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EBGames is taking preorders for the Xbox360, in stores only. They have confirmed an November 14th arrival date for the first batch. My local EB had only 7 left for preorder, and it was 5 by the time I left the store. I stopped in to pick up Dungeon Siege 2 and decided to put $50 down on an Xbox360. Which is required for preorder.

You can preorder only the $399 Xbox360, the core system is not available yet. Actually EB now lets you pre-order the core system and the premium system as part of a bundle.

Rise of Kobol is in the earliest stages of development. I will be excited to see if this mod actually gets made. I know with the delay of the BF2 Editor, mod makers are having a tough time getting anything out.

Based on the Battlestar Galactica Universe this mod takes you back in time 45 years to the first Cylon war. Get ready to battle for your life on the twelve colonies of Kobol and their solar system!

So far I am skeptical. I have yet to see any promised mods be released for HL2 or Far Cry. And those games have been out for a year. So I won’t be holding my breath on the release of BF2 mods anytime soon.

I had a previous posting on downloading your Battlefield 2 stats. Due to what EA calls “overly large and continuous queries” the stats interface has been shutdown.

A lot of people have been making mods to read the stats (which comes in as flat text) and convert it to readable pages. Hopefully EA will open this back up, perhaps with a web service.

This is a tweak guide for the popular Battlefield 2. This game can be hard on your system, this guide provides tips for smooth play.

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This is probably my first post since I have started playing Battlefield 2. Not without it’s flaws, this game is still incrediably addicting. Mainly because the way team play is handled. Well this isn’t a review so I am just going to show you how to get your BF2 stats.

First off a friend sent me this little link they will extract your stats into a flat file.

http://bf2web.gamespy.com/ASP/getplayerinfo.aspx?nick=[YOUR NICK NAME]&info=&debug=tx&transpose=1&nocache=0

Just change [YOUR NICK NAME] to your user name and you will see your stats in a flat file.

To get the same data in a more usable XML file, I installed a PHP script that will generate the stats in XML. Just enter your user name and you will get an XML file of your Battlefield 2 stats.

The uses of this is obvious. Bragging rights, you can show off your stats in the real world. But it’s not presentable yet. Fortunately the good people at Ausgamers.com created a site to graphically view your BF2 stats. It’s still in beta mode however. It’s missing some graphics, mainly the anti-tank icon. And at the time of this writing you can’t lookup your account with your user name. Just your PID. This is where the aforementioned links come in. Click on the above link, enter your user name, and copy your PID. It’s the number right before your user name.

Now either enter your PID on this site or replace [Your PID] with your real PID in this link http://bf2stats.ausgamers.com/stats/[YOUR PID].

As a bonus you can even display your stats on your site or in a signature. Like this:

UPDATE:
Yet another stats site. http://bf2s.com/

Well I have been putting this off, but I finally broke down and bought myself a copy of Battlefield 2. I just got tired of playing the same map over and over in the demo. Now normally I would order something like this online, but I went for the instant gratification and purchased the BF2 from EB Games in the mall. While they had plenty of CD edition, I lucked out and got the last DVD copy they had. The clerk mentioned that they would not be getting anymore DVD editions in-stock. Why is it that game companies are resisting the move to DVD? I had to wait several weeks from the release date before I could get UT 2004 on DVD. Everyone had the CD edition, but the DVD was sold out. Who wants four, five, or six CDs for a single game?

Well it’s time to install BF2. Now I just need a new video card to go with it.

And if you are interested, Amazon has the DVD version of BF2.

BATTLEFIELD 2 PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The award-winning Battlefield franchise invades the high tech frontlines of modern warfare in the new sequel, Battlefield 2™. The game brings the intensity and excitement of Battlefield 1942™ into the modern era with enhanced team play and the latest, most technologically advanced vehicles and weapons systems available to man.

