GameStop and Best Buy customers reserving "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" will get a little something extra come November 19th. EA has confirmed that a North American multiplayer beta test will be open to pre-ordering PS3 owners though the retailers' online and brick-and-mortar locations.

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More media continues to pour out from GamesCom 2009, including this trailer for "Battlefield: Bad Company 2," which gives a sampling of some of the activities in the game's multiplayer.

While I appreciate the dramatic camera angles and storytelling in this trailer, I can't help but prefer something like the "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" multiplayer trailer, which uses straight gameplay footage to show off the new features.

That being said, I think "Bad Company 2" multiplayer has a lot of promise, having seen it at E3, and its March 2010 release date means we should be somewhat out of the "Call of Duty" blast zone by the time it drops.

The race to 43 million kills has ended, with Xbox 360 players reaching the milestone in less than a week. Impressive! The PS3 fan base is still lagging a bit, with around 23 million kills, but they should hit the big number just in time for the weekend.

So what does this mean for you? Well, I'm not too sure. In THEORY you should see a new selection on the main menu screen of "Battlefield 1943" which says, "Air Superiority." Selecting that will drop you into Coral Sea, which is basically a giant air-to-air map where players in fighter planes try to clear portions of the map of enemy fighters.

Worth noting that Coral Sea won't be part of the normal map rotation, as they don't want people to be forced into playing an air-only map. Also worth noting that I'm not 100% sure it's going to work, as "Battlefield 1943" has seen its fair share of problems since launch. Fingers crossed!

Getting solid numbers on how many people are playing a given downloadable game based on platform can be tricky. Sure, you can look at the number of people on the leaderboards, but that doesn't count the innumerable people that play offline.

Thankfully EA's novel promotion for "Battlefield 1943," which will unlock the Coral Sea map on a given platform once that platform hits 43 million global kills in the game, is giving us some interesting new insight.

Right now the global kill count sits at 29.5 million kills on the 360 and 16.1 million kills on the PS3, meaning there are nearly double the number of 360 players as there are PS3 players. That's making the assumption that 360 players aren't just a lot better at the game.

At this rate we could very easily see the new map unlocking on the 360 in the next couple days, whereas the PS3 shouldn't be much farther behind. Hopefully by then all of the server woes (which persisted through the weekend) will be worked out.

There aren't too many ways to describe the launch of "Battlefield 1943" other than clusterf*ck, so we'll just go with that. I played right when the game launched with little-to-no problems, but once more and more people starting signing on the servers quickly hit capacity and everyone was just left helplessly hitting "Join Game" with little to no effect. Last night at around 11PM EST things seemed to get more manageable, I was able to get into a game with friends on my first try, but that first day was a mess.

Despite all the issues, a lot of people still played that first day. According to EA's ongoing forum post detailing the tech efforts to get the game fixed, 29.45 years (or 258,153.19 hours) of gameplay were experienced. Hopefully that doesn't count the time you spent sitting the menu.

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UPDATE: Apparently 90,000 MS Points is what Silver Xbox Live members see. Since it's an online-only game, I guess it's a clever way to prevent folks from buying it if they can't actually play it.

Original Story: Since launch, apparently the demand for "Battlefield 1943" is much greater than anyone anticipated. Personally I didn't have any problems playing it, but a lot of folks are in the other camp. EA is frantically trying to get more servers for regions around the world, but in the meantime it looks like they've gone to other methods to bring their player numbers down...

(image via VIP0R's TwitPic)

"Battlefield 1943" is a bit of an experiment in the world of downloadable games. It's basically a carved-down version of "Battlefield 1942" with fewer maps, classes and features. And yet it manages to capture everything that's great about the franchise, and make it much more approachable than any of the "Battlefield" games before it. It's "Battlefield" for everyone, and its online following will be enormous.

The Basics

"Battlefield 1943" is a multiplayer-only game set in the Pacific theater of World War 2. You'll join teams, either the US or the Japanese, with up to 12 people on either side. You'll also choose from 3 different classes, each with their own specialties. From here the game plays out as a first person shooter, with the important addition of vehicles, letting you jump into any tank, plane or jeep that you come across.

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I've already extensively played "Battlefield 1943" on test servers, but I'm still pretty pumped about it's release to the world next week. The game's dropping on XBLA on July 8th, and PSN on July 9th. Whether it's the "extraordinary value" that the press release claims is a little up in the air (just 3 maps at launch, simplified feature-set compared to recent "Battlefield" releases), it's still a lot of fun and for 15 bucks a dedicated player could very easily get a few weeks of very late nights.

It's kinda cool that the downloadable game release schedule picks up in the normally-slow summer months. Xbox still has its "Summer of Games" event planned, where they'll release a handful of anticipated XBLA games in July and August, and PSN has some gems coming out, as well. And with DLC like "Point Lookout," the lack of solid in-store games doesn't hurt quite as much as it used to.

UPDATE: Despite appearing for pay on the "Battlefield Heroes" test servers, EA has reached out to inform us that the costumes will be free upon release. Rejoice!

ORIGINAL STORY: Looking to pay tribute to Michael Jackson's passing? Well then you should probably pay MONEY to Electronic Arts.

"Battlefield Heroes" players will be able to pony up 420 Battlefunds (about $3 in real money) for each Michael Jackson-themed costume. The good guys have access to the white suit from the "Smooth Criminal" music video, while the bad guys get the black leather getup from "Bad."

I don't take issue with the concept, an in-game memorial of MJ, but to sell them? Sure, Battlefield Heroes is a free game and it makes its money off of in-game customization options, but this just smacks of bad taste.

Over the last week I've been hopping onto my test Xbox 360 to play a round or two of "Battlefield 1943." Initially I had dismissed the game as a retread of past glories for the franchise. Granted, in a lot of ways it is just "Battlefield 1942," but lots of little tweaks and touches do wonders to make it a fascinating and enjoyable experience.

Custom Squads
A feature that was added in later "Battlefield" games, but never made it in to "Battlefield 1942." Joining a squad means you don't have to listen to the chatter of your 11 other teammates. Instead you can just group with your friends and try to take flags on your own.
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