With the release of Battlefield Bad Company 2™ on March 2nd for PC the series returns to PC with what looks to be an excellent game and yes it will have Dedicated Ranked Servers that we will be renting.

There will be guaranteed access to the beta for anyone that pre-orders. The beta will begin on January 28th. You may be able to access the beta through FilePlanet but that has not been announced. Unlike some other pre orders this one actually comes with percs besides the beta access you will receive 6 unlocks on day one and you will be able to reserve your in game name (first come first serve). The latest news on the beta is that is will include one map. Pre-order through Steam, EAs or GameStops web site. These sites will have it available as a download and the game will be available on the day it is released as well as the beta.

More About the Game

Battlefield: Bad Company 2™ brings the award-winning Battlefield game play to the forefront of PC gaming with best-in-class vehicular combat and unexpected "Battlefield moments." New vehicles like the ATV and a transport helicopter allow for all-new multiplayer tactics on the Battlefield. With the Frostbite-enabled Destruction 2.0 system, you can take down entire buildings and create your own fire points by blasting holes through cover. You can also compete in four-player teams in two squad-only game modes, fighting together to unlock exclusive awards and achievements. Battles are set across expansive maps, each with a different tactical focus. The game also sees the return of the B Company squad in a more mature single-player campaign.

• Squad Up: Compete as the lone wolf or together in 4-man squads with up to 32 players and multiple game modes including the all new Squad Rush!
• Defining Online Warfare: Become the master of land, sea and air on vast battlefields designed for wide open warfare on Ranked Servers.
• Intense Solo Campaign: Join Bad Company in a fight through deadly jungles, desert cities and vast arctic terrain on a mission to defuse WWIII.
• Tactical Destruction: Create new firing points, chip away enemy cover, and bring down entire buildings full of enemy combatants

• Huge Multiplayer maps
  • Each with a different Tactical and game play focus and set across a variety of environments
• Ultimate Online Vehicle warfare
  • 15 land, sea and air vehicles, each with a Tactical advantage during play. Race into action with the ATV or rain death from above in the UH-60 transport helicopter with its 2 side mounted rail guns.
• Intense Singe Player
  • From dense jungles to snow-torn mountains, the intense single player campaign follows a more experience and mature ''B'' Company on a daring new mission in an attempt to stave off a new World War.
• All-New Squad Play
  • Team up with 3 other players and fight together to unlock special awards and achievements in 2 squad-specific game modes.
• Destruction 2.0
  • Take down entire buildings, create fire-points in cover or blow it up entirely! In Battlefield Bad Company 2™ there will be no place to hide!

We''re excited to announce the availability of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), a prerelease version of the next-generation operating system from Microsoft. Thanks to everyone who participated in the Beta testing period; your feedback was invaluable in helping the Microsoft engineering team make Windows 7 the best Microsoft operating system to date.

Test-drive Windows 7 RC today. Then show your colleagues and customers how Windows 7 can improve management, security, reliability, and performance.

Partners: If you have a subscription to MSDN or TechNet, you can download Windows 7 RC now. Otherwise, you can download Windows 7 RC starting May 5, 2009.

Participate in the Windows 7 Forum: Share your experiences and learn what other partners and IT professionals are saying about Windows 7.

This is almost as good as Brett Favre coming out of retirement again and playing for the packers. Just think of all the time you could save getting your coffee without having to go to the coffee house and it''s still hot. They even have a beta group for those that want to test it out. You can check it out and signup here.

In response, McDonalds has announced that they''re working on a McNugget dispenser that can be put in place of the DVD drive called the "iButtnugget".

Can you say over reacted? I can see the guys point that he needs some sleep but this is a tad excessive. I wonder if he checked the receipt to see how much she paid for it and went into a rage? All he had to do was take it back or mash it up into itty bitty PS3 meatballs but NOOOOO, the gaming industry takes another black eye for someone''s rage issues. I can already see the parents reaction. Kids will be banned from playing this game and they won''t get that PS3 they wanted for Christmas (and that''s a bad thing???). There will be congressional hearings about the rating system on video games. Uncle Creepy will play his version of "7 mins in heaven" with me except there''ll be alot more screaming. In short, the apocalypse.

