In the months of hype leading up to Battlefield 3′s release, EA announced that the those who buy the PS3 version of the game will receive a free copy of early franchise entry Battlefield 1943. Then, when the game was released, the extra game was missing, and people weren’t happy.

Facing a number of lawsuits, EA has announced that they will be providing vouchers for those that bought the PS3 version of the game. Those looking to secure a copy of the game are required to go to EA’s portal; 1943redemption.battlefield.com and using their Origin ID, request a code for their region.

Check out our review of Battlefield 3 here.

Developer of the Battlefield series, DICE, announced today that their recent downloadable offering, 1943, has sold 1 million units on XBLA in just 8 months. This makes1943 the fastest to reach the 1 million mark in the service’s history. Thanks to some ingenious marketing and a proven shooter experience that skips many of the bells and whistles typically incorporated with a box title, 1943 has set a very high mark for what can be accomplished in a $15 game. This one lets you fight in 24 player battles on land, at sea and through intense aerial dogfights. It does only have 3 maps, though more are on the way.

Here’s to more awesome shooters on the cheap. Sometimes less is more. 1943 is also available for PSN and soon for PC.

If you somehow missed this summer’s hugely popular Battlefield: 1943, today’s the day you’ve been waiting for, as the game’s price point has been hacked and slashed down to a very approachable $10.

So.Much.Fun.

The savings are only for the Xbox Live Arcade version (sorry PS3 gamers), and is this week’s Xbox Live Deal of the Week.

If you’re looking for something to hold you over between today and March 2, when Battlefield: Bad Company 2 releases, we can’t think of anything better (besides this).

Hop, skip or jump over to the game’s Xbox Live Marketplace page to get going.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, a download hot-spot for bite-sized games, had a stellar 2009, led by grand success of Battlefield: 1943.

According to research group Forecasting and Analysing Digital Entertainment (FADE), Microsoft is making bank off your digital dollars.

The research group reported XBLA revenue of $103.4 million for 2009, which represents a 34-percent spike from 2008. The group also reported the average price for an XBLA game jumped from $8.33 in 2008 to $9.12 in 2009, so that explains the overall jolt at least a little. The other key component? The games made available in 2009.

Trials HD, Shadow Complex, Battlefield: 1943 and others released on XBLA in 2009 and saw grand success, not to mention The Behemoth’s Castle Crashers, a 2008 runaway hit, still at the top of the charts.

FADE’s complete top ten for estimated XBLA sales in 2009 is below.

* Battlefield 1943 (EA Dice) – $12.5 million ($15.00)
* Castle Crashers (The Behemoth) – $7.3 million ($15.00)
* Trials HD (RedLynx, LTD) – $7.1 million ($15.00)
* Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment / Epic Games) – $6.1 million ($14.38)
* Family Game Night (Hasbro) – $4.2 million ($9.53)
* Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom) – $4.2 million ($15.00)
* Magic: The Gathering (Stainless Games) – $2.8 million ($10.00)
* Worms 2 (Team 17) – $1.8 million ($10.00)
* Peggle (PopCap Games) – $1.8 million ($8.86)
* Turtles in Time: Reshelled (Ubisoft Singapore) – $1.7 million ($10.00)

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

We like Battlefield 1943. A lot. We may even like like it, with little hearts and notes all over the back of our reporter’s notebooks. The game has been out over a month, and we both reviewed it and made it our Editor’s Choice pick for downloadable titles from July, but that doesn’t mean we’re done talking to you about it. Today we have an interview with producer Gordon Van Dyke of Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the developer of Battlefield 1943, on the success of the title, the inspirations behind it, and the future of the franchise.

BLAST: Where did the idea for Battlefield 1943 originate from?

Gordon Van Dyke: The original idea came from the Frostbite engine reaching this mature state, where we could now do what they wanted to do back for Battlefield 1942. They wanted all of these bells and whistles that we have now, like destruction, as the biggest example. We also kind of wanted to experiment; World War II is a really good era”"I hate to say that without context”"but it’s a really good era for gameplay. It really works well with the planes, the dogfighting, the tanks, the projectiles”"you can kind of put an arc on them to do some clever things, like getting it over the ridge of a hill. The soldiers and weapons too, you know what’s there, you know what’s available. It kind of just worked for a very small project, with a small team, and it worked for creating something unique that wasn’t risky process wise or design wise.

