games' 15), allowing for less waiting and more action. Players do not pick spawn points since the game has an "Intelligent Spawn System" putting players closest to the nearest battle. Two maps will be available on release, but a third map is in development.

The point system in Battlefield Heroes is being called the Metagame (non official name), which allows characters to fight for a territorial position during each match. The land gained is then recorded as a win for each army, and at the end of the week everything is added up and both armies are given money based on percentage and land conquered. Players can choose whether or not to participate in the Metagame.

It's been a pleasant experience, so far. I'm using the 64bit version, and all of my hardware has been detected, and all the drivers that work w/ Vista, seem to work w/ Win7. Speaking of Vista, Win7 looks identical to Vista. The Aero look is still there. It is still in Beta stage, but it's been running pretty stable for me. Hasn't crashed at all.

I've got it running on my gaming PC. Same hardware as my XP machine, just swapped out the hard drive and put Win7 Ultimate 64bit on the new one.

IE8: also in beta testing right now. Surprisingly enough, IE8 renders pages faster than Chrome or Firefox did on my XP machine. Same hardware, same ISP, same browsing habits, faster page loading.

Windows Experience Index: something I haven't used much, since the only machine running Vista in my home right now is my wife's laptop. I scored at least a 5.9 in everything, save for the HDD test, which gave me a 2.9. WEI is by no means a precise method, but it gives a general idea. I'm a little puzzled as to why that is, seeing as the hard drive is a fairly good one (Seagate 160GB 7200rpm w/ 8MB cache, newly formatted). I haven't run any disk checks on it, but I had Open Suse loaded on it before, and that worked fine. WEI concerns aside, Win7 loads and runs very fast, so the WEI might just be a load of crap, w/ a little bit of hype thrown in.

Windows Media Center: I like the layout. It recognizes my TV tuner card (Hauppauge HVR-1600), but doesn't find any channels, so I can't watch Live TV through Media Center. Later this week, I'll try the Hauppauge software for Vista, and see how it works on Win7. This is a bit of a disappointment, but it's still a beta, after all. XP paired w/ Hauppauge's driver and software recognizes digital and analog OTA channels just fine.

Several Hushed Casket members are now in the public beta of Call of Duty 5: World at War. For those of you that aren't in just yet, here are some of my thoughts after playing it for the first day:

By the way, reserve the game at Gamestop and you can get access to the multiplayer beta. Also pay attention to this website and we'll let you know when beta keys are going to be given away.

My take of the beta:

CoD5 is as if you took the CoD4 engine and gameplay, stripped out the modern warfare element and the Middle Eastern setting, and then replaced it with WWII warfare in the Pacific/Asian theater and the German/Soviet front.

The party system, rank system, weapons, perks, classes, and kill bonuses are all built into the game just like they were for CoD4. Some new perks are added. Of course the weapons are from the WWII era.

During this first stage of the beta the maximum level is capped at level 11.

As of this writing (2PM CST), 7000 players are online.

My first game was in a large map set in what seemed like a Philippine island. The map was dark and set on a beach. On the shore where huts and buildings made out of old wood and old metal. Some of the buildings stretched out over the water. At least one building was raised about 20' off the ground and a sniper was owning us from that spot.

Wild dogs attacked us as we were playing. See below:

If you get 3 kills without dying you can call in a recon plane that will reveal enemies on the map just like the UAV in CoD4.

If you get 5 kills without dying you can call in artillery rounds to the spot on the map that you pick. (The cannon fire seemed to last 3 or 4 times longer than the bombing in CoD4). I feel like this will be more deadly than the airstrike in CoD4.

Just Curious if anyone else is in the Beta because I haven't seen anyone talking about it. I think it should be interesting to see the strategies people develop since now you can enter a building from anywhere, also to see how the level design holds up since you have the ability to take out geometry. Plus it was developed to be a console game so I think the frame rate and controls should be tight. Let me know what you guys think, and if your in it.

Gameplay Video

If you haven't yet begged, borrowed, or stolen a token to download the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer Beta then you really should, because it's probably the most entertaining demo/beta I've ever downloaded from XBL. Yes, the Halo 3 Beta was good, but without a friends and family invitation it required a $60 purchase of the retail version (Crackdown), and COD4 is absolutely free if you are capable of using the internet and following directions. What makes the fun of COD4 even more surprising is that nobody was expecting it! Who had a date marked on the calendar for the COD4 Beta release? Not me. I buy the COD games mostly for their campaigns, but since COD3 busted I haven't loaned any credence to the franchise's multiplayer experience. COD4 changed that...in a big way.

Gamespot is giving away 100,000 Call of Duty 4 beta codes (20,000 a day until Friday) on a first come first serve basis. THX Hubcap and I just got beta codes.

1. Go to this link http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/call-of-duty-4/.
2. Make a Gamespot account or sign in if you have an account.
3. Link your XBOX Live gamertag
4. Hit submit. If they still have codes a page should load and show you the beta code.

I don't know how long this offer will last.