The open beta period for testing out Battlefield 2142 Update 1.50 is over, and the fruit of Digital Illusions' labor is ready for plucking. The latest build to Update 1.50 has been tendered as a Final revision, and players will have to patch their games in order to play the new community-contributed maps, Wake Island 2142 and Operation Shingle. But there are other features you've probably been dying to have since the release of 2142, so check the full story to see if your hopes have come true.

A new map and technical adjustments populate the new update for the futuristic Battlefield 2142, thanks much to numerous feedback from the beta-testers of Highway Tampa. Patching up your copy of DICE's Battlefield 2142 should level it out at version 1.4 and enable access to servers running 1.4 and packed with the brand new map.

Intel and EA's work has now paid off well, and players would do well to ready their download pipes for another hefty download. This patch sits at around 390 MB. Patch changes and new features follow at the full article.

Electronic Arts has finally made good on one of its promises as it announced that four EA titles are now available for Mac users to play and enjoy. EA's offering includes the following four titles:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Need for Speed: Carbon
• Battlefield 2142
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

The four titles listed above are the first games ever published by the company for Mac OS X. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 and Madden NFL 08 are also being readied for release sometime in the next two months.

Here's hoping that this trend continues and that more and more developers and publishers give Mac gamers some much-needed love. All of these games are now available for purchase at the Apple Store.

Soon, Apple fans waiting for months on end to see big PC games get ported to their platform will be a thing of the past. Electronic Arts, the world's biggest game publisher is cooperating hand in hand with Apple to make porting that much faster.

EA COO Bing Gordon was with Apple CEO Steve Jobs as the two announced this exciting development at the Worldwide Developer's Conference hosted by Apple in San Francisco.  Big EA game franchises Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be the first to ship on the Mac OS X platform followed by Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

To make the porting process easier, an engine called Cider developed by TransGames will be put into use. This will cut the development time significantly and keep Apple units in stride with their Windows counterparts.

TransGaming CEO Vikas Gupta says "traditionally Mac users had to wait to play the latest blockbuster games. "We're thrilled that TransGaming's Cider engine will dramatically decrease the time it will take to bring EA's hit portfolio of games to a thirsty Mac market."

After releasing their PR Army to tell us all about the release of the Northern Strike booster pack, Electronic Arts has now unleashed some Northern Strike screens and its packshot - just so you guys could have a general idea of what you're gonna get.

As you already know, the booster pack features three new maps - Liberation of Leipzig, Bridge at Remagen, and Port Bavaria. There are also two new vehicles types waiting for you - the PAC's hovering light IFV Hachimoto and the EU's heavily armed and troop-friendly IFV Goliath.

Now onto the screens and packshot.

More screens and the packshot after the jump!

Electronic Arts has just let loose their PR army to tell the gaming world that the Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike booster pack is now available for download.

Emphasizing close-quarters combat, Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike drops gamers deep into a desperate conflict for control of Earth’s last scraps of inhabitable land following the onset of a cataclysmic new ice age.

The booster pack features three new maps - Port Bavaria, Bridge at Remagen and Liberation of Leipzig - as well as two new vehicle types: the EU's heavily armed IFV Goliath and the PAC's hovering light IFV Hachimoto.

"This is the additional content that Battlefield 2142 fans have been asking for," said Kristoffer Bergqvist, the booster pack's producer. "We’ve added deep new maps, weapons and vehicles to keep the action fresh and exciting on the Battlefield for months to come."

We're sure a lot of you guys were ecstatic when you stumbled upon those leaked client files of the upcoming booster pack for Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike circulating the internet.

But just when you think you've just hit the jackpot with the leaked files, news like this comes out about the measures that EA is taking to ensure that the leakage stops NOW. ClanDB reports of Branzone's dibs on EA finding out about the whole thing. Here's Branzone's statement about the whole fiasco:

It has come to our attention that the Northern Strike Client files have been leaked! Please do not put the Northern Strike maps into rotation until the release date! EA will begin blacklisting all IP's that they find running the Northern Strike maps before the release date!

Branzone is now urging users to remove illegally acquired Northern Strike maps from their server to avoid problems. As mentioned above, those who are caught using them will have blacklisted IPs and you wouldn't want that now, would you?

 

Here's yet another video of Battlefield 2412: Northern Strike from DICE. While you've already seen a couple of them, it doesn't hurt in the least bit to see some more. In fact, it just might do you a whole lot of good, you know, picking up a tip or two from them.

Anyhow, game's set to be released in just a little under two weeks from now. So here's hoping you guys are definitely ready to blast 'em enemies away. And you better, unless you want to be the one blasted. So check out the freezin' action with them mean machines. Oh, and don't take out the shovel just yet.

Download: Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike trailer

Ahah! Straight from Electronic Arts' Battlefield 2142 site, we have found that they have scheduled an all-weekend online ranked event.  The event will feature all unlocked weapons (yes all of them) so that players that haven't had the chance to try out or dreamed of trying out the unlockable weapons in-game can preview them.

The unlockables will be available during the course of four days. Count them: from this Friday to midnight (PST) of Monday, EA will be granting each unlockable to every player who logged in and are playing during the period.

The grants will come one-by-one, progressively, as players continue to battle each other in the epic battle of the European Union and the Pan Asian Coalition.

So what are you waiting for? Log in now!

 

Ice-age FPS-meets-strategy game, Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike became an achievement to both Digital Illusions Computer Entertainment and Electronic Arts after a successful Battlefield 2142 installment. Firing Squad has Kristoffer Bergqvist, the producer behind the Northern Strike booster pack, to look back on BF2142 and foretell the path the title will take.

Despite critics pointing out that BF2142 was perfectly Battlefield 2 with a futuristic, "cold war" apocalypse setting, DICE and EA wanted to differentiate the two games from each other. Bergqvist believes that they hit that goal, he being more inclined to play BF2142 despite also loving BF2.

Infantry was sorely lacking in the Battlefield series, often being stomped on by the many vehicles available in the games. The plan for Northern Strike was to allow the infantry specific advantages, highlighting scenarios where infantry could easily traverse through. Vehicles on the other hand, would have to pass through set paths, creating opportunities for soldiers to ambush convoys.

With three new maps placed in gorgeous, icy urban ruins and two new vehicles, the Northern Strike expansion highlights a development to the Pan Asian Coalition and European Union's conflict around habitable territories. This time around, the PAC take advantage of the EU's strategic reinforcements to the south and strike the EU from the north - the Alps.

The game will sport ten unlockable things in the game, including a weapon that will be useful in weeding out hiding places for snipers.