As a die hard FPS gamer and a true fan to the Battlefield series, I can proudly say I have played every single version of this series. I have even hit up a few of the mods. Up until recently, my friends and I took part in the still-packed-multiplayer community of Battlefield 2 (2005), the modern adaptation of the original multiplayer masterpiece: Battlefield 1942 (2002).

Moving away from the standard PC gaming community, DI partnered with EA and created a whole new area of the Battlefield series solely for console gamers called, Battlefield: Bad Company. Straying from their norm even further, DI even came up with a somewhat decent storyline for single player campaign mode as opposed to no campaign mode at all. Naturally, many PC gamers were upset, but that didn’t stop me from playing it.

Anyway, DI announced the sequel to there series, Dubbed Battlefield Bad Company 2, and at the end of January, the PC beta was opened to anyone who pre-orderd. Oh yes, PC. DI must have listened to the cries of the true gamers because this game is now at the mercy of PC gamers as well as those dubious modders (make us proud!).

For those of you who haven’t played the previous Bad Company, I need to mention something that was supposed to make the game and set it apart from the rest, and which was also partly why many PC gamers were upset that it was console only. DI developed a new game engine that allowed the somewhat complete destruction of buildings. I’m talking – your in a building protecting an objective and a tank blows a hole through the wall you were standing against – yeah, it was pretty awesome. However, the destruction was limited, as you couldn’t completely knock down a building on top of your enemies; Until now.

Let me first state that what I have played so far of Bad Company 2 is a beta. This means that the game is not finished and has a lot of glitches and problems. That said, the destructive power of this game is still impressive. Where DI and EA missed out previously, they covered here. I have experienced first hand the sensations of an entire building crumbling to the ground around me and on my head ending my life. I have even flipped my 4X4 over by accidentally driving through a crater on the ground from mortar strikes while simultaneously dodging trees that are being sawed down by .50 cal machine guns. Needless to say, you get a pretty decent feel of being in a very active battlefield, as the destruction will make you thing twice about taking cover from an enemy tank behind a flimsy brick wall.

The graphics look pretty decent as well. Not amazing, but decent. It’s clearly a port from the console version. Although I can’t expect an entire world to be destructible and look amazing, DI truly tried to do both, and what they lacked in graphics they made up in other areas, like sound effects. Full surround sound capable, giving anyone with a 5.1 channel surround system a slight advantage when someone tries to sneak up behind you, and sound effects that will make you swear that you are standing on the battlefield.

Despite being a graphics junky, I know looks are not everything in the gaming world. Gameplay is a major part of making a good game, probably even the majority of it. Before I get into this I must again stress the fact that this is still a beta, so hopefully many of these things will be fixed.

That said, Bad Company 2 feels ported. It feels like DI took the console version of the game and went, “Lets make this for PC!” last minute. Hence the PS3 Beta being way before the PC beta. When I say it feels ported, I mean it feels sluggish. As a PC gamer, the advantages of having a mouse over a joystick when aiming are limitless in comparison to a joystick and controller. When ported from console to PC, the control mapping can cause some weird smoothing issues that despite playing with a mouse, you feel restrained like playing with a joystick on a controller. Not the end of the world, but not appealing either.

I may just be nit picking, but some things should have been looked over control wise when moving to PC. For example, I don’t care what FPS you are playing, there should always be a toggle for crouch. I do not want to have to hold down the “shift” key, aim down my sites/scope and try to maneuver. It should be click to crouch, click to stand up. Just another feature ported from the console version which shouldn’t have been.

Now this last control issue is a big issue for me. I love to snipe, and sniping is all about cover. For some reason, when DI developed the Bad Company games, they removed the prone (laying down) stance from the game. Something that had a huge effect on gameplay in Battlefield 2. Now add in the fact that you have to hold down the crouch button to stay crouched and you can see my frustration.

