After what feels like years of waiting, Blizzard is starting the Starcraft 2 closed beta. I beta that I won’t be getting a key for because Bob at Blizzard’s PR department noticed I’ve only updated the site like 3 times since last year. He was harsh, harsh but fair. I’ve been slacking, but no more. I will prove to this Bob that I have what it takes.
Anyway, if you haven’t yet setup a Battle.net account, you can visit here to sign up and, hopefully, get into the beta. Maybe.
Blizzard’s Korean community manager Kicho has hinted of a possible open beta, saying that the StarCraft II beta will be available for “all fans of the franchise”, not just press and VIPs.
We know that all of you are very curious about the development of the Beta with the release of many Starcraft 2 Beta Testing related news across various news portals…
I can definitely say that the Beta test will not just involve industry experts and other VIPs but rather will involve all fans of the franchise.
That’s great news, since I’m pretty sure I don’t count as a member of the press and I’m certainly not a VIP.
Starcraft’s map editor allowed users to create their own maps and just generally do a lot of cool things with the game (this mostly resulted in the creation of about a million different Starship Trooper maps). Well, Starcraft II’s editor is going to be even cooler. At BlizzCon’s StarCraft II gameplay panel, they showed off three different custom maps, each showing off different ways the editor can be used. The first shows how players can create new enemies, it featured a custom made “uberlisk.” The second is a third-person action game, basically the now cancelled Starcraft: Ghost. The third is a Galaga-like top-down shooter. Basically, users can do a lot more with the editor now, which should give a lot more variety to their inevitable Starship Trooper maps.
Today Blizzard officially announced that Starcraft II will be delayed until sometime in 2010, citing the development of the newly improved Battle.net as the major reason why we won’t be seeing the game in 2009. I think everyone kind of, sort of, knew that Starcraft II was going to be delayed, it’s Blizzard after all, famous for their “when it’s done” policy, polishing and refining all their games thoroughly before release.
I think I want to play as Terran, no other unit looks as radical as Thor. And now I know exactly what buildings I need to create them…6 months ahead of time. The Terran and Zerg trees are below…
I always loved playing as the Zerg, something about beating an opponent by swarming them with tons of units was always fun. I can’t wait to hear “Spawn more overlords” over and over again…Starcraft was super awesome. Also, everytime I see a trailer for Starcraft 2 it looks better and better, I’m giving this game 5/5 Awesome Radicals right now.
Updated with a fact sheet about the Zerg units and a direct feed video (gametrailers posted a bunch of new videos) of some Zerg slaughtering Terran: (more…)
Sunday Activision and Vivendi Games announced a merger between their two companies. Vivendi will be the majority share holder, purchasing $1.7 billion in Activision stocks. The whole deal will be worth roughly $18.9 billion dollars. The new name for the company will be Activision Blizzard, which is a pretty unoriginal name if you ask me. The whole press release can be found here.
So how will this deal affect future game releases like Starcraft II and Wrath of the Lich King? It won’t, says Blizzard. That’s good news, if anything bad happened to Starcraft II I might cry. (more…)
Blizzard has a nice right up over at starcraft2.com detailing the Starcraft storyline leading up to Starcraft II, which takes place four years after the events of Starcraft: Brood War. I never really paid a lot of attention to the story, so this little write-up is a great refresher. I think I just have a problem remembering who’s who in a story when there are more then like 4 characters involved in a story. (more…)
