Well I got Mercs 2 today, didn't play too long but I got a good feel for the game and i have to say i am impressed. The gameplay is great, if a little repetitive, there is the odd glitch but nothing game breaking (although one of my friends told me he had to restart a mission due to his objective spawning stuck inside a building), the graphics are a little shaky at times but the magnificent explosions and dynamite gameplay make up for that, the story is mediocre to low, but if it was a good story you were looking for, maybe you should look elsewhere.

Moving on to the real reason for this blog post, WHY THE HELL DID EA REGION LOCK THE GAME!?! It would be fine for most people if it was the standard region lock: you cant play a NTSC disc on a PAL console or vice versa. But no, EA has done it again, we cant play with any friends outside our regions anymore, much like Army of Two. Racial Segregation FTW!

Even though this problem could be easily fixed by a region hosting and search features.

What is the logic behind it? Is it to reduce lag? Push our international friends apart? Annoy us? Or maybe they just think we don't like each-other now and don't want to play together anymore.

Whatever reason you believe it is for, post your thoughts in the comment section below. I want some people to be aware of this issue before buying this game and future EA titles, hopefully it won't become a trend in the years to come.

Update: I have heard from multiple people that a likely reason for the uber-region locking is that because EA uses their own servers instead of Microsoft's they cannot support long range connections. Also i have found that the "Regions" seem to confine us to our country not our continent, as i cannot join my friend who lives in Amsterdam nor one who is in Scotland although he only lives at most 450 miles away!

Just 28 more days until GTA IV if released!

This will be the longest month of the year by far, but the wait will be worth it.

It's funny, battlefield and free! Well worth watching

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31297.html

Releasing Summer 08