A work in progress

DICE's Joe Grant posted a semi-comprehensive list of reported issues/glitches with Bad Company 2 on EA's UK forums, and the developer's responses.  It's long.

A few of the more important entries below the fold:

BC2 update

From Steam News:

Updates to Battlefield Bad Company 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

• Server browser downloads 100 entries instead of 500 in a chunk this makes the Cancel button more responsive
• Fixed crash during server browser refresh
• Low-level networking library switched back to the optimized version (the game client was temporarily running with one that had more debugging logic in it)
• Localization fixes in the scoreboard
• Server browser ping handling code modified

It's foolproof

ATI Catalyst 10.3 Windows 7 Driver Analysis

TweakTown has a list of the new features and performance improvements ATI GPU owners are supposed to get with the 10.3 drivers.

Nerdgasm ahoy

ArsTechnica reports that Jonathan Coulton, the composer behind Portal's "Still Alive," will make another musical contribution to Portal 2.  In case you've forgotten the genius:

Details on L4D2 DLC: "the Passing"

From 1UP:

Valve writer Chet Faliszek appeared on the latest episode of GameTrailers TV to talk about their upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 DLC called "The Passing," and if you want to stay completely in the dark about what twists it'll throw your way, stop reading now -- because Faliszek revealed a pretty major one.
Still with us? Then you probably won't mind finding out why "The Passing" is called "The Passing" -- and it turns out it's a very figurative title. "Someone passed," Faliszek explains bluntly, referring to the fact that one of the four survivors from the first Left 4 Dead -- Francis, Bill, Zoey, and Louis -- will no longer be a survivor in the L4D2 DLC. This is why Faliszek revealed The Passing's tagline is "Nobody Survives Forever."

The plan is to have the original group of survivors from the first game meet up with the new group from L4D2 in The Passing, but only three will actually still be alive by then. Faliszek of course didn't reveal which character will die, but he did explain L4D1 players will get to find out first-hand: After The Passing is released, new DLC will also be released for the original that actually has gamers play through the events that ultimately claims the life of the doomed character -- and one of the players has to literally make the sacrifice within the game.

My guess is Bill is the one that dies, since it's rumored that Valve couldn't get his voice actor, Jim French, to commit to the project. In fact, they couldn't even find him for Crash Course.

BC2-Tube

If you want to watch vids about the game, instead of just playing the damned game:

Nvidia 197.13 beta drivers

Nvidia released the new GeForce/ION 197.13 beta drivers today.  They're supposed to take care of the fan speed issue that some people reported with the 196.75 drivers.  Get 'em here:

• Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit
• Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit and 64-bit

 The 197.13 beta drivers should provide performance increases and SLI support for Bad Company 2, among other games.

Metro 2033 released

The game hit retail stores and digital distribution services (including Steam) in North America today.  Eurogamer has a review.  A few selected quotes:

Wherever you are it's atmospheric. This is a world that is heaving with apocalyptic detail, but also submerged in its own gaseous horrors. Both on the surface, and in certain areas of the Metro, you'll require a gas mask, which uses filters like a gun uses ammunition. The first time you die because of exposure to gases, you begin to realise that this is a shooter that is as much about survival as about the story, or the combat.

The most frustrating and least forgivable of the combat design decisions is the inclusion of instant-death traps in many of the environments. While the tripwires are generally fairly obvious, being blown up by one because you were diving around a corner in the midst of a firefight will result in a gamepad being hurled across the room. Worse, the explosives can't be blown up with a grenade, as you might expect.

So it's a bunch of minor things about the core game that tarnish what is otherwise an excellent shooter. I should stress just how inventive and beautiful this game is: the action is expertly punctuated with unexpected experiences, such as collapsing into a hallucination, or manning a giant flamethrower, or struggling to find your way on a collapsed Moscow street while being hunted by flying demon creatures, or smuggling yourself aboard a train full of nazis, or helping guide a lost child home...

MoH GDC 2010 trailer

Better lighting, better textures, better sound ... but still very much Call of Duty 4: