This meant that you had to keep Origin, the distribution platform running in the background, the web browser to select a game and the game itself. Changing servers meant to close down the game, select a new match and server in the web browser to start the game anew.

While I have not tried the system yet, I’d say that it is less practicable than a built-in functional server browser (to be honest, not a single server browser of a Battlefield game was that, but that’s another story).

Back in the good old games of gaming, I would have probably bought the game anyway. Today, I want to make a stand against all the “features” that hurt legit customers. That’s one of the reasons why I did not buy From Dust, even though I would really like to play the game. I also skipped the Modern Warfare series ever since its developers started to drop dedicated server support.

It now came to light that Origin, EA’s new online distribution system (not to mix up with the classic game developer that EA bought and killed), adds another issue that could convince some gamers not to use that system. Users who sign up need to accept the EULA which gives EA massive rights to collect, use, save and transfer user data. It reads under (2):

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION.

Gamers either have to accept that EA may collect, use, store and transmit data like their computer’s IP address, software, application usage and hardware, or they may not install or use the application.

EA may furthermore transfer the data in anonymized form to third party companies. Rock Paper Shotgun puts it this way:

And then even more creepily, they say they intend to take such information, combine it with personal information about you, and use it to advertise directly to you. However, when selling on this free-for-all on your computer’s contents, they’ll at least remove personally identifying information. Gosh, thanks.

The site furthermore compares EA’s clause with a comparable Steam clause and comes to the conclusion that Valve’s “policy is self-restricted to anything on your PC directly relating to its own products” while EA’s is “so broad that it gives the publisher permission to scan your entire hard drive, and report back absolutely anything you may have installed, and indeed when you may use it, and then pass that information on the third parties”.

If I would not already have canceled Battlefield 3, I would now.

PC users who want to edit the game’s settings have to edit a configuration file for many advanced parameters. It is for instance not possible to change the DirectX version of the game in the game interface.

Bc2 Ai1 is a free software program for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system that provides direct access to many game configuration settings that would otherwise be only accessible in those configuration files.

The program displays a configuration wizard on first start that tries to detect the Bad Company 2 directory, configuration directory and a TeamSpeak directory automatically. It is possible to edit the paths if the locations are not identified correctly which is for instance the case if a 64-bit edition of Windows is used.

Configuration options are then displayed in the default tab that the program opens with. All can be directly edited in the program window. A click on Save Settings save the new configuration information with the additional option to launch Bad Company 2 directly from within the configuration tool.

Bc2 Ai1 includes a stats checker and signature creator as well which can be helpful for some users.

BC2 Ai1 can be downloaded directly from the developer’s homepage

The new game brings a huge change, instead of going for realism, they went for a cartoon look, which looks pretty stunning I think. Many will be deterred by this, I suspect especially hardcore gamers, but if I want realism I’ll jump down to a war zone and take a look myself. I think it’s quite unique and it makes the game more accessible to other ages and our friends of the female persuasion (I might be able to get my girlfriend to play a round with me!).

I haven’t played a lot with this series, I spent an hour or two with a newer one, and from what I can tell, the experience is much the same, but obviously very different due to the environment. I’m actually still waiting for my beta key, but to me the screenshots radiate much more of a fun factor than I’ve seen in games for a while.

Let us know if you’ve tried the game, I’ll add a comment as an update as soon as I give it a go, I can’t wait to shoot every one’s cartoon bum out of the sky, woohoo!

Gamers do not receive anything from this. All the money earned goes right into the pockets of EA. This kinda sucks and I thought it would be nice to share a way to get rid of those ads. The easiest solution would be to block the network that streams the ads from being able to connect to your computer. All you need to do is block (reject traffic from) the subnets 72.3.184.144/28 and 72.32.5.0/28.

Another method that looks more complicated would be to change the ad files in the cache by using a tool called IGA Ad Cache Editor. The readme explains the functionality: “This application imports and exports DDS image files from the ad cache of Battlefield 2142.  You can also import and export groups/sets of images (adpacks).”

Once exported you can modify the images using tools like GIMP and import them after you have changed the contents.