Here's some highlights of this week's game offerings. Although I'm not big into sports games, I really want to try Mario Strikers Charged. something about Princess Peach in a sports bra makes me curious, don't ask me why.

Mario Strikers Charged (WII)
Play as your favorite Mushroom Kingdom characters in a soccer showdown.

Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP)
A new RPG based on the Brave Story movie.

Glory Days 2 (DS)
The DS action strategy game supports up to eight way multi-player and even 3D (the glasses kind)

Attack on Pearl Harbor (PC)
Play as the U.S. or Japan for the first time in a Pearl Harbor based game.

Picross DS (DS)
Solve puzzles to create pixelated pictures.

Pet Alien (DS)
The next best thing to Pet Rock: The Game!

Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars (MAC) C&C TW gives the Mac some love.

Battlefield 2142 (MAC)
It's a good week to be a mac gamer!

While a dancing game has already been nixed by Cousins—Boogie's got that covered, anyway—the creative director is light on details about what the team wants to do after Bad Company. If I can make a suggestion, Ben, EA's very light in the cooking genre and your nation's meatballs are just fantastic.

That idea is free, contact me for others. Michael McWhertor

DICE promises to diversify with new projects [Games Industry]

Be sure to login and join the battle this weekend! In an effort to let everyone preview all unlocks while playing in a ranked environment we will be granting all soldiers every one of the upgrades over the coming 4 days. Starting Friday and lasting until midnight PST Monday every soldier who logs in will be able to fight it out with every unlock in Battlefield 2142! Jump on and play alongside us during this free for all weekend.

Hear that? It's the Battlefield 2142 Northern Strike hype machine shifting into full gear! Michael McWhertor

All unlocks in BF2142 available to everyone

No word on a release date yet (or if this is free), but look forward to tomorrow's news update along with a trailer for more. You can check the official site below, but won't find much new beyond the above teaser screenshot. Michael McWhertor

Battlefield 2142 Northern Strike

This wet blanket wants video game publishers to notify consumers before they buy a game that someone will gather marketing data and push advertising on them.

Supposedly they're concerned about kids installing malicious software and protecting our privacy rights. I think they're just looking to ruin everyone else's fun! Thanks a lot, you fascists. Guess I'll have to turn on my television if I want to be bombarded with advertising. Michael McWhertor

In-game Adware Targeted by California Legislator [GamePolitics]
Privacy Experts: Legislation Needed To Curb Video Game Spyware [10News]

The most sublime parody is always just a lanugo strand more finely exaggerated than reality.

Today, EA, DICE, and IGA announced the first Battlefield 2142 expansion pack, tentatively titled: CYA: Cover Your A$$.

Again teaming up with IGA, and with new corporate sponsors Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Victoria's Secret, the expansion pack will offer the newest generation of graphics, audio, and 22nd Century weapons and vehicles.

And...

During an interview about the CYA expansion, IGA CEO, Justin Townsend, was particularly excited about this new body armor feature.

"After extensive research of player actions in the game, IGA found that players were spending 80% of their time in the game staring at fellow Squad Members. We realized that this had untapped potential as advertising space."

Not real, of course, but a fine example of humor from the folks at Digital Battle.

Battlefield 2142 Expansion Announced [Digital Battle]

Hey, even more reason to just love Battlefield 2142, EA and DICE. Sure, they are infecting you with spyware... I'm sorry, a piece of software that allows them to more accurately monitor in-game ad usage. Sorry, even worse! But hey, it's just spyware... not exactly like they're leaving the backdoor open to hackers.

Well, except they are. According to Hearless Gamer, EA has already released a patch for BF:2142 today that requires you to uninstall a critical Windows Update patch.

What does that patch do?

A security issue has been identified in the Windows Kernel that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it.

Gosh, what will EA do to their loyal Battlefield: 2142 fans next? Decapitate them by propelling the DVD out of a cannon at their necks? Florian Eckhardt

Another Reason to say NO to Battlefield 2142! [Heartless Gamer]

I reported earlier that word around the campfire indicated the presence of a note inside retail boxes of Battlefield 2142. The note indicated the presence of spyware, installed along with the game, meant to monitor and broadcast computer details for the purpose of targeted in-game advertising.

Tipper Ryan writes in from Australia that he received no such note.

I just came home with my copy of BF2142 (The EB I go to in Perth, Western Australia was selling them early) and there was no such note in my box. Just a manual, dvd and 2 small ads for other EA games.