Other then some control issues due to an obvious port from the console adaptation, Bad Company 2 is pretty decent, even in beta. Weapons are mostly fairly balanced; Dice has even mastered bullet physics. Meaning, when sniping from really far away you’ll need to aim higher as gravity causes the bullet to drop. Ever since Battlefield 2 I had been waiting for a game that had BF2’s gameplay and Bad Company’s destruction, and although Bad Company 2 is not quite there yet, I don’t think DI and EA are too far from a game that is capable of such abilities.

Who know, maybe, if we’re lucky, Battlefield 3 will do just this… if it ever comes out that is.

Look for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 by Digital Illusions and EA Games, In stores on March 2nd 2010.

Extensions in Chrome are pretty nifty. They offer a one-click installation method and the browser doesn’t even need to be restarted for the changed to take place (are you taking notes Mozilla?). But this is nothing OS X and Linux users should be jealous of… since they got extensions back in December.

Something they should be jealous about is the bookmark sync feature. This new ability lets Chrome users sync their bookmarks with their Google account and maintain the same bookmarks across different computers. Sounds familiar? delicious.com (formally http://del.icio.us) has offered the same service for a few years now – but with the inconvenience of having to log into a web-based service to add and access your favorites. Google has simplified that by auto-magically syncing the bookmarks to your Google Docs account.

At the moment, the only one-up that poor Delicious.com still has is that you can share these links with others. While theoretically you could simply share the “Google Chrome” folder that gets created in your Google Docs file… Google has disabled the ’share folder’ feature for it. But it’s only a matter of time before Google deems Delicious.com as useless and no longer necessary.

Sometimes I get a little frightened when I think of all the technology the military has at their fingertips. The technology we know about (Predators) and the technology we don’t (Ion Cannons).

Then I remember: It’s the military. Same guys who do crap like this.

Recently the military did something that most people today know how to do even, if they don’t understand why.

Ever turn your WiFi router on were able to see all your neighbors signals, and then you noticed one was unencrypted and you were like, “hmm, free Internet”? Well that is what a bunch of Iraqi Insurgents did recently. Although slightly more complicated, and using $26 dollar piece of software, these insurgents were able to tap into a Predator Drone’s video feed.

For those of you who don’t know what a Predator drone is, it’s an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), used for reconnaissance (recon) and some attack missions. It’s flown remotely via a computer screen and a joystick, sort of like playing a multi-million dollar flight simulator, but if you crash, you get fired.

Well to access the UAV’s video feed, the military uses an unencrypted wireless signal. Yup! no password. So there really wasn’t any hacking involved. Although little details were revealed, I’m guessing the software the insurgents used probably only searched for the frequency the signal was being sent across.

My guess is the military’s still using 802.11 a/b. Score one for the Red White and Blue.

Here’s the full article from the Wall Street Journal. Enjoy.

Just so you know, I realize that this was done by the US Air Force, but it is still a branch of the military and I use that term in a general sense to get my point across. Enjoy.

About two months back I was introduced to a new travel website called Bing Travel (http://www.bing.com/travel). Bing is Microsoft’s third iteration of what used to be MSN Search … Errr I mean Live Search. When I first visited the Bing travel website I assumed that there wouldn’t be anything incredibly unique that would help distinguish Bing Travel from competitors such as Kayak. However, I still decided to give it a chance and to my surprise it was a lot more than I expected. Not only when I searched for a flight did it find me the best available rate, but it also gave me the answer to the question I’ve never had the answer to. Bing gave me a 7-day Price predictor for the current flight, whether it thought the price was going to go up or down,how confident it was in this price change, and finally a recommendation as to whether I should buy or wait for a cheaper price.

Working in the IT industry, I was curious as to how exactly Bing is able to do this. According to the Bing website, they make this prediction by data mining more than 175 billion historical airfare observations which then allows them to provide a recommendation and confidence interval based on the data.

Pretty cool stuff, and definitely something that Microsoft is pioneering in the travel industry. It will be interesting to see how the competition expands and improves upon this concept in the months and years to come to give customers even more usable information.
Link: http://www.bing.com/travel

Click the  link to download the new version.

Oh, and keep reading for a full list of changes + screenshots.