BLAST: What were you and your team’s goals for 1943?

GVD: The main goal was to have an accessible game that we could deliver in a unique way, and that was when we decided to go digitally, over Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network, and then on PC with things like Steam and Direct 2 Drive. We wanted it to be a game that was easy to jump into, kind of quick, and that kind of removes the idea of a disc. That was the main goal, to create an accessible Battlefield on top of that. Accessibility was our mantra.

BLAST: The race to 43 million kills was pretty ingenious; it was a good way to reward gamers for playing. Is there more of this thing coming, either with 1943 or with future Battlefield titles?

GVD: It really came out of an accident. We have this designer, and he and I love to fly the planes. Coral Sea came out in an update for Battlefield 1942, so we kind of wanted to do that again. We really wanted to do that map. But it was outside of our project’s scope, it was outside of our resources, so he just went and made it. By himself. So he was just like, “Hey we should try this out, I made it already, what’s the big deal?” So we got in there, and thought it was so much fun, but realized it wasn’t going to work for everyone. It was a constant, “Should we even release this?”, because it’s not going to be something that everyone wants to play, then it became, “How should we release this?” Do we charge for it? Someone always wants to monetize”"it is a business”"but I’m a big advocate for trying to make sure we give back to the consumer, give back to our fans, ‚ give back to the people who really love the game.

We started playing around with ideas on how to deliver this after we got it approved, and we knew we didn’t want to charge for it, and we wanted it in-game, not as DLC. One of our first ideas was to give it to the top 70,000 pilots first, on a leader board with pilot rankings. Then we sat down with PR and marketing, and marketing came added to the idea by saying, “Well, what if we do something to unlock it for everyone?” Everyone’s first thought then was total kills. We can track total kills, so we can do that. It kind of came towards the end, so we really scrambled to get it in the system so we could see who got the 43^rd million kill. We got it working, we just needed to do some parsing with the data. Lots of things came together at the last second, and it came out of randomness, but the goal was the community, and I think that being our primary objective, always in this game and going forward with future Battlefield games, it just came out of that.

BLAST: I had a lot of fun participating, even if I only had so many kills during it.

GVD: When we first announced it, we saw people posting this on forums and on Twitter, that even if they didn’t get many kills, at least their deaths would count for something. That’s a really good point, I didn’t even think about that! But that was the main goal, because everyone can participate. Even if you’re not the most elite player, your kills count for something and even your deaths count for something. It’s kind of win-win. Some of it was kind of accidental, but a lot of it had to do with the objective of the community.

BLAST: Is the PC version of 1943 going to have any differences from the console versions?

GVD: We’re still working on that, but some things will definitely be different, since it’s not a console ripped port or anything. A lot of that sometimes goes visually. If someone looks at a game, even if there’s a lot of difference, if it has the same menus on console and PC, then they may think that it is a port, so there’s a lot of little things you need to tweak and consider. It is a lot different in the guts, but some changes can visually be updated. We’re looking at the desires of a PC gamer too, as it is different. We’re looking at some of the things we had for 2142 and looking at what we can improve, like inviting your friends, things of that nature.

BLAST: Since 1943 is such a success-I saw earlier that it set sales records for both XBLA and PSN”"does this mean that there may be more Battlefield 1943, like another standalone, or some kind of addition, like an African campaign?

GVD: It’s definitely a possibility, I don’t think we’re closing our doors off to any ideas, but we’re coming down off of this, and right now our focus is that we iron out any issues, like we did with the servers. Every time we added a block of servers, it filled up immediately. I was up for 43 hours after launch, talking to the team in the States as well as my team in Sweden, so I just had no margin for sleep for a few days.

