This week has been relatively quite, apart from the shenanigans over at Blizzard in celebration of April Fool’s Day. I must admit being quite gullible I found myself genuinely confused at why Blizzard had decided to open an online matchmaking service.

Here are the highlights:

• Over at Blizzard (April Fool’s jokes):
  • Find the nerd of your dreams with the Battle.net Matchmaking Service
  • WoW introduced an upgrade showing a leet-o-meter: The Equipment Potency Equivalence Number
  • 2 new games for your iPhone: Blackthorn 2 and Queen’s Quest
  • Some Diablo III promo merchandise was announced:
    • The Deckard Cain version of the Snuggy: X-Treme Gamer Blanket
    • Some terrifying Diablo III Body Pillows
    • Get Deckard Cain on your GPS!
• For more April Fool’s jokes, have a look at Gamespot’s article.
• Gamasutra’s, Leigh Alexander reflects on the latest RPG’s. A great read for older gamers and FF fan’s alike.
• Read The Big Freak’s response here.

I’m sure there is more, but that is all I have time for today. It’s time to head off for Easter Celebrations!

Happy Easter!

It was an interesting battle with Oblivion leading up until the last couple of days. It was won by Dragon Age: Origins in the last hour which proves that this game has probably done two things:

• Bring new gamers into the RPG genre
• Really impressed the existing RPG fans with a damn good game

Here are your best 5 RPG PC games ever voted by you (full results):

Next weeks poll:

CD Projeckt Red released an official statement today on their The Witcher site that a sequel to the game that sold over 1.5M copies world wide. Although I can’t find it on the website, Gamespot has claimed that the game will be gracing our shelves in early 2011.

Although the game engine is being built completely from scratch (and looks amazing I might add), The Witcher 2 storyline will be continuing directly on from The Witcher. With the change that everyone and everything looks a whole lot better. We should also be seeing smoother gameplay and better combat.

some ugly mugs beautifully rendered

From the horses mouth

“I am really glad that we can officially present what we’ve been working on for the past two-and-a-half years.” – said Adam Kiciński, CEO of CD Projekt RED studio. “We learned a lot during The Witcher’s development process, and we are using all of that knowledge to ensure the sequel is one of the best RPGs people have ever played. We’ve concentrated on improving the most successful parts of the Witcher, and I strongly believe that The Witcher 2 will be loved both by fans of the original and newcomers. We know that we aimed very high while producing The WItcher 1. Now we are aiming even higher with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.”

The Witcher 2 promises to build upon the considerable success of The Witcher and we can all remember how much that was to play (read reviews). More updates are slowly being released onto thewitcher.com and I will keep you updated as more news is given.

Watch the trailer here

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It’s  been out for around 3 weeks now and after much playing I feel that I can give this game a proper review. For simplicity I’ll refer to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as BFBC2. I’m not going to bore you with long paragraphs about gameplay and sound.

You can see from the video’s that it looks good. My PC (which is not state of the art) can run it on medium at 1920×1080 fine with no lag. Sound is fantastic. Nuff said. Let’s talk about the cool stuff.

Comparison to previous Battlefield games on PC

• While the max server size is only 32 players, the maps are designed so that 32 still feels like 64.
• Having scenery to hide behind that doesn’t disappear from a distance provides hundreds of sniping positions making the sniper an actually useful class.
• While there are general unlocks for your player, class specific unlocks can only be realised by playing that specific class. This makes it a bit rough at the beginning until you get some better weapons and things like a Med Kit, Ammo Kit and Defibrillator Paddles, but it also serves to toughen you up for whats to come.
• A new points system gives you points for just about any team action.

tanks provide an integral part of all Battlefield games

Let’s get hardcore!

BFBC2 features an all new mode called Hardcore. This mode disables your cross hair and HUD map making it harder for the players and giving it a more realistic feel. As a Medic you need to stay super alert to any of your team mates being killed as you will no longer be able to check for them on the mini map.

