So, got the EA Battlefield 2142 demo on Monday and installed it. I managed to find a few minutes tonight to give it a go.

Run the demo, watch the cool video….”this is going to be awesome”.

“Create an account”, “ok, I suppose that’s reasonable.”

“contacting EA Master Server”

What the hell.

“contacting EA Master Server”

Dammit. Turn off anything using the internet.

“contacting EA Master Server”

I then turned to the web, having played 0 minutes of another wonderful EA product to find that there are two possible causes.

1. The servers are overloaded
2. The game can’t reach the internet through my network and ADSL router.

I don’t want to grace (1) with any sort of argument. EA is the biggest gaming company in the business, it has billions of dollars worth of hardware sitting around. I’d like to say that it is freakin’ unbelievable, but it is all too believable.

If (2) is true, then again I fail to be surprised. I think BF2 was released way too early, was too buggy and not a quality product. I predicted the same of 2142, and at the blimmin’ first screen the programming broke down.

My browser, email and hundreds of other programs (including BF2) manage to find the web, so there’s is no reason why this program shouldn’t.

All up, it doesn’t change anything. I wasn’t going to buy the game at launch and I’m still not.

EA, you employ some good people. Give them time and let them perform their jobs properly you tossers.

Update: Thanks to some of our commenters we have some information on the ongoing problems people are experiencing related to servers being taken offline for maintenance.  Browse down and read the comments for the full picture, but here’s the gist of it:

leo Says:
December 12th, 2006 at 11:56 pm e

Erm This is to prevent any confusion (needless posts) that may arise on Tuesdays relating to the EA Master Server.

Between:
9am and 11am GMT
4am and 6am East Coast USA
1am and 3am West Coast USA
5pm and 7pm Australia
EVERY Tuesday

***** What does this mean to me: The BF2142 gamer? *****

- Basically you can’t connect to BF2142 to play online games.
- If you’re on a server at the time that maintenance is scheduled then you will recieve a “Connection to EA Master Server lost” message.
- Any stats/awards gained in a round prior to the disconnect will be lost. You’ll have to go earn them again.

Extracted from (http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=52141)

Posted in Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Gaming | | 55 Comments »

The sad news is out (well actually it was quite a while ago) that Unreal Tournament 2007 is being delayed till 2007.

While that may not sound surprising, the community (and p&m) had been expecting it’s release in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Now they’re saying it it should arrive in the ‘first half’ of 2007. I don’t have a huge amount of experience with what Midway mean with their timeframes, but when New Zealand developer Sidhe Interactive says that, they mean at the end of the timeframe, not the beginning.

So what does that mean for my gaming over the next six to twelve months? Well, Battlefield 2142 is still said to be hitting pre-Christmas in the US. Game Planet is preselling it for NZ$89.95 for delivery on 15th November. I find this a little hard to believe.

So anyway, I guess Battlefield 2 still has a bit of play left in it.

Posted in Battlefield 2, Gaming, UT 2007 | | No Comments »

While my current gaming focus (and time) is spent on Battlefield 2, I find my affections wandering to UT 2007.

The fact is that during various UT 2004 LANs (and single player) I got a huge amount of enjoyment from the game. So needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to the new release. It’s scheduled to be released in the US at the end of the year. I don’t know how this translates to New Zealand, or how long it will take for the price to drop to a level I’m happy with, but we’ll just wait and see.

In the meantime, I think I need to catch up on a few of the great games I’ve missed over the last year or so, e.g. Halflife 2 et al. By the way, if anyone wants to loan me Call of Duty 2 (I think it’s legal to loan games) then I’d be keen to play through the single player.

Later.
Pete.

Posted in Battlefield 2, Gaming, Life's happenings, UT 2004, UT 2007 | | No Comments »