That was the most gut-wrenching thing, I know people were really frustrated, and from their perspective they don’t really know what’s going on in the background. It was gut-wrenching for us too, for the team, for myself, because we want people to play. That’s the main thing when you’re a producer, a designer, a developer, making games, you want people to play games, and you want them to enjoy it. As much as those people were frustrated, we were just as frustrated too behind the scenes.

Thanks to Gordon for speaking with us. Battlefield 1943 is available on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network for 1200 Microsoft Points or $15, and a PC version is forthcoming.

Electronic Arts today announced that Battlefield 1943, a product of accalimed studio DICE, is the fastest day one and week one download-only game in the history of the Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network.

BF1943 has sold in excess of 600,000 digital copies on both the PSN and Xbox Live since the July 8 launch of the WW2 online multiplayer shooter, but why so popular you ask?

Throw these ingredients into your cauldron and see how it tastes. 1 part world renowned game franchise (BattleField), 1 part wholly amazing development studio (DICE), 1 part download only availbity (the way of tomorrow), 1 part cheap price tag ($15),‚  and 1 part community task (reaching 43 million kills to unlock a fourth map), add them up and what do you get? Tons of money headed EA’s way!

But seriously, the game is awesome, check out Marc’s eloquent review here, and we’ll see you online!

While many gamers scoff at the idea of paying for a bite-sized portion of a previously released game, EA and DICE decided to release three of the maps from the PC hit Battlefield 1942 as a multiplayer-only title for home consoles. They revamped the maps visually, used a different engine for gameplay and environment destruction, overhauled the scoring system, and slapped a new name on it, Battlefield 1943. Is this enough to warrant diving back into the middle of the Pacific Theatre? The short answer is “Go buy this now”.

For those who need more than my concise blessing to influence their purchases, Battlefield 1943 is a lot like its predecessor in that it captures the spirit of the original, but it’s also entirely its own experience. Sure, you play on three maps (four, now that Xbox 360 users have unlocked Coral Sea) that appeared in the original, but despite looking the same, they play differently. DICE used Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island, but made sure they looked the part of a south Pacific island this time. Lush jungles were added, which can be used as cover for scouts or as a shielded road for traveling infantry. All of the buildings, towers and fences that dotted the landscape in the original are there–at least, until you blow them up. Yes, that’s right, the environments are now destructible thanks to the Frostbite engine, used in Battlefield: Bad Company. This makes the last 10 minutes of a match very different from the first 10. Sure, you hid inside of a building to capture a spawn point when you first landed on Iwo Jima, but that building can be taken out by explosives, tank shells or bombs dropped from the sky, which means you can’t hide in it anymore. Bridges can be blown up, making moving across maps difficult for tanks and jeeps, but be warned: if you were to lose the spawn point that you were trying to defend, you won’t be able to drive tanks over the empty expanse to take it back. Once blown up, structures are gone for good, and it adds a layer of strategy to an already strategic shooter.

The reason Battlefield 1942, and by design, its sequel 1943, are so strategically based is because of the scoring system. You don’t win a match by having the most kills, you win by depleting your opponent’s progress bar. Think of it like a health bar–every time you kill an opposing soldier, blow up a tank or shoot a plane out of the sky, the bar gets a bit smaller. There’s a faster and more effective way to get that bar to disappear though, and that is by capturing more spawn points than your opponent. Stand near a flag long enough, and the current flag will go down in favor of your own; once it’s raised, your team can use that as a spawn point, and also as a forward base once your tanks, jeeps and planes appear. The team with fewer of these forward points is the one that is continually taking hits on their progress bar; capturing bases back will slow this to a crawl and cause the other team to begin their descent towards a loss. It’s a constant back and forth, especially with just 12 players per side. You may be ahead one moment, with five of the six spawn points under your control, but that also means the enemy can come at you from their one spawn point with most of their team working in concert against you. This makes each battle its own unique experience, even if you were to load up any of the maps multiple times in a row.

