Mirror's Edge is a sci-fi action game from Digital Illusions and Electronic Arts that has the character running around a futuristic city in that cool free running style that all the kids are talking about. The character, Faith, has a backpack she wears in the the game to hold info and other items. Now gaming retailer Gamestop is offering a rather nice pre-order bonus if you buy the game from them.Basically you can get a backpack that's designed like the one Faith wears in the game when you pre-order Mirror's Edge. You get the backpack when the game ships later this fall. There's no extra money needed for the backpack; it simply comes with the game when you order it from the retailers. Overall its a better offer than most.[Via Joystiq]...

It's become something of a trend to dismiss the revamped and invite only Electronic Entertainment Expo as no longer relevant. The truth, however, is that there is still no one event in the United States that brings together more game developers and publishers than E3 even in its smaller version (as the E3 Media and Business Summit). We are now just one week away from the start of E3 2008 which after last year's detour in several Santa Monica, CA hotels will once again take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center). Despite what other articles might tell you the PC game industry will be represented very well at the expo this year with a number of highly anticipated game titles due to be shown to the invited press (and there may very well be a few surprise announcements in store for E3 that we don't know about yet). So what PC games are we most looking forward to seeing at E3 2008 next week? We've compiled a list of our top 25 picks and we will reveal our list over the next week (with an article on honorable mentions and wild card picks on Saturday). We wanted to make this list heavy on PC game exclusives or games that will have the PC as the lead or major platform if it also appears on game consoles....

Electronic Arts and developer Digital Illusions may be releasing their console only shooter Battlefield: Bad Company to stores this week but the developer hasn't forgotten about Battlefield 2, their now three-year old modern day shooter for the PC. Internet radio show netGameRadio just posted up a new interview with a DICE producer who revealed that a new patch for the game is in the works.More details on the patch are expected to be announced on Monday but it looks like it will be more than just a bug-fixing file as the patch is also expected to add new maps to the game as well, Of course, DICE is also working on the free-to-play downloadable PC game Battlefield Heroes which is currently in beta testing.[Via Blue's News]...

A few weeks ago it was revealed that third party companies had begun signing up beta testers for the upcoming free multiplayer shooter Battlefield Heroes. Now it appears that one of those companies, QA Boss, has been involved in a security breach. According to a note on the Aeropause web site, QA Boss has informed all beta testers of the game that their breach "exposes QA Boss forum user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords."So how did this happen? QA Boss isn't saying but does recommend that people who use just one password for all of their various Internet account change them as a precaution (of course you shouldn't have such a set-up but most folks do).[Via Joystiq]...

Final Battlefield 2142 patch adds new levels and moreBattlefield 2142 didn't quite get the critical acclaim nor the sales of some of the other games in the multiplayer shooter series but the sci-fi themed game from developer Digital Illusions and publisher Electronic Arts kept its support for the game for a long time. Now with the development team moving onto new projects, the final patch for the game has been released and can be grabbed right here at Big Download. Call of Duty 4 bonus maps finally coming to PC June 5thTwo months ago, PS3 and 360 gamers were offered a map pack for Call of Duty 4 called the Variety Map Pack. For reasons escaping human understanding, said pack was not available on the PC -- the platform on which Call of Duty originally made a name for itself. Plans for Frontlines: Fuel of War downloadable maps revealedTHQ developer Kaos Studios released their first title, the near-future first person shooter, Frontlines: Fuel of War, last February. While the developer has released a number of patches to the game since then, Kaos is in the middle of preparing their first major update (1.1.0) that will add new features such as Punkbuster anti-cheating support, a new version of the game's server browser and more. More info than you needed about Red Alert 3's Soviet bulldog unitElectronic Arts updated the official Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 website with a robust profile of the bullfrog, a Soviet anti-air unit. The page features a brief clip of the unit in action, as well. This unit was also featured prominently in the developer walkthrough video we reported on yesterday. Dracula: Origin demo aims to scare youOne of the most famous fictional characters ever created gets interpreted in a new adventure game. Dracula: Origin tries to give its own interpretation of the beginnings of the most well known vampire of all based, of course, on Bram Stoker's original novel. The game, developed by Frogware, has already been released by The Adventure Company but you can now download a taste of the game right here at Big Download. ...

Battlefield 2142 didn't quite get the critical acclaim nor the sales of some of the other games in the multiplayer shooter series but the sci-fi themed game from developer Digital Illusions and publisher Electronic Arts kept its support for the game for a long time. Now with the development team moving onto new projects, the final patch for the game has been released and can be grabbed right here at Big Download.Not only does the final 1.50 version patch deal with a number of issues in the game, it also adds two new and free multiplayer maps. One is a remake of the classic Battlefield 1942 map Wake Island while the other is an all new map titled Operation Shingle (previously released as a third party map called Anzio). The patch also adds support for widescreen monitors (16:9 and 16:10 resolutions) as well as a way to play the game without any vehicles on the maps for complete infantry game action. We have both the full patch as well as the incremental patch for 1.40 to 1.50 to download.Download the full 1.50 Battlefield 2142 patch at Big Download now.Download the 1.40 to 1.50 Battlefield 2142 patch at Big Download now....