Version 2.1 Change Log:

- Lists (create, edit, manage, and more)
- Retweet
- Geotagging
- Report Spam (via new API)
- Tweet stream “gap” detection
- What the Trend
- UI tweaks
- Set history=1 for j.mp
- Definitive quoting syntax
- Handle “@user/list” links
- New video options: Posterous, Mobypicture, Vid.ly
- Handle custom protocol schemes in embedded browser
- User Manual
- Google Mobilizer
- Custom Mobilizer
- Overlapr service
- Post ‘message’ parameter through custom API endpoints
- URL encode data sent to custom URL shortener
- Refactor Settings
- Improved accessibility
- Disable pinstripes option
- Disable “Mark as Read” when no unread
- Generated VCards now link to https
- Improved errors on sending
- Option to disable browser rotation
- Call from linked address book screens
- Improved iTunes Store links
- New protocol handlers (see developer.atebits.com for more)
- Hook for easier custom URL endpoint installation
- Image compression options
- Fix multiple browser popups
- Fix tweetie:/// style handlers
- Fix upside-down browser and image viewer
- Fix rare crash translating tweets
- Fix saved state bugs
- Fix rare conversation threading hang
- Fix TextExpander integration
- Fix problem reposting outgoing tweets
- Fix botched geotag pins
- Fix Japanese posting bug
- Fix Email conversation

And now some pictures:

November 10th marked the release of one of this years most anticipated games yet. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. And the question on the majority of gamers’ minds is, “Will Modern Warfare 2 live up to the hype, or drown in its shortcomings?”

A few weeks prior to its release Infinity Ward, the development studio behind the Call of Duty (CoD) franchise, raised concerns about Infinity Ward’’s lack of perceived commitment to the PC platform. Posted on a fans podcast was information regarding changes to the multi-player aspect for PC gamers, but I’ll get into the details about the changes later. For now, lets just say it was enough to start a forum where 200,000+ PC gamers stated their intention to boycott the game. Needless to say, as an avid PC gamer, I probably wouldn’t have thrown down 60 bucks for a game that disregards certain platforms if I hadn’t already pre-purchased it, but maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.

Despite changes made to the multi-player aspect of the PC game, I knew that I would still want to play the single-player. As epic as the first Modern Warfare was in terms of the multi-player experience, I was extremely excited to see where this one took the single-player story line and to see if Modern Warfare 2 could live up to expectations set by its predecessor.

Story: The first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was well within the realm of possibility. Nuke goes off in unnamed middle eastern country, and the United Nations (UN) dives in to track down who did what. Although not as realistic, the second installment to the MW franchise brings the story to a new level. Taking place immediately after the first game, you play as mainly two characters. Sergeant Gary “Roach” Sanderson, a member of an elite, multinational commando unit known as Task Force 141, and Private James Ramirez, a member of 1st Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment stationed in the United States; two perspectives of an effort to capture Zakhaev’s (ultra nationalist and main protagonist from MW1) right hand man, who will stop it nothing to get revenge and continue the rain of hell that was brought down in the previous game.

Much like the previous game, MW 2’s action spans well across the globe (and above it), taking place in familiar settings like the middle east but also exploring new areas such as the Virginian Suburbs, South America, and Snowy Russia.

Gameplay: The pace to this game MW2 is essentially MW overdosed on steroids. This game will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way through its surprisingly short 6 hours of gameplay. On top of pace, the artificial intelligence (AI) is much less repetitive than the first game. For example, players will find themselves attempting a variety of different methods to get the AI out from cover, while bots never appear to poke their head from behind cover in quite the same place as before. Some missions will have you running through crowded shacks with civilians running out, as you get shot from all directions, making it extremely hard to camp out in one spot and take out the AI until its safe to move.

The game also creates an atmosphere of urgency, so that even in slower paced missions, players will feel their adrenaline pumping. Whether you’re chasing down an arms dealer through the middle of South American streets, or you’re simply planting C4 to blow up a fueling station players will feel as if it was a real mission and their lives depended on its success.