DICE cut down on the number of classes, making your options a Rifleman (anti-infantry, long-range) Infantry (anti-tank) and Scout (explosives, sniper). You don’t need a medic anymore, because health regenerates. I’m not talking bald space marine health regeneration here–you’ll still get killed if you run out and do something stupid and someone sees you doing it–but if you lay low behind a big rock or inside a building for a moment, you’ll regain your health. If you don’t feel like running on foot, the tanks, jeeps and planes are all fun and easy to use, even in the transition from keyboard and mouse to controller. Jeeps and tanks are especially entertaining, as one person can drive while another mans the machine gun, making you doubly effective at repelling your enemies.

You earn points for, among other things,‚  kills, kill assists, destroying vehicles, capturing flags, and defending flags. These points, rather than kills, are how you are ranked at the end of a match. You can join a squad when you start the match too, in order to compete for the best squad in the map. There have been matches where my team lost but I was on the best squad, and vice versa, so there’s a lot to play for besides just shooting everyone that moves. You move up in rank based on your actions and score, and also earn medals for certain things, like killing X number of enemies in a tank, or taking out X number of planes, in addition to the Achievements and Trophies. This also extends the replayability, as it gives you different ways to approach each map and game; anything that keeps a multiplayer-only game with just a handful of maps feeling fresh is good by me.

Blast Factor: Battlefield 1943 is a great experiment by EA, as it tries to blend classic features from one of their top series along with some of the newer innovations and advancements it has seen. For just $15, you get a first-person shooter with excellent controls, wonderful environments, and tons of variety and depth despite its bite-sized nature. DICE wanted to create a game you can go back to in between all of your larger game purchases, and with Battlefield 1943, it’s safe to say they succeeded with their goal.

Battlefield 1943 is available on the Xbox 360 for 1200 Microsoft Points and on the Playstation Network for $15

When a community hits 43 million kills, the fourth map for Battlefield 1943 will be unlocked. While the Playstation 3 lags behind at almost 22 million kills as of this writing, the 360 crowd is full of soldiers willing to do unspeakable things in the name of their console. The Xbox Live community is closing in on 42 million kills, and are just now around one million shy of unlocking the new map. You can read more details as to what that means for you in our Battlefield 1943 contest; just know that you are running short on time.

This also shouldn’t be a surprise, given how much playtime this new downloadable only title is getting, as Eddie pointed us towards earlier today. Wait, why are you still reading? Grab a rifle and a camera and unlock us that map, soldier!

[UPDATE] And it’s over folks.

Today in predictable news, Major Nelson of Xbox Live revealed the top 10 lists for XBL usership for the week, naming Halo 3 and Battlefield 1943 dominators of the space we know and love.

Can’t believe a game from 2007 is still #1? Well, believe it. Halo 3 is stupid-popular. Hell, I’ve played it almost every day for its life (except for a minor break to max out COD:4), and Battlefield 1943, that’s no surprise either. A tested franchise + download only + pure-win multiplayer + a race to 43 million kills to unlock a new map = certain success.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles‚  (based on unique users)

1‚ ‚ ‚  Halo 3
2‚ ‚ ‚  Call of Duty: WaW
3‚ ‚ ‚  Call of Duty 4
4‚ ‚ ‚  Gears of War 2
5‚ ‚ ‚  Battlefield 1943
6‚ ‚ ‚  GTA IV
7‚ ‚ ‚  FIFA 09
8‚ ‚ ‚  Left 4 Dead
9‚ ‚ ‚  UFC 2009 Undisputed
10‚ ‚  Fallout 3

Top Arcade Titles‚  (Full Versions purchased)

1‚ ‚ ‚  Battlefield 1943
2‚ ‚ ‚  N+
3‚ ‚ ‚  Worms 2: Armageddon
4‚ ‚ ‚  Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers
5‚ ‚ ‚  Castle Crashers
6‚ ‚ ‚  UNO
7‚ ‚ ‚  HASBRO FAMILY GAME NIGHT **
8‚ ‚ ‚  Sonic The Hedgehog 3
9‚ ‚ ‚  THE KING OF FIGHTERS’98 ULTIMATE MATCH
10‚ ‚  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade

Marc and I have been feverishly attacking BF1943 and if you’d like to join us, throw either of us friend request on XBL (eddie not eddy and mjn328) and join in the Blast mayhem.