The topper on the cake for this little goat rodeo we call a family is that the man was sentenced to life in prison today. For those you having trouble with remembering your own birthday, today is April Fool''s day. The interwebs is abuzz with deciding whether this is a hoax or not. I''ll let you decide.

On the plus side, maybe this could increase the KOF membership since it means that there will be less consoles and more PC gaming. At least until someone decides to go postal on their Chihuahua for turning their WoW character into a gay troll.

And so we come to Team Fortress2. If you''ve played TF2, you know that Valve has created a semi-amusing game that features different classes based on the original TF but the way that Valve set it apart from other games is the cartoonish style of play. Enter "Battlefield: Heroes" from EA Games. For those of you that are unaware, this game is a cartoon. A literal cartoon. Once again, EA lacks all originality and decides that they want in on the Valve action. So they take the Battlefield series and tack on one more version for everyone to cough up their furball.

Here''s a suggestion EA, since you can''t seem to come up with any new games, I''ll help you. Let''s try Battlefield: Civil War. When you enter the game, you start as a private entering basic training. Out comes the Drill Sergeant who sounds like the one from the movie Full Metal Jacket. He starts yelling in your face with things like "You wanna make Abraham Lincoln your biotch DON''T YOU!?!?" and "The thought of beating Ulysses S Grant into submission sexually excites you DOESN''T IT?!?!" Ok, maybe I didn''t think that idea all the way through. Either way, it has more originality than EA.

If you wanna see this mockery of a game and actually play it, the beta has been reopened for your fornication. This should be about as much fun as having a laser pointed at your cornea''s while flying a 747.

Yes, EA is not happy taking your money just one time. They want more and in a down economy, they''re looking for every reason to rob you blind. Don''t think of it as an invasion of your wallet but more like your contribution to feed the starving programmers at DICE and EA. Yes, for mere dollars a day, you too can sponsor a keyboard jockey. They''ll even send you an autographed picture of your byte banger slaving away with fly paper over his cube and pictures of his family he hasn''t seen in months. He''ll send you weekly email updates about his upcoming deadlines and how there''s only one bullet left after he''s played a few rounds of Russian roulette. If the email''s stop coming, you know he won!

Once again, I descend into the 7th circle of hell in search of the proper analogy but returning to reality, EA is planning to release their new frosted sugar-coated expansion pack in March to cheering crowds. This will include 3 new maps; Nightfire, Station, and Knee Deep. It also includes a map for the Nazi Zombie coop-mode called Verruckt (which is German for "EA knows where you keep your wallet"). Also, keep in mind that this is not to be confused with the new 1.2 patch that was released a couple days ago. The patch is designed to fix bugs and the DLC is designed to create more bugs.

I''d almost be excited except that I feel like I''m not getting a reach-around with this DLC.

It seems that Dice has been lacking in originality and decided to go with something guaranteed to bring in a few more bucks. Why is it whenever we go into a recession, no one wants to bet the farm?? Everyone returns to their bread-n-butter. But I digest, since the original game was Battlefield 1942, they''ve decided to increment one year and move to Battlefield 1943. Personally, I''m still waiting for Battlefield 1862 (Civil War biotch)! IGN has released an article with a couple videos showing game play where you return to wake island. Of course, the graphics are better but the story line seems abit worn out. Seriously, they can''t spend the money to at least come up with a better title?? Here''s a few for ya free of charge: "Battlefield Bukaki" (you''ll take a bath on this one) or "Battlefield Consolitis" (you can thank Pain for that one, ya hacka).

