Starcraft II

During Activision Blizzard's financial conference call. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime stated that they are currently targeting the long awaited sci-fi RTS sequel StarCraft II to release sometime in the first half of 2010. Previously Blizzard would only admit to a release of the game sometime in the 2010 time period.

While Morhaime stated during the conference call that the development team is working towards the game's beta test launch, he would not confirm any dates on when the beta will actually begin. Last June at E3 the company stated they hoped to have the beta launch during the summer but had to retract that plan when their plans to release StarCraft II changed from their previous fall 2009 date.

In the newest StarCraft II Battle Report, David Kim, one of the StarCraft II team's associate game balance designers faces off against Blizzard's Yeon-Ho Lee in a head-to-head match. This Protoss vs Terran match takes place on the Lost Temple map, a classic StarCraft multiplayer map updated for the sequel.

Download HD StarCraft II Battle Report #4 (557 MB)
Check out all StarCraft II downloads

While all of us wait patiently for Blizzard to light the candle on the StarCraft II beta test (remember when they said it was going to happen last summer? Good times) we check out any info we can get on the upcoming sci-fi RTS game. Recently the game's official forums posted up the latest fan Q&A about the game (the 54th, in fact).

The questions, as usual, get extremely specific (these are die hard StarCraft fans who are asking