Another possibility is that Australia has different laws about installation disclosure. Can anyone weigh in on this? Any other Aussies get ahold of BF2142 yet? Eliza Gauger

Previously on Kotaku: BF2142 With a Dash of Spyware

Tipper Nic directs our attention to this forum post, where we read of a disheartening little slip of paper that suggests some seriously gross spyware will be installed along with Battlefield 2142, all in the name of in-game advertising:

So. In the latest CGW podcast, they received retail boxed copies of BF 2142.

When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records "anonymous" information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other "computing habits" in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads.

Now, I can live with certain in-game ads (though apparently there will be Dodge truck and Neon ads in the bleak, futuristic world of 2142), but including a lengthy description - outside of even the Eula - seems to indicate even EA knows that this is some shady borderline spyware shit. I don't support it and won't be buying 2142 (for a host of other reasons, too).

Can you imagine how much the ad companies are paying for this information? Makes me feel a little ill. Eliza Gauger

First Post! [ShackNews]

It's hard to tell, but judging from the press release it look slike the demo comes with the Sidi Power Plant map, a vehicle-based map that includes all vehicles from the game. Air transport vehicles and heavy attack vehicles spaw at the rim bases, Battle Walkers spawn at either side of the river and the map's only air attack vehicle spawns on the center island, accordnig to the release.

I was supposed to be in the beta, but my damn computer was down for the duration, so I missed out. Brian Crecente

Battlefield 2142 Gallery [Kotaku]

Electronics Arts buys DICE, makers of the Battlefied series. Then Computer And Video Games comes along and conducts this interview with Marcus Nilsson, senior producer of Battlefield: 2142, and he says this:

It's not that we are necessarily very bad, we're not, but there is a very vocal minority on the forums who say 'EA is crap' and 'DICE are lazy', but they're all probably playing the game every day already anyway. We have minor problems, sometimes we have big problems, but minor problems are not what people should write about. Maybe they should write about why they're playing Battlefield every day. But that's human nature, I guess - you have a vocal minority and a silent majority.

Lovely attitude. If you are complaining about something the devs qualify as "minor", they suggest you would be better off spending your time writing about, say, your own sexual dysfunctions. After all, you are part of the minority that speaks... the majority loves the game and has no problem with it, as evidenced by the fact that they aren't talking.

Man, Marcus, shut up. That vocal minority? Those are the true fans of your game. The guys who aren't talking? They are the guys who ponied up the money, got bored a week later and aren't likely to come up. Silence in gaming forums, as in death, does not indicate satisfaction. Florian Eckhardt

Interview: Battlefield 2142 [CVG]

If you like headshotting mech-suit wielding cyborgs in the head with a bazooka and having your triumph punctuated by a big fat Windows crash message, keep your eyes open in August. Battlefield 2142 is going to have an open beta around that time. DICE is also hinting at a demo a couple weeks before the game hits.

This scant post brought to you from the Department of Being Jet-Lagged Department. Florian Eckhardt

Battlefield 2142: Let There Be Open Beta [Flicker Gaming]

Stompy mechs! Exquisitely rendered rocket tails! Sunny blue skies! Shooty little hoverbots! Splosions!

Yanked right out of Computer and Video Games' grippy little fingers and smeared, still steaming, all over Kotaku's head and neck. Come readers, let us stare into the future of fun... together. Eliza Gauger

Fileplanet is currently hosting a 20 minute walkthrough of the upcoming Battlefield 2142, provided by Dice during E3 2006. We wish there was more to say about it except cyborg power armor exoskeletons! But while there is more to say about it, our inner geek just can't stop shrieking that over and over within the perpetual E3 of our soul.

Battlefield 2142 - 20 Minute Walkthrough Info

Hi BF fans,

Today we have some really big news to share with you. The more sniper-eyed of you out there will probably already know, but we're currently hard at work developing "Battlefield 2142", which is scheduled for release this Autumn. As you'll have guessed, this is a departure for the BF series as we're going into the future - something that a lot of you wanted to see happen in the BF universe. We're creating a ton of cool features that you won't have seen in any BF before, including cloaking devices, mines that follow you, awesome new rifles, guns and grenades, and of course, MECHS! We're developing this here in DICE Stockholm while the DICE Canada studio will be hard at work on a 1.3 update for Battlefield 2, as well as the Armoured Fury Booster Pack.

There'll be an "official" press release later on this week but we know that you guys need to know first. Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted on how 2142 is coming along.

The BF2142 Team

P.S. Snoken - vi har sett fram emot Mine 2 och kan lugnt s ga att vi inte blev besvikna!

We asked our Swedish correspondent to translate the post script. He says it means: "Bork bork bork bork!" So now we need someone to translate that.

Battlefield: 2142 Announcement
Related: Battlefield: 2142 Trailer

Man, mechs just make everything cooler. Even the horrific ignominy of war!

Battlefield 2142 Trailer [YouTube]