Losing the cross hair makes aiming with the 40mm GL a lot more difficult. Which is good as it prevents people from spamming them or using them excessively over their rifle.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Explosive power

Being able to take down the wall of a building that a sniper is hiding from comes in super handy. The 40mm Grenade Launcher and rocket launchers punch a nice hole in the side of buildings. If too much of the wall is destroyed, the building eventually collapses, killing anyone inside who isn’t quick enough on the keys.

Squad up

One of the best new features of BFBC2 is the ability to spawn on any person in your 4 man squad, rather than just a squad leader. This makes being in a squad crucial if you plan on your team winning the round.

A single squad, with a good balance of classes (Medic, 1-2 Assaults, 1-2 Engineers), can flank and rip through and enemies base wrecking devastation. With the Medic to revive any fallen team mates and the ability to respawn on a team mate if that fails, your squad can stay alive a long time.

If you try to be a solo hero like in Call of Duty… you will die… real fast.

An important Public Service Announcement from EA

Game modes

There are four game modes in Battlefield: Bad Company 2:

Conquest

The typical style of Battlefield game. Capture the flags, first teams tickets to reach zero loses. All conquest maps have 3 or 4 flags that are spaced out evenly between each others home bases.

Rush

This a completely new type of game for Battlefield. There are two teams, attackers and defenders. The attackers must attack and destroy two objectives in the defenders base. If the objectives are destroyed the defenders must move back to the next base where the process is repeated through 5 bases. The attackers goal is to destroy all objectives at all 5 bases before their tickets run out. The defenders have unlimited tickets and instead must simply prevent the attackers from progressing to win.

Once you get the rules down and learn to play with a squad this is a very fun game mode.

Squad Rush

Same as rush except there are only 8 players in the server. Just 1 squad for each team. You get a special pin if you win one of these rounds.

Squad Deathmatch

This is for all those players who are new to the Battlefield games and prefer lone wolf to playing in a team. 4 vs 4 vs 4 vs 4. Sticking with your squad has it’s benefits but can also get you killed as a larger group is more obvious. If you go lone wolf, keep moving around and always check your back. If you can find a squad that sticks together, hole up somewhere and pick off any lone wolfs on the other teams.

Conclusion:

While this game did not fail in including EA’s usual long list of problems it has proved itself as a great sequel to the Battlefield franchise. Plenty of variety is enabled through multiple game modes and dozens of guns and equipment. The customization level is beyond that of any other FPS online game. It also proves itself visually with a great engine and special effects. This is also a genuinely fun game that will provide you with 100′s of hours of entertainment. I give this game 8.5/10 for kicking serious butt. Criteria rating: 7/12

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is on sale at Amazon:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Advice and Tips

• Like I said before, be sure to squad up to stay alive.
• Throw a lot of ammo packs and med packs around. Not only will this give you a heap of points but it will greatly assist your team.
• If your team is already half filled with snipers, you don’t need another one.
• Keep moving unless sniping. Sniper rifles do a lot of damage and you can’t afford to get hit.
• Use the scenery at cover and flank around the side of your enemies base, even if your attack fails it will hopefully cause enough of a distraction to allow the rest of your team to move up.
• Rocks provide more stable cover than bushes… of course.
• If hiding inside a building, keep clear of the inside of walls. An RPG hitting the outside will result in your death.
• Spot all infantry, especially if you are a sniper and can’t make the shot. Spot, spot, spot.
• If you are in armour, hang back and support the infantry by picking off and spotting enemies. Moving in close to the objective will usually result in you taking several rockets up the ass.

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Instead of just my own views I want to gather what the best RPG on PC of all time is according to you. I’ll leave this up for 2-3 weeks to get as many votes as possible.

If your favourite game is not in the list, simply write it in the comments below and I’ll add it. I’m really looking forward to seeing the results!

Only one vote per person so choose carefully.

EDIT: Poll will expire on the 31/03/10