Even more intriguing is how IW seamlessly immerses the gamer into the more cinematic action sequences. In one sequence you repel down a cliff stomach first, much like the repel sequence in the first Mission Impossible. Then your character proceeds to take out a guard by slitting his throat. The game’s camera actually zooms into the guard’s face, so that your screen is filled with his look of terror as his eyes roll back into his head and he collapses. There are many sequences like this throughout the entire game, where you’ll simply crap your pants at the incredibly well executed cut-scenes.

Since this game is incredibly fast paced and the AI is much smarter than its predecessor, most avid gamers will find even the Normal difficulty settings a challenge. Whether this is a good thing or not is completely up to you. I think the challenging difficulty adds replay value. Additionally, players who purchased MW2 off Steam will be able to track their stats and achievements even more so then the retail copy allows, which to me is icing on the cake of an incredibly well executed game.

Presentation: Although MW2 uses the same engine as MW, IW has tweaked the engine so that even players of the first game will find something eye catching. In the first MW, the lighting only looked good in a select few missions, almost as if they didn’t care about the others. This is not the case in the new MW. The lighting and effects are Jaw dropping, and yet they probably won’t push your graphics card to the limit on even the highest of settings.

You can also tell that IW took time to look into sound effects. Playing in 5.1 channel surround sound gives you an incredible advantage, and weapon sound effects are varied and more authentic than the original game.

The immersion factor as mentioned before is absolutely stunning. You can tell that many sequences were carefully laid out to encourage the player to “take in” the moment. The maps are more open, authentic, and remove the linear feel from the first game. In fact, maps look so good, you may have trouble figuring out which way to go in some situations.

Multi-Player: As stated above, this is a very touchy subject for many PC gamers. Back in late October, IW casually stated on a fan-site’s podcast that they would no longer be supporting dedicated servers. Instead, a closed system that uses a P2P connection method would be implemented, similar to how many games work on Xbox Live. For PC gamers, who are used to playing on their favorite dedicated server much like a patron visits their favorite bar, this revelation was startling. Aspects of PC gaming that have been taken for granted, such as the active modding community that provides custom maps, custom games, and custom skins would be barred from changing the game in any way. Which, according to IW, is how they will keep the game how they intended it to be.

IW also mentioned, but it seems to be untrue, that the servers would be limited to max 18 players or 9 v 9. However after playing, it seems as though IW re-thought this decision (or I was mistaken), using 18 v 18 is the biggest server size for PC gamers.

Changes aside, from a stability point of view, the multi-player works, and very well I might add. Despite having to wait for the server to reconnect when the host drops out of the game, and having servers with slightly less people, the multi-player is just as engrossing as the first.For those on the fence, or just generally pissed off at IW’s choices, give the game a chance and I’m sure you will be playing until you realized you forgot to go to work/class. With the incredible amount of weapons to unlock, new perks, new kill streak reward, a XP point system and grenade physics that will make you giggle with joy, I would be amazed if you’re not spending countless hours of your life trying to unlock the urban camo for your sniper rifle.

Overall: If the single-player experience was the only thing that sold you on MW2, you will not only be in for a treat there, but once you bring up the nerve to actually try the multi-player, I think many of you will be pleasantly surprised.

If I had to describe this game in one word, it would be EPIC, and yes, all in caps. For those of you saying its the same as the last MW, or you still refuse to buy it for the multi-player, I say fine, pirate the game and play the single player alone in a dark corner of your room with no friends, while the rest of the world takes part in some sick ass gun fights.

Thruit gives Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 a solid 4 out 5 Stars

I would love to hear from the rest of you, especially those who thought the game sucked. So please feel free to comment. Discussions are some of the best ways to review games.

So they may not be as cool as Google Wave invites these days, but we at ThruIT blog just got our hands on some invites for Google Voice. The service is pretty cool and its continually being improved upon. Send and receive phone calls, voicemails, and text messages all from your personalized FREE vanity google voice number. Mine is ###-4-KIEVIT. Also, the voicemails are transcribed; although that feature isn’t perfect, its helpful in meetings to get a gist of what the person needed.