There's been a lot of talk lately on how the PC game industry can grow and become more stable. One of the major solutions that has been mentioned is free-to-play game titles which can be downloaded and played for free but can be supported via micro-transactions or in-game ads.Our sister web site Game Daily has a new editorial from Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin who advocates this new business model for games. In particular he is looking at how the upcoming Digital Illusions-Electronic Arts game Battlefield Heroes will do when it officially launches later this summer. Halpin seems to think that EA should have made the game browser based (he believes that would have opened up the game to even more audiences) but he seems hopeful that this new business model could work for other games.In particular, Halpin believes that a move to a free-to-play model will solve an issue that hurts both PC and console games; games that retail for $50 and $60 or more tend to be rented or traded in more and more. Halpin doesn't believe that all games could turn into free to play (although he adds, "that is certainly a possibility in the distant future") he does believe more publishers should look to changing their ways in order for the games industry to survive....

Want to sign up to play in the beta for Battlefield Heroes? Well apparently a podcast oriented web site called Broken Eggs Media has secured such a deal for its readers. You can sign up via their site to get into the beta test for the free multiplayer shooter from developer Digital Illusions and publisher Electronic Arts.Earlier this month the game's official web site stated they would be using third parties to bring in players for the first part of the beta test so this may be an example of that. We hope to learn more about the game's beta test before the official launch of Battlefield Heroes later this summer.[Via Blue's News]...

So why did Digital Illusions decided to try out a free-to-play model for its upcoming multiplayer shooter Battlefield Heroes? According to a new interview at Gamesindustry.biz, one only has to look at piracy in the PC industry as an indirect reason for this move. According to Ben Cousins, the producer of the game at developer Digital Illusions, the dev team looked at how piracy had affected the games industry in Asia and how they moved to a free-to-play model with micro-transactions for their PC titles.Cousins states that the budget for Battlefield Heroes is relatively small; about a quarter of the size of budget for their upcoming console-only shooter Battlefield: Bad Company. Their business model is such that they expect 95 percent of their players to never use the micro-transactions and that they will make revenues from the remaining five percent. While the game isn't strictly speaking a web browser based title, Cousins believes that ultimately that is where the game industry is going to evolve where gamers play their titles via a web browser, "whether it's running on an iPhone or a Mac or on the PC."...

We got to see some pretty spectacular gameplay footage earlier this week from Mirror's Edge, the near-future action game from developer Digital Illusions and publisher Electronic Arts. Now BigDownload.com has confirmed via an EA PR rep that Mirror's Edge is using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 as its graphical basis. We first found a reference to the game using Unreal Engine 3 in an online newsletter for game development software company Illuminate Labs. We contacted Epic Games's VP Mark Rein and he only stated, "I'm glad this has finally become public." We then contacted EA directly for an official confirmation.This is a tad unusual move for DICE since it traditionally develops its own in-house technology for its games (including the new Frostbite engine that it is using for the console-only shooter Battlefield: Bad Company). According to a statement given to BigDownload.com from the development team via their PR rep, "With Mirror's Edge we deliberately set out to create something that was different from Battlefield. Frostbite is a very powerful engine but this project started a long time ago and at that time Frostbite was still being developed and was very closely supporting the Battlefield Bad Company team. Because of this we made the decision to develop on Unreal technology. In addition, because we have a very unique art-style in the game we have been developing a new lighting solution that truly makes Mirror's Edge stand-out visually."There's no doubt that Mirror's Edge is one of the more unique looking games that's due out in 2008 and is yet another feather in Epic's already full cap of impressive games that have used or will use Unreal Engine 3. Look for the game to be released later this fall for the PC and other platforms....

A few weeks ago, Electronic Arts announced that they would begin a closed beta test for their free-to-play multiplayer shooter Battlefield Heroes on May 6. Of course that was on Tuesday and apparently the game's official web site got slammed by players looking to sign up to be among the first to try the game out. The amount of traffic was so high it temporarily shut the Battlefield Heroes web site down.As it turned out, all those players went to the site for (almost) nothing. After the web site came back online a new announcement was made and after thanking all the fans for turning out, it explained that they would be opening up the beta in several stages. Apparently the first stage is to bring in "some specialist Beta testers" via a third party that will be able to really get into playing and testing the game's servers and its online delivery system. So everyone else can just relax at the moment. EA and developer Digital Illusions will announce when they will be opening up the beta test for the public sometime later....

Battlefield 2142 may have been released 18 months ago but the development team at Digital Illusions and Electronic Arts are still supporting the sci-fi multiplayer shoooter. Recently the official Battlefield web site revealed plans for a new upcoming patch, 1.50, that will be more than just the usual bug fixes for the game.In addition to bug fixes the new 1.50 patch will add two new maps to the game created by third party community members. One is a remake of the classic Battlefield 1942 map Wake Island while the other will be and all new map titled Operation Shingle (previously released as a third party map called Anzio). The patch will also add support for widescreen monitors (16:9 and 16:10 resolutions) as well as an option to play games without any of those pesky vehicles, because apparently some players want to fight it out on foot on those massive maps.The 1.50 patch will be released sometime soon, first as a public beta before it is officially released....