Don’t have it yet? Buy Now.

Interested in watching it in action? Videos available here.

Reception has been great! It’s got a 90% on GameRankings for both PC and Xbox 360.

FPS Gaming Community is working on bringing you guys a server!

Battlefield Bad Company™ 2 brings the spectacular Battlefield gameplay to the forefront of next-gen consoles and PC, featuring best-in-class vehicular combat set across a wide range of huge sandbox maps each with a different tactical focus. New vehicles like the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and the UH-60 transport helicopter allow for all-new multiplayer tactics in the warzone. Extensive fine-tuning ensures that this will be the most realistic vehicle combat experience to date. Tactical destruction is taken to new heights with the updated DICE Frostbite engine. Players can now take down entire buildings or create their own vantage points by blasting holes through cover, thereby delivering a unique dynamic experience in every match.

Players can also compete in 4-player teams in 2 exclusive squad-only game modes, fighting together to unlock exclusive team awards and achievements. Spawn on your squad to get straight into the action and use gadgets such as the tracer dart in conjunction with the RPG to devastating effect. Excellence in the battlefield is rewarded with an extensive range of pins, insignias and stars to unlock along with 50 dedicated ranks to achieve. Variety also extends into the range of customizable kits weapons and vehicles available. With 4 distinct character classes, dozens of weapons, several gadgets and specializations, players have over 15,000 kit variations to discover and master. Players will be able to fine-tune their preferred fighting style to give them the edge in combat.

All of these features combine to deliver spectacular and unpredictable action moments found nowhere else in a modern warfare experience. The game also sees the return of the “B” Company squad in a more mature and intense single player experience where the stakes are higher than ever.

So what to expect in Mass Effect 2? Hopefully the trailer will give you an idea about the storyline, but here’s some additional information:

In my opinion, the music is a bit “meh”, but I love what I’m seeing none-the-less.

NOTE: full of spoilers. Do not watch unless you’ve beat the game!

Enjoy the video.

I will admit that at first I was skeptical about Muramasa. While it won several awards from its stellar showing at the E3 Gaming Convention, I was unsure, as I am not generally a fan of beat-em-up action adventures. The genre is often cluttered, and leads to guilty-pleasure type games. Never have I been more pleasantly surprised.

Muramasa named for a famous (or at least it is if you are Japanese or have access to Wikipedia) Japanese sword-smith, whose ill-temperament supposedly became infused with his swords, making their wielders become murderers or commit suicide. In the game, there are often references to this, which may be confusing. Overall, the plot is rather muddled, though as most great ninja fighting movies and games, the plot is a thin excuse for amazing fight sequences, and is not necessary for the enjoyment of the game. It takes place in Feudal Japan (the Genroku era for history buffs), where the current shogun (Tokugawa Tsunayoshi)’s thirst for power has caused a struggle for the demon blades (those forged by the sword-smith Muramasa), and their inherent evilness (as explained above) has caused demons and spirits to invade the world. There are two characters, each with their own plot-line, though they do not coincide much. Still, the plot (with the possible exception of the time setting) is almost completely irrelevant in the face of the gameplay and graphics.

The gameplay is surprisingly complex for a two dimensional hack-and-slash type game. While there is the required combo making and some button-mashing, it is also extremely important to time things correctly, especially at the harder difficulty levels. It is extremely important to learn to parry, as you have very little health, and even a few hits will be lethal. It also involves a give and take in strategy and execution; If you choose to parry an attack, it will harm the integrity of your blade, and eventually it will snap. However, the mechanism that also allows you to do special and particularly powerful and unique attacks drains the integrity of the blade, so you must carefully balance offense and defense. Also, it incorporates an interesting technique of allowing you to make “free” powerful attacks; after your swords (you have 3 to 4 at a time) “charge” for a certain amount of time, you can “unsheathe” a sword to take advantage of the timing. The liquid flow of combat thanks to these different maneuvers makes for quite an interesting mix, as different enemies require vastly different play-styles. To make matters more interesting, instead of a standard leveling up sequence where you gain abilities, you get the power to forge new swords, each with unique abilities. This allows you to make a fight style that is truly specific to you, and plays to your preferences. Unfortunately, there are no unique wii-motion controls incorporated into the game, which is a shame, because the sword slashing motions that we learned to love from such games as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess could be what potentially made this game an all time must have. There is also, sadly, no great difference between the gameplay of the two main characters Kisuke and Momohime, which is another place that this game could truly shine. Still, even if the gameplay was awful (which it certainly was not), Muramasa: The Demon Blade could carry itself on the pure virtue of its artwork.

The artwork and graphics of Muramasa, are, as you have guessed by now, the greatest part of this already worthy game. All of the visuals in the game, even the backdrops, are treated with art quality of the same level of care as a a water color, and any one frame would be worthy of hanging on a wall. The backgrounds change dynamically; transferring you from the heart of the forest, to a grassy plain, and to the rooftops of a busy Japanese city at night before your eyes. Every aspect of a scene is shown, and it the attention to the details of every little sprite (”piece” of animation) of the game is simply breathtaking. One could just stare at the game for hours, such is the power of its artwork. If you cannot play this game, I highly recommend looking up videos of it (just not youtube, those are way too low quality to do it justice) online, just to see the awe inspiring quality of the game’s artwork.

The sound production of the game is good, with well orchestrated background music. The battle sounds are a bit repetitive, but that is easily forgivable. It is a bit of shame that we cannot undersand the dialogue (it is in Japanese) because an enormous amount of care was put into making it; many game makers are content with simply putting text (for us English speakers, there are subtitles), or using some repetitive noise that never changes regardless of what a character is saying.

Overall, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a game that, should you not want to buy it, you should do whatever is in your power to get a look at some video-footage from the game. It overcomes what few setbacks that it has (there are not many) to give a full-throttled experience, coupled with artwork worthy of being hung in a museum.This game is truly a work of art.

Overall: Buy this game

Controllertower.com

1. You Xbox will red ring at 1:00 AM on the day that [insert game you've been waiting 5 years for here] releases. It is a holiday weekend and all the shops are closed.
2. By the time you are half-way decent at a game, the sequel will have been released.
3. The game you bought invariably costs less and comes out earlier for another platform.
4. As soon as you slide the credit card to buy a new game, you will find out that all your friends got it for the other platform.
5. You will have a power outage as soon as you load your brand new game into the console. You can now not get it out.
6. All of your friends got you the same game for your birthday; they also shredded their receipts.
7. If you spend more than 5 minutes thinking of a strategy, all your clan-mates will think its stupid.
8. If you try to install a mod, your game will break.
9. If you don’t install a mod, you won’t be able to play on any good servers.
10. The game you want to play when the internet goes out never has singleplayer.

For First Person Shooters:

1. The exact style that you like to use is considered Noob-tubing in that game you just bought.
2. The enemy sniper has his reflexes timed so that he will kill you the exact nanosecond before you press the fire button. Much swearing at the computer will ensue.
3. The enemy wave will respawn the second you sneak into the enemy base.
4. If you suck at a game, you are a noob. If you are good at a game, you are a hacker. Either way you will be kicked from the server.
5. You and your teammate will call in a recon at exactly the same time.
6. The minute you get behind enemy lines and are about to shoot them in the back, your friends will call in an airstrike on your head.
7. If you attack someone from behind, you will empty an entire clip before hitting them; they will then turn around and headshot you while you are reloading.
8. The sniper technique in the new game you just bought is completely different from the kind in the old game.
9. Everyone can pwn face with a [insert weapon here] except you.
10. If you are actually doing well at sniping, you are griefing and will be kicked.
11. If you are on fire today, you are probably the subject of a flamethrower, not a killstreak.
12. A pistol kills everyone unless you’re using it.
13. You will hit a lagspike the second you pull the pin on the grenade.
14. If its a choice between throwing a cooked grenade at your teammate or blowing it up in your hand, both will end up happening.
15. The one time your team gets your kit together and is actually using voicechat, an enemy is using and Eavesdropper perk.
16. The enemy is always a 10 year old; plan accordingly.
17. Just when you thought you’d heard every bad “your mom” “that’s what she said” or racially offensive joke in the world, you log into the server.
18. The day that you had a lousy time at work and need to blow off some steam is the day that you decided to log on to the family friendly server.
19. The admin ALWAYS gets the kill.
20. You are the only person on your team that can fly the airplane; you are also the only person that never gets to it.
21. If you waited five minutes for something to happen, then you’re going to botch it when the time comes.
22. You will only find out about the fact that somebody put a bunch of explosives under the car until AFTER you get in.
23. Lag spikes are never your friend.
24. 9 out of 10 times, the medic will press the grenade button instead of the defibrilators.
25. The person that beat you to the vehicle spawn will invariably run you over with said vehicle.

