Battlefield 4 has been quite the controversial game. While highly touted for it’s superior visuals and game play mechanics, there are also a number of experience dampening bugs that gamers have not been shy of complaining about. In a recent article on a Swedish gaming site, alleged DICE employee, user HonK_sWeMoB provided some insight into why there have been so many glitches in the game. Specifically, he says that the transition from Frostbite 2 to Frosbit 3 has been rough.

“When a code that’s not “thread-safe” executes on multiple sources, it’s a coincidence if it works or if it crashes. All the codes become “timing dependant” and different hardware combined with different background processes and OS’s, have different timing,“ the developer said to Fz.se.

The developer further explained that they needed more time while developing the game.

“Unfortunately, if you have a certain CPU and you run a certain OS and at the same time you run a certain background process, you could get “bad timing” more often than other people, Timing that will cause the game to crash or other bugs. In other words, the beta test should’ve been tried on a broader spectrum of machines before release. We needed more time.”

This begs the question: Why did they released the game at the first place?

Electronic Arts understood this – which is why the team at Victory Games, handling the new free to play Command and Conquer title will be looking to “wash away the stain of C&C4”. Check out the part 1 of “Behind the Battle” to learn more about how they’re doing that.

One way is to take inspiration from one of the more better series in the C&C universe, namely Generals. The game was actually meant to become the next Generals game, before going free to play but thankfully the team hasn’t changed its focus. Some of the gameplay is a testament to that, though it has “reboot” written all over it.

Currently, Command and Conquer will be the first of a series of free to play titles, which will use the Frostbite 2 engine and release sometime in 2013.

BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn recently spoke to Game Informer about this, and stated that, “I think so. When we look at Frostbite and the success we’re having with it with Dragon Age 3 and the support we’re getting from teams around EA, it’s fun being a part of an organization and community that’s doing good work with that technology.”

Frostbite 2 has been used in a plethora of EA titles since its introduction in DICE’s Battlefield 3 such as Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Need for Speed: The Run, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, Command & Conquer and even Battlefield 4.

You just can’t keep a good developer down. Despite the closure of PopCap Dublin, which resulted in 96 employees losing their jobs, the Seattle-based PopCap is still firing on all cylinders. Their next title could very well be a big-budget title heading to consoles and powered by Frostbite 2, if a recent

The listing states that PopCap “looking for an experienced generalist SE [software engineer] to build a AAA console title” and that “the ideal candidate will also have experience working with the Frostbite 2 engine”.

If chosen, the selected candidate will be working with the Burnaby branch of the studio, which handled the original Plants vs. Zombies. As of now, there’s been no official announcement as to what the game could be, but Kotaku columnist Superannuation suggested that it might be a Plants vs. Zombies-based shooter. One with a light-hearted, comedic leaning, similar to Team Fortress 2.

Source: GIBiz

EA’s Frostbite 2 engine which is being proliferated everywhere within the company is apparently targeted at next-gen platforms, according to EA Games boss Patrick Soderlund. He also mentioned that they don’t force the engine on their various studio, and let them use whatever they like.

Medal of Honor, which was released in 2010,  ran on the Unreal Engine 3 (the campaign), while its successor, Medal of Honor: Warfighter is entirely Frostbite 2 based.

“We take the philosophy on not forcing tech upon anyone,” Soderland said to Gamasutra. “We had that in mind and we said, ‘We’re going to have to build something that can scale.’ It doesn’t mean that what you see in Battlefield 3 is the end state.

“That’s the beginning; that’s where we start and then we go forward. But we have a tech base that makes me feel really confident in how we’re positioned for what’s going to come in the future.”

He also revealed how the FIFA team was instrumental in giving the Frostbite 2 engine a much needed boost in the animation department.

“Animation was a key component that we said, ‘That ain’t cutting it.’ And how do we not just make a little leap, but how do we make a gigantic leap in animation? And that gravitated us towards our FIFA team, who have an advanced animation system,” he said.

“Audio is another thing. And then the other part is rendering and destruction. And destruction is cool, but we said we want to make gameplay-altering destruction, not just destruction for the sake of it. It needs to be, “Okay, I can shoot through that wall and kill someone; I can take away cover.”