Anyway… the contest…

I am giving out 3 Google Voice Invites for Free.

What do you have to do?

• Follow @ThruITBlog and Tweet about any post (except this one) on thruit.com

OR

• Share or Post a link to any ThruIT blog post (except this one) on FaceBook and leave a comment on this post.

Winners will be chosen next week. Get sharing soon!

Since we have posted our review of the Office 2010 Technical Preview, Microsoft has now released their public beta. Anyone can now download a (completely legal) copy here. This version should hopefully prove to hold more stable then the technical preview.

Via NeoWin

The plan is to give some technical background information as well as show off some demos, we’re told. More notably, they will be giving a “complete overview” of the new OS, which they say will launch next year. [src: TechChrunch]

Could we finally be getting some juicy details about Chrome OS? Tune back in tomorrow to find out.

The Ribbon: The very well designed “ribbon” that replaced the traditional drop down menus and dialog boxes, and caused quite a stir from Office 2007, has finally been introduced in all office programs. Previously, only a handful of programs completely implemented the ribbon (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Access). Finally, MS has introduced it into Visio, Outlook, and Project. More importantly, we now have control over what is in the ribbon. This should definitely bring a smile to users who originally despised the concept behind it. Here’s what it looks like:

The Office Button: Again in Office 2007, MS removed the traditional drop down “file” menu and replaced it with the notoriously round and shiny Office Button. Not a bad move, as it stuck to the new UI style of the suite, but it still seemed to be too much too fast for a lot of users. Realizing this, MS moved to a more tabular style button that now says “File” on it for those who hate change. Inside, you’ll find a lot of the same actions, such as Save, Save As, New, Open, etc. But you will also find a plethora of new ones, and a sense that this section is more than just a menu for one program but more of a “backdoor” connecting the entire Office Suite together.
…This leads me to my next point.

Collaboration and Interoperability: Microsoft has streamlined its overall communication between the Office programs. The File menu now includes all sorts of collaboration techniques and ways to “share” your documents. Now built into the suite is a live collaboration feature for documents that are very similar to those  given to Google Docs users. On top of that, you have options to publish Word documents directly to blogs, attach to emails, and change file types.
Outlook: Previously, Outlook only had the ribbon in its individual windows, but not its main window (i.e. On the New Message window, but not on the Inbox). In addition to the fact that Outlook now has the ribbon all over it, it has added a few features that have been long since overdue. One of the more notable features is the collapsible email strings. That’s right kiddies, no more long lists of emails with the irritating “RE:” attached to the subject. Now Outlook groups emails with the same subject heading into collapsible lists, to make email organization a little easier (Reminiscent of your Gmail box or the future Mozilla Raindrop perhaps?).
It seems as though Microsoft has fine tuned the live previews of attached documents and emails, and has also given us a customizable “quick list” where common, day to day, actions can be placed for all your emailing pleasures in a quick access location.
Photo/Video/Graphics Editing: Introduced into Word and PowerPoint is much more versatile picture editing functionality. You now have much more common editing options for photos, videos, and all graphics alike including filter effects similar to Photo-shop effects with thumbnail previews of the filter, 3D effects and border editing, and futuristic effects like shadows, lighting, reflections, etc.

Right Click: It seems as though Microsoft wanted to put much more usability right at your fingertips (literally). A user is greeted with a delightful array of options upon right clicking in all the applications, and they vary accordingly. Microsoft even expanded on a simple task such as copy and paste, where now you have much more versatility in pasting options. For example pasting a spreadsheet from Excel into Word, you now can past directly as an image, text, or the actual spreadsheet.

There are most likely a variety of other features I have missed, mainly because I simply don’t use or have a reason to use other programs and features in real world situations, but hopefully I have hit on most of what you are interested in. It seems as though Microsoft is actually heading in the right direction with their Office Suites. If you haven’t already, I suggest getting your hands on a copy. Give it a try and let us know what you think. It’s possible I may have missed a big feature that should be mentioned; maybe you hate Office all together. Let us know.