Battlefield 1943, the multiplayer-only sequel to the PC game Battlefield 1942, released on Xbox Live Arcade two days ago and on the Playstation Network yesterday. You may not have heard, but there are three maps to begin with, but four maps in total. The fourth map will be released when the community reaches 43 million kills total, which is a great idea, and preferable to paying for a DLC map pack. It’s like Noby Noby Boy, except stuffed full of World War II era violence. The more we play as a community, the more support we see for the title.

The official countdown towards 43 million kills begins today–it’s fun to watch the Ps3 and 360 owners race, after all. That is why we want to recruit our readers as hired guns, of sorts. All you have to do is take a picture of the statistics page for your gamertag or PSN ID on Battlefield 1943, where your total kills are displayed on a leaderboard. Whoever contributes the most to the war effort amongst our readers by the time that fourth map is finally unlocked will receive either a Microsoft Points or Playstation Network card for $20, which is $5 more than the game costs. You get your money back, and a little something extra for the future, courtesy of Blast.

The rules are simple: Take a picture of your television screen, and e-mail it to marcnormandin@gmail.com (Hey, that’s me!). I’ll publish a reminder the day (or day before)‚  it looks like the fourth map is about to be unlocked so everyone can send in their last-minute photos. Please make sure to timestamp your photo for authenticity, and we’re using the honor system here, so no photoshopping kill totals. Photoshoppers will be hunted down and flogged by the runner-up (Blast is not responsible for your airfare). We’ll verify that you are who you say you are over your network of choice, and then you get free stuff. Neat, huh? And all you had to do was play a game you already bought.

Now that the Fourth of July holiday weekend is behind us, I wanted to let you know that we will have plenty of coverage for you here this week at Blast. Sure, the start of the summer lull in game releases is upon us, but there are still plenty of games worth a look on the way, and we’ll have plenty of supplemental content for you as well.

For instance, we interviewed Gaijin Games, the creators of Bit.Trip CORE–which is releasing today at noon on WiiWare–on Friday (in case you missed it while stuffing yourself full of beer and burgers, here’s the link). Later today we will also be publishing an interview with Bplus, the developers of Bit Boy, which released in Europe on Friday, and should be coming to North America soon. We’ve also had a few pieces of equipment sent to us for review, so you should see our thoughts on Splitfish’s FragFX controller soon, as well as on TeknoCreations’ protective case/battery backup DSi case.

We’ll have reviews of some recent titles soon too, despite the infrequent releases. The Bigs 2 is coming out on multiple systems, and we’ll have a review for you arcade baseball lovers soon after it’s out. The newest Harry Potter also came out recently, and we’ll have reviews of that on multiple consoles. The first episode of the Tales of Monkey Island remake is out this week too, and we have been hard at working checking that out for you. Battlefield 1943 is releasing for XBLA and PSN this week.‚  The aforementioned Bit.Trip CORE will be reviewed, and we’ll also finish catching up on June’s very busy release schedule. Don’t forget that later this month, fresh off of the E3 insanity, we will be heading to San Diego Comic Con to get you even more hands-on previews and news from developers and publishers. It’s a good way to get a head start on your holiday purchasing plans, especially since it’s looking like yet another loaded winter for gamers.

The multiplayer only sequel to Battlefield 1942 will hit XBLA and PSN on July 8 and 9 next week, according to the game’s Twitter account (to make it even more official, a press release just dropped into my inbox as I type this). If you are a fan of Battlefield 1942, then you won’t need my recommendation to get this, but as added incentive, once the community reaches 43 million kills, a fourth map, Coral Sea, will be available to play. If everyone plays this new version at the pace I played the old one, we’ll be there the day after it releases.

You can check out my hands-on with the game, back when it was first announced before New York Comic Con in February. It felt great then, so with a few months of extra love under its belt, it should be an exciting addition to both consoles and the PC. We’ll have a review for the game next week after it hits, so be sure to look out for that.