Don''t get my wrong. I loved the original 1942. It was the shiite! It redefined 1st person gaming and there were many that tried to copy it but ended up utterly blowing goats! It just seems like their re-spinning the same old game. Why not call it COD:WaW2? Or better yet, let''s move onto something completely original like MS paint: 1992? I could taunt you with things like "You draw circles like a BIOTCH!! They look more like ovals!!" Ok, maybe that''s too far but you get the point. On the plus side, they are using an updated graphics engine and distributing this by download only. Yes, you read that right. They''ll only make the game available by download. Hope you have a big hard drive cause this doesn''t come with a happy ending (at least not for free).

So does this mean they''re gonna do a Bf1944 and Bf1945? Check out the link for the full story and video.

I feel like AMD/ATI has become the Burger King of the computing industry. They''re second to Intel (McDonalds) and they''re employees don''t give a damn about their work. After reading through the release notes, I''ve reached the conclusion that AMD is trying to improve their drivers but they''re not putting alot of effort into it. Which means that they don''t have enough money or they really don''t care about. Either way, you''re gonna need some KY to get through this install.

Of the more notable additions, they added crossfire support to auto detect when there are multiple cards and they are working in tandem to completely screw up your system. This way, it''ll let you know when you''re completely fubar and it''ll give you a message telling you that your bank account has been emptied. ATI has also added another worthless feature called Hydravision but the difference is that it now works with XP. Note to self: send a thank you card to AMD/ATI for adding Hydravision. The only redeeming quality to this driver is that it increased the performance of your FPS while playing FarCry2. A whopping 3 to 10% increase (slower on non-AMD systems).

They need to print a warning on the side of the box that says "Ribbed for AMD''s pleasure". Warning: the thermal paste included with the card is not for the heatsink.

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you might want to reconsider that line of work because EA has decided that if you get banned from their forums, they will ban you from ALL of the games that you''ve purchased from them. We''re not talking about just 1 game here like C&C or the ill fated Crysis. We''re talking every game that you ever purchased from EA. They are developing a new website with forums that ties your forum name to your account name. So if you get banned from the forums, you might as well bend over and kiss your virtual ass goodbye.

This was posted by one of the EA forum admins:

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you’d actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It’s all one in the same, so I strongly [recommend] people play nice and act mature.

There are a couple ways around this though. First (and most obvious), don''t use the EA forums. If you really like posting pics of your grandma taking a gangsta beat down, find a clan like krustyoldfarts and use their forums to virtually abuse others into crying like a little girl (My uncle creepy does it all the time pretending to be a 14yr old girl). Second, purchase another copy of the game. Granted, not everyone has the spare dolares to do this but it is one way to keep playing if you find yourself on the receiving end of the ban-hammer. I''m sure that this move will fuel the fire that has been rage against the EA machine.

So EA is saying, they have your number or in this case CD key and they''re not afraid to ban it. How ya like them apples?

You may be wondering what brought this about. I was reading an article today about a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who was disbarred from practicing law. If you don''t know Jack, he''s a Florida lawyer who''s been a big opponent of violent video games. Apparently the court didn''t like his handling of court cases and stripped him of his profession. So this begged the question in my mind of when is a child too young? I''m not advocating for or against kids playing video games and especially violent ones. I do agree in the right to play what you want to play but what about protecting kids? It seems like an obvious question but when do we draw the line and say yes or no?

We''ve seen in recent court cases examples of kids acting out video games (i.e. Columbine, etc). Kids can do stupid things. There''s no denying it. They see something whether in a movie or a game and they think, "I can do that!!" Then they learn about the laws of physics and gravity or the law of consequences. Also, we could put this back on the parents. We could say that a parent should be monitoring their kid and making the decisions about whether they think they''re mature enough to realize it''s just fantasy. If you''ve ever studied psychology, you know that kids learn mainly from watching others do something. They study behavior and learn to mimic that behavior. So this brings us back to the question at hand, when is a child too young to play video games?

I''ve started a poll in our forums to ask this question and get everyone''s input. I value this not only as a father but also as one who is unsure of how much the government should be involved (warning labels, etc). Let me know what you think.