In Battlefield 2, players will choose to fight for one of three military superpowers: the United States, the Chinese, or the newly formed Middle East Coalition. Armed with the latest modern weaponry, players can take control of any of the game’s 30+ vehicles to engage in major conflicts with over 64 players in some of the largest online battles on the PC. Additionally, persistent character growth allows players to rise through the ranks and attain the ultimate rank of General.

An all-new game engine and physics system brings the modern battlefield to life like never before. The new material penetration feature measures weapons’ ability to fire through barriers based on their composition and players will need to know the difference between concealment and cover in order to survive.

Battlefield 2 features immense, richly detailed, destructible environments, from city streets to remote forests, in some of the most notorious hot spots around the world. Each map in Battlefield 2 adjusts in scale to support the number of players in the world, providing the ideal vehicle- to-player ratio and an optimized gameplay experience.

Enhanced team play features allow players to enter the action on the front lines as part of a formal squad, or work behind the scenes in Commander Mode to direct the strategic assaults of their teammates.

Soldier kits now affect vehicles that players utilize on the battlefield. For instance, the medic kit can transform a vehicle into a mobile aid station and the support kit can make helicopters into flying ammo dumps.

KEY FEATURES

* Online multiplayer action with up to 64 players on the PC.
* All-new gameplay engine brings the immense locations to life complete with realistic physics and dynamic lighting.
* Maps scale to the number of players engaging in battle for a unique and intense experience every time.
* Take control of over 30 land, sea, and air vehicles, including tanks, helicopters, hovercraft, fast attack vehicles, and fighter jets.
* Choose to battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops, each with their own unique arsenals.
* A variety of soldier classes including Assault, Sniper, Special Ops, Combat Engineer, Medic, Heavy Weapons, and Anti-Tank units.
* New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including wire-guided missiles and laser designated bombs.
* Material penetration feature makes sure players know the difference between cover and concealment.
* Character Persistence and Growth. With in-game success, players increase their rank from recruit all the way to General and unlock new weapons, medals, and more.
* Join a squad or select the new Commander Mode to assume the strategic role of a battlefield commander directing his forces.
* Full in-game community support including, buddy lists, stat tracking, live chat rooms, and in-game clan creation.
* Voice over IP supported with headset.

Who didn’t play Oregan Trail in elementary school? Those of us to poor to afford a computer. Thanks for opening old wounds! Jerk!

Well now is your chance to play this classic Apple game. Head over to the Virtual Apple and get yourself on the trail. Just watch out for cattle rustlers. Warning: Virtual Apple runs in a ActiveX control. So you have to use I.E. And I am not sure if it actually runs on a Mac. Ouch, watch where your throwing that irony!

OH, and to be a real nerd, pick up a Oregan Trail tee at bustedtees.com.

According to Gamespy the aformentioned Battlefield 2 Demo has already taken the 3rd spot for number of players.

Half-Life - 21,682 servers, 42,274 players
Half-Life 2 - 9,911 servers, 22,634 players
Battlefield 2 Demo - 1,868 servers, 19,689 players

Battlefield 2 Demo’d at CES

Originally uploaded by eberry.

When I was at CES in January we saw a demo of BF2 and was told it would be released in a few months. Good to see something finally come around.

The 560MB Battlefield 2 demo is now on GameSpot. It has single player and multiplayer with the 16 and 32 player versions of Gulf of Oman. There is also a time limit for each game.

All download servers seem full at the moment. Here’s hoping the torrent works.

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I finally got an old favorite game of my running under Windows XP. Using DOSBox I was able to get Ultimate Domain installed from CD and running with sound. The game ran very slowly at first. I sped up the CPU cycles using DOSBox, but that only distorted the sound. The problem is the faster the DOSBox runs, the slower Windows runs, which means taking CPU cycles away from the sound emulation.

If you didn’t know, Ultimate Domain is a turn-based strategy game. Although your turns play int real-time. You play as 1 of 3 kings searching for 9 jewels, which will allow you to take over the empire, or something like that. You start off with 4 settlers, each with their own stats, such as age and moral. You have to research new technologies if your settlers are going to survive.

It’s too bad Software Toolworks never made a follow-up to this game.