If you're lucky enough to be in possession of a Starcraft II beta key, and you own one of them expensive looking Apple computers, you can now get to playing Blizzard's long, long awaited sequel on your nice and shiny Apple-computer-by-Apple. Expect some moderate system requirments to make the game run well. My best guess is that if you can run World of Warcraft you shouldn't have too much trouble with Starcraft II.

Beta keys are still being offered by Blizzard and there's three ways to get it. You can go to starcraft2.com and sign up through a battle.net account, get a key from a friend who is already in the beta, or pre-order the game at Gamestop. You could also appeal to heathen gods but you'll likely end up getting a demon spirit with your beta key, and that tends to suck.

Set your countdown clocks. The “Halo: Reach” multiplayer beta, which is poised to be one of the biggest test events in entertainment history, kicks off in just four days. Among the millions of “Halo” fans eagerly anticipating the beta is actress Aisha Tyler. Available starting today is a video introduction to the beta starring the actress, viewable exclusively through the “Halo 3: ODST” game disc. Tyler walks through all the new game modes and offers her own tips and insider hints for each of the maps while showing off some life-size “Halo” weaponry.

As this is a beta, Bungie will be turning on different modes at different times to optimize testing. The beta kicks off May 3rd with three playlists featuring the all-new, highly competitive Arena mode (4v4 ranked Team Slayer games) as well as “Free-for-All” and “Grab Bag” playlists, which include a mix of classic and brand new game types. Beginning May 7, the new large-scale Spartan vs. Elite “Invasion” playlist will be added to the beta. Finally, beginning May 14 the “Generator Defense” game type will become available.

Everyone who logs in and plays at least one full game of any type in the “Halo: Reach” beta will receive a free “Halo: Reach” Avatar hoodie via the Halo Waypoint portal on Xbox LIVE. To redeem the hoodie, players must access Halo Waypoint and browse their “Halo” Career statistics after completing a match.

Bungie has recently announced on their community blog that they have entered into a 10-year publishing agreement with Activision. From what is mentioned in the announcement, it appears this new partnership is meant to allow Bungie a world-wide recognized publisher with which to release original intellectual property on mulitple platforms:

The groundbreaking alliance will provide Bungie its first such partnership since splitting off from Microsoft in 2007, significantly broadening its global reach by providing the resources and support to develop, distribute and release games worldwide on multiple platforms and devices.

The details of the agreement stipulate that Activision retains the right to publish Bungie games based on new, original IP's which can translate to "no halo on PS3" depending on how you look at it. Bungie also retains all rights to their own content and will remain an independent company from Activision, meaning the possibility of another Infinity Ward/Activision fiasco would be highly unlikely.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of plans Bungie has with this new agreement. With E3 little more than a month away we expect more details to come to light. Stay tuned for more information as it develops.

Don't worry, this isn't more Activision Vs. Infinity Ward news. Treyarch's next addition to the Call of Duty series, which is rumored to take place in the Vietnam era, is going to be oficially announced late tomorrow night on Spike network's Gametrailers TV.

If you want to see the reveal yourself tune in at around 12:30 AM... or you can get some sleep and get the details here the next morning.

Croteam's HD-ifying of the second game in the Serious Sam series is complete and ready for purchase for all you steam users out there. The game features better visuals, new additions to the original campaign as well as a co-op play feature and additions to the game's 16-player multiplayer. All this is available for a meager $19.99.

Hit the jump for a complete list of additions and features in this re-release.

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Hoo boy, things are getting very serious with the media debacle that is Infinity Ward and Activision. A group of around thiry-eight Infinity Ward employees have filed a lawsuit against Activision claiming the publisher has not paid the full amount of bonuses and royalities owed to the developer since the release of Modern Warfare 2; going so far as to say that Activision is intentionally holding the developer's payment hostage in order to keep employees working at IW to develop (and subsequently reap the rewards of) Modern Warfare 3.

According to G4TV, the employees taking part in the suit include "a significant portion of the members of the creative team" for Modern Warfare 2.  Information filed within the suit mentions that Activision has paid Infinity Ward around $28 million for the game, but is charged for witholding an additional $54 million for 2009's profits, not including amounts yet to be payed for the games success in 2010. In addition to the money owed, the IW employees are seeking anywhere from $75 million to $500 million in punitive damages. The suit also mentions Activision's breach of contract by failing to pay terminated or departing employees their due within seventy-two hours of their end of employment.

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Later this week I will be interviewing Gunnar Johansson of Fatshark Games regarding the company and their PC/PS3 title Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West.

I'm giving YOU the opportunity to ask him questions! Make sure to submit all questions BY midnight on Thursday (4/29/10). You can submit them by leaving a comment below.

The Conduit had a lot of hype behind it. The game's development represented a certain openness to the gaming community. High Voltage saw a problem and wanted to be the first to tackle it; be the first to make a "hardcore" Wii game and realize the dreams gamers had for first person shooters. So we watched, with baited breath as the game developed, impressed along the way by the community's opinions and input. The end result? Aside from great controls, meh.

It appears High Voltage is aware of this as they updated their blog and spent quite a bit of time talking about the Conduit 2. From what they wrote they seem to agree the The Conduit had some flaws; particularly in terms of art direction and an overall lack of gravity to the game's events.

At various points throughout the development of C1 we would discover something new about the technology, build a new graphics feature, and then have to make hard decisions as to whether or not we had time to rework existing art content to take better advantage of the latest features...The result was a game that is fun to play and is solid overall, but never quite manages to excite its audience with inspired visions of a darkly futuristic world that’s being torn apart by aliens.

The post goes on to talk about the developers commitment to not add content to the game unless they are a hundred percent in love with it. They also mention refinements the've introduced to Quantum 3 engine that will further help improve the game's art work. You can check out the rest of the post via the link below.

[via The Conduit 2 - A Message From High Voltage]

As predicted, more senior staff have parted ways with the Modern Warfare 2 developer since the sacking of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West. Designers Keith Bell and Charlie Wiederhold in addition to level designer Preston Glenn departed from the studio not long after the departure of five other senior staff members. 

In addition to these three, five more left yesterday including lead character artist Joel Emslie, artist Brad Allen, weapons artist Ryan Lastimosa, lead programmer Robert Field, and Kristin Cotterell, who is actually a human resources and recruitment specialist. Don't they seek out new talent for up and coming developers by the way? Wonder where this is going...

With these departures and the ones from the previous weekend the total number of employees to leave Infinity Ward is around 26, according to Kotaku. No matter how Activision may try to spin it, seeing this many employees seemingly follow their former bosses out the door presents itself as a huge debaser to the publisher's claim that Zampella and West were schemers and scammers out only for themselves. Based on the snowball like effect of these departures its a pretty strong certainty that only more will leave.

According to Square Enix, western developed games tend to be a bit, erm, violent. Since the publisher is often behind the localization of western developed titles over seas, SE apparently felt the need to develop an all new label under which they would publish the more "extreme" games brought to the publisher's homeland. Thusly, the Square Enix Extreme Edges publishing label has been created to do just that

The label will be used to publish games that get a CERO rating of D or Z, the Japanese equivalent of the ESRB's M and AO rating. The thought process behind this new label is to further help consumers distinct between the more extreme and mildly rated games. The best thing I can compare this to would be  Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. One is intended for a more mature audience and provides distinction to show it.

Since SE owns Eidos there's sure to be a number of new games to be published under the new label. It's good to see new avenues open up for more games to reach out farther into different locales of the industry.

[via siliconera]