DICE and Electronic Arts today announced that the latest in the famed Battlefield series will hit digital shelves in June‚  on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Store for $15/1200 MS Points, with a later date to be announced for PC gamers.

Battlefield 1943 builds upon the worldwide success and renown of prior installments, offers 24 player mayhem on maps similar to 1942 and is now updated with the exciting Frostbite engine.

If you played Battlefield: Bad Company you know damn well the capabilities of the engine.‚  Cover as we know it, simply does not exist anymore due to the total destructibility of environments.‚  Snipers positions are no longer unreachable, trees can be fired upon and dropped to curb forward movement, and the once pristine landscapes become war-torn and ravaged altering strategic methods of attack or defense.

Battles in 1943 will take place in three memorable World War 2 locations: Wake Island, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.‚  Players can suit up as Marines or the Imperial Japanese and wage war through the air, sea, or ground.‚  Much like previous titles not every soldier is created equal and you’ll have the option to choose a class that plays to your strength.‚  A running and gunning ground solider, a brute tank driver, or a acrobatic and lethal pilot are all options available in Battlefield 1943.

I’m about as big of a Battlefield : 1942 fan as you can find. It’s a game I sank far more hours into than I care to admit after its release and in subsequent years, but with the next generation of consoles and a seemingly never ending slew of new titles to play, I have not gone anywhere near the game in some time.

EA and Digital Illusions CE announced a way to scratch that itch just days before New York Comic Con though, and to my surprise, it showed up at the event in a playable form as Battlefield: 1943. Though the version I tested was pre-alpha, I could already see where DICE was going with this, especially after talking over some of the game’s features with producer Gordon Van Dyke.

Basically, EA wanted to give fans of the franchise a way to experience classic Battlefield on their home consoles, but with a fresh coat of (beautiful) paint, some new physics, and some tweaks and improvements that make it more than worth playing again. It’s not a full game, in the sense that it isn’t going to retail, but will instead be a download for Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. It will support up to 24 players through online only; think of it as a World War II era Warhawk.

1943 will have three maps from the original game (Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal) that are both preserved in their form but also updated for the better. Iwo Jima will now have lush greenery to give it more of the jungle vibe it should have; this gives soldiers new places to hide, but also allows an updated version of the Frostbite engine (which Battlefield: Bad Company players should recognize) to show off its stuff when a tank drives over the trees and knocks them to the ground. As you can see in the screenshots, this game looks gorgeous already.

Cover is going to be destructible thanks to the engine, which should give the maps some new dynamics. You can’t just repair a bridge with an engineer anymore while a tank sits there and guards it either, as that class is gone. Take care of your cover, and it will take care of you.

What you will have though, are trenches. Though I didn’t test a map with trenches, I was told that they are being implemented as a way to improve the battle system. Given that the medic is no longer a class either thanks to (slowly) regenerating health, adding trench warfare is a welcome addition.

Speaking of classes, you will be able to choose from Rifleman, Scout, and Infantry. All three have two weapons a piece.‚  I used the Rifleman during my time with 1943, and after playing around with the controls, I can safely say they have translated over from the PC very well. I had no problem dropping into the game and avoiding looking silly after a moment.

The same can be said for the vehicle controls. After driving a tank and a jeep and flying a fighter plane, you can be assured by the fact that DICE nailed the control scheme. In fact, flying may be easier with the analog sticks than it was with a keyboard and mouse, as you gently glide and turn your plane over enemy targets with precision.

The goal of Battlefield: 1943 was to make a shooter that was accessible but at the same time deep and rewarding for those who play it constantly. In order to assure accessibility, DICE avoided putting in anything gimmicky like unlockable weapons for those who play constantly, so that way those who play 1943 in between their major release purchases are not missing out on anything. This should keep people coming back without fear that they are ill equipped to compete after time away from the game; of course, playing more often most likely means you will be better than if you weren’t playing, but this still helps to narrow the divide.

Battlefield: 1943 is set to release this summer on Xbox Live Arcade as well as the Sony Playstation Network and PC. A price has not yet been set, but for fans of Battlefield, it’s going to be worth the admission.