The story’s poor. What am I doing really? You find this guy, now this guy, oh here’s something different: find this place! Whilst you’re doing that random people will pop up like something out of Time Crisis 2 and try and kill you. Oh and to do all that you go through a million different checkpoints. That’s what MW2 did and it f-cking sucks. It feels really scripted to me and I hate it for that. The ‘level’ interaction seems unfinished. For instance when you run into the castle-esque areas on the desert map (de targo or something?) you affectively initiate a mission or new sub-story sequence that ends in a boss (i.e. a f-cking great big Apache helicopter). Once you’re done, the screen fades to black, you see a random cinematic sequence where Haggard says something odd or funny, and suddenly you’re outside with your vehicle and squad (which, by the way, are popping into view from top to bottom like something out of a tech demo). Christ.

Oh, and that annoying bug with the loading screen: you’re reading the tip text then it fades to black. You think “great, the level’s starting” and suddenly the text’s back and you’re loading again. Huh?

The action is outstanding, second to none. The gadgets, guns and vehicles are much better than before; they feel more realistic and reactive. The destructive environment is also an improvement on the first (which wasn’t bad in the first place!). The textures look amazing and the game looks ever-so realistic. The Brazilian jungle was actually beautiful.

It’s a good, fun game, but the thing that made the first Bad Company instalment so good was its open-ended gameplay and well-polished storytelling, both of which have taken a back seat in #2 to do what seems like its competitor does: all looks and no substance. Grr!

That said, I’ve yet to play multiplayer which is where Bad Company 1 really got going.

• TCP 80
• UDP 88
• TCP & UDP 3074
• TCP & UDP 53

I found those details on the official knowledge base article found here. Hope that helps!

Xbox media streaming uses the DNLA protocol to receive content from a peer on a network. Using ushare, you can setup streaming to your Xbox on any Linux machine quite easily. All that’s needed is libupnp2 (if you’re running Debian, you may have to install libupnp via the Ubuntu deb as only version 3 is available and the uShare package depends on it explicitly), a minor configuration change and a quick hack to the init script. All of which I’ll explain now.

Installation (for Debian Sid)

Note: for Ubuntu, you’ll just need to run ‘sudo apt-get install ushare’ in a shell.  Then skip to the configuration section below.

uShare depends on libupnp2 and unfortunately only version 3 is available (at least in sid). Therefore, you’ll need to obtain a deb for version 2 (I got the Ubunutu equivalent from here and it works fine). Once you’ve downloaded a .deb for your architecture, fire up a shell (or ‘terminal’) and enter the following (filenames will differ depending on your arch):

sudo dpkg -i libupnp2_1.4.3-2_amd64.deb


Now that libupnp2 is installed, you’ll need to get a deb for uShare or alternatively (and best, because you’ll get updates via apt) is to add the uShare apt repository to your sources.list. Open /etc/apt/sources.list as root (using sudo):

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Now add the following line at the bottom of sources.list:

deb http://www.geexbox.org/debian/ unstable main

Save and close sources.list. Finally, update your package list:

sudo apt-get update

Now you’ll have uShare available via apt. To install it, run the following:

sudo apt-get install ushare

Configuration

Once finished, you’ll have uShare installed and ready for configuration. Out of the box, it won’t provide much apart from a daemon listening on a random port (defined as part of IANA Dynamic Ports range). You’ll need to edit /etc/ushare.conf to enable Xbox compatibility as well as define the standard port – 49200. Open /etc/ushare.conf as root and change the following lines:

USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_DIR=/path/to/your/media
ENABLE_XBOX=YES

Before these changes will take effect, you’ll need to restart ushare using its init script. However, an issue I’ve noticed is that the last line (‘ENABLE_XBOX=YES’) does not always work. So before we restart uShare, we’ll need to make a small change to the init script that resides under /etc/init.d/ to force Xbox compatibility:

sudo vi /etc/init.d/ushare

and add the following line at the beginning of the script:

USHARE_OPTIONS=-x

This tells uShare to start with Xbox compatibility. Now restart uShare using the init script:

invoke-rc.d ushare restart

And you’re done. Almost. :) You may need to restart your Xbox for it to recognise your Linux machine (although the use of UPnP – Universal Plug ‘n’ Play – would suggest otherwise). Once you’ve done that (or if you’re brave), navigate to ‘My Xbox’ and then select ‘Videos’ and finally you should see ‘uShare’ at the bottom (computer icon). Selecting that will connect to your Linux box and you’ll be able to browse your media just as you would on your PC. Awesome!

I’m not sure what demographic it’s pandering to, because although the game’s very impressive and it’s got a huge fanbase, it is all very scripted. There’s no open-ended outcome. You’re just going through the motions, doing as you’re told. You have no real affect on the overall outcome. Perhaps I’ve been playing too much Fallout 3 for my opinion to remain neutral. It does feel however that some parts just don’t require any thought whatsoever. You can’t play intelligently or manipulate your environment to better your situation. That said though, it’s still very fun.

The longevity of the game comes from its online offerings. The co-op and deathmatch side of things cannot be knocked, and I hope to see online co-op play emerge in other games too.