Kind of a slow news week so don't expect anything earth
shattering...
If you're a fan of EA/Dice's Battlefield 3 and got online
this week then you probably experienced some very noticeable lag across all the
servers. The issue was intermittent but
was serious enough to knock some players off of game servers. I experienced this myself on Thursday night
ending up in a crash to desktop. My
stats weren't updated till the next day.
Today I was greeted with this popup from my Origin client...
It says that some players are having issues with
connectivity to Origin but the problem is being addressed. Other than that popup there's been no
official statement on this week's server issues as of this recording.
In other Battlefield news, BF3 close quarters DLC is now
available for purchase on Origin for 14.99.
If you're a fan of the double experience points weekends that EA's been
running for the past month you're going to love the Double XP event next week
from July 2 to July 8. Premium members
get a full week of Double XP, everyone else gets the perk from the 2nd to
the 4th.
On a personal note, I've been playing BF3 Deathmatch maps as
support recently and it offered me a unique opportunity to compare and contrast
between BF3 and MW3. In short, it was a
much more enjoyable experience. Unlike
MW3 I was able to do more than provide a moving target. Since most of the online multiplayer in Call
of Duty is nothing more than variations on the deathmatch theme I don't think
I'm out of line to say Infinity Ward really needs to get its multiplayer act together
.
Enjoy!
If you're into Mass Effect 3, EA has released a new package
called the N7 Digital Deluxe edition for $79.99 which gives you most of the
offerings of the Collectors Edition minus the Male and Female figurines. It's basically the same deal that the Diablo
3 collector's edition was. There is a
boxed collectors edition that's available from stores like Amazon and Best Buy
that includes the Sheperd figurines in addition to the digital deluxe edition's
offerings.
From the Origin Store page...
• 70-page
digital art book featuring hundreds of unique and gorgeous illustrations from
the BioWare development team.
• Limited
edition digital Mass Effect comic by Dark Horse Comics, complete with unique
cover artwork.
• Exclusive
4x6 lithographic digital print featuring a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork.
A full
collection of in-game content:
• N7 Arsenal
Pack – Bring the firepower with the N7 Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, SMG, and Pistol.
• Access to
an additional downloadable mission and character
• Mechdog
Companion – A faithful sidekick to keep you company on board the Normandy.
• Squadmate
Alternate Outfit Pack – New appearances for your favorite squad members.
• N7 Hoodie
– For Commander Shepard’s casual days on board the Normandy.
• Relive all
the greatest moments of Mass Effect 3 with the digital soundtrack.
• Display
your initiation in the N7 ranks with a collection of forum and social badges,
avatars, and perks.
Check it out here....
In hardware news Both ASUS and Sapphire have announced a new
AMD/ATI 7970 card. Both are overclocked
with 3 GB of memory and extra cooling and power circuit upgrades. The ASUS card is due for release in the third
quarter of this year while the Sapphire card is available for 479.99. Clock speeds for the ASUS card haven't been
released for their card but the Sapphire offering comes in at 1310 MHz. Sapphire's card is a dual slot design while
ASUS requires 3 slots much like it's CU2 line.
Both cards will require one 6 and one 8 pin PCI-E power
connection.
ASUS(Matrix HD 7970) http://rog.asus.com/114502012/graphics-cards-2/preview-rog-matrix-hd-7970/
Sapphire (7970 (Dual X cooling)OC 3GB) http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1962/16/
In other AMD news a new AMD 12.6 catalyst beta driver is
available. There's also a 12.7 CAP
(application profile update) Interesting
to note that a fix for COD'WAW is in the 12.7 CAP. The 12.6 beta driver has a tweak for COD Modern Warfare.
In any case I'm still confused about AMD/ATI's driver
releases. I thought dropping the monthly
releases was supposed to simplify things....
Something's up when you have to tweak drivers for such an
old game. How can there be issues with a
game that uses a five year old engine?
Finally Star Trek online is having a sale on ships. They're offering 20% off till July 2nd. That's an ok deal but since most ships cost
multiples of the Cryptic points you buy it's going to leave you with some
strange leftovers in your Cryptic account.
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