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Some new rumours about Dead Space 3 have surfaced, bringing some pretty surprising information to the fore that might just be true.

A recent job listing suggest that Visceral Games, developers of the Dead Space franchise, is looking to hire new people to work on “an .exciting IP “, which is, most probably, Dead Space. This is “a major opportunity to contribute creatively to an exciting IP” for whoever joins the team, says the job ad.

The person who gets selected “must be an avid FPS gamer” with “previous experience as a Multiplayer Level Designer on shipped shooter/action titles”.

“Bbelievable real world multiplayer level designs”, “some artistic background, formal or otherwise”, “strong verbal and written communication skills” and “ability to work in a mature fashion with a high-performance team” are a few of the things Visceral is looking for in an ideal candidate.

Dead Space did focus a lot on multiplayer with Dead Space 2, and there have been previous rumours suggesting that a Dead Space FPS might be on its way, so this seems very believable.

Another report suggests that Dead Space 3 might be running on Battlefield 3’s engine- Frotbite 2.0. An EA insider reported this to NowGamer. “Dead Space Franchise is currently seeking a Senior Environment Artist opportunity in our Montreal studio,” says another recent job listing. Remember, Visceral is EA’s Montreal studio.

DICE rendering architect Johan Andersson tweeted a little while back: “”Flying off to Canada & the US to visit a whole bunch of Frostbite-powered EA studios before GDC. First stop: Montreal.”

So, the evidence is piling up. We’ll probably be seeing an announcement very soon, maybe at GDC. Stay tuned.

It’s always nice hearing developers talk about how they develop games, and we have some interesting information from Johan Andersson, who works at DICE.

He mentions that while they do not consider other studios as their competitors, most of them would be hesitant to discuss about tech, or share tech, which is little understandable.

He also revealed that Frostbite and Unreal Engine 3 are quite similar tech wise. They do not compete with each other but these studios have different business models and goals.

“Unreal is more similar to Frostbite tech wise, but are not business competitors as we have different business models/goals,” Andersson said.

He also wanted a knowledge exchange with Unity and Frostbite and said that both of them are not really competitors.

DICE really is a forward thinking studio, as not only they innovate when it comes to technology, they don’t really try hard to outdo other studios.

He also expressed disappointment when someone pointed out that some studios don’t want to disclose their hard-earned work to others.

“That’s too bad, very few of us are actual competitors,” he revealed.

We also have an impressive image of Battlefield 3 running on a 360 inches screen. Yes, that is almost 30 foot long. It must be a joy to play the game on such a screen. Check it out.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Click to enlarge

EA and Sony take their partnership to one more level as, NFS: The Run features 7 exclusive cars. You may say, “Who cares about these cars?” But, actually it has a Lexus LFA as well. So this is a pretty big exclusive content as far as I am concerned.

LEXUS LFA!

They are all fantastic Supercars and some of them are not available in Gran Turismo 5 as well.

They are:

• Bugatti Veyron Super Sport
• Hennessey Venom GT
• GUMPERT apollo s
• Lamborghini Countach QV5000
• Koenigsegg Agera R
• Lexus LFA
• Porsche Carrera GT

We know that FIFA is a huge franchise now and compared to PES, which is its only competitor right now. EA Europe, VP Keith Ramsdale told Gamerzines that they had a record sell through for FIFA 12.

“FIFA went out just a couple of weekends ago. We had record pre-orders and record sell-through.”

“And when you look at Pro Evolution Soccer versus FIFA, only five years ago in the UK PES was outselling FIFA. On its first weekend like-for-like we’ve just outsold PES by 25 times.

“That’s a sign of the momentum and the fanbase and community behind FIFA, and let’s be clear, an absolutely kick-arse game. It’s unbelievable.”

FIFA 12 had sold 3.2 million copies till now, as reported by EA. It remains to be seen how much they will manage to sell compared to FIFA 11. Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Check out the latest teaser from Need for Speed: The Run. The teaser shows high octane action and arcade driving feel that only NFS games can provide.

Desc: A 3000 Mile Race from San Francisco To New York. 200 drivers, $25 million prize – winning is Jack’s only option.  Race for your life.

Tell us what you think of the teaser in the comments section below. The game will be released on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.