For RTSs:

1. Your 5 page long strategy will invariably be beaten by relentless zerging
2. If you make a mod map, no one will use it.
3. If you can’t use a certain race effectively, “random” will invariably give you that one.
4. The only person who has a strong attack and defense simultaneously is your enemy.
5. Your teammate is either a history buff or is 5 years old. Either way you are toast.
6. Once you meet all the needs of your citizens, you will find that the treasury is empty.
7. The enemy can tell 5 different command groups to do different things effectively and simultaneously.
8. If you try to multi-task, you will fail.
9. If you know where the enemy is, they know where you are.
10. The enemy will quit the second before you win. You will not get a win credit.

For fighting games:

1. The new combo you need to learn to pass the level can only be memorized by autistic kids.
2. You are not double jointed; therefore you will lose.
3. You will find your hours of regimen of memorizing and sequencing combos will be beaten by a button masher.
4. Pressing one button repeatedly is the most effective way to win.
5. If you win, it’s lucky, if you lose, it’s skill.

Platformers:

1. One milisecond before beating the level, you will walk off a cliff.
2. Right after executing a near impossible jump, you will be killed by a goomba.
3. You will soon find that that special colored platformer was special colored for a reason. Restart the level.
4. Fireballs are not your friend.
5. If it seems impossible, it is also necessary.

For RPGs:

1. Recite the mantra; bubble hearth buble hearth bubble hearth.
2. Your min-maxed mage will be killed by a headrolling warlock every time.
3. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. And deathcoil.
4. Your class will always be nerfed in the upcoming patch
5. The one time you skip the quest description is the same time that the description would legitimately help you.
6. Paladins are always ninjas: Technically they can wear cloth.
7. Your new armor will always be less cool than your inferior ones.
8. You can never have too much bag space.
9. Any attempts to play the auction house market will fail.
10. If you PUG, you will die.
11. Your macro scripts will never work, but will paralyze your character while he is slowly killed by a kobold.
12. You will run out of mana when the monster aggros.
13. Your good spells are always on cooldowns.
14. Your house cat will decide that the perfect time to tickle you with its tongue is during a boss fight.
15. If an enemy looks too powerful to fight, he is. Your party members will ignore your advice and pull aggro.

I might update this from time to time, as well as take suggestions.
- Controller Tower (controllertower.com

Post your comments below!

Launch date for Battlefield Bad Company 2 is March 2, 2010.

Gameplay in Bad Company 2 resembles that of Battlefield: Bad Company and takes place in the mountainous regions along the border of Russia among other places. Bad Company 2 will include locations in snowy mountains, dense jungles and also sandy deserts within both story mode and multiplayer mode. The game allows players to play through missions using any tactic they choose. Like its predecessor, Bad Company 2 features destructible environments, however, more destruction is now possible; players can now completely destroy a building rather than just its walls. Bad Company 2 is the fourth Battlefield game to have blood in it.

Source: Wikipedia

I, for one, am really excited for this new Battlefield game! I hope the PC version of it is as clean and polished as the console versions no doubt will be. Anyone else planning to pick this one up in March?

For those who never had the chance to purchase Euro Force or Armored Fury Booster Packs, all their content is now included free in the 1.5 update.  Some of the new features and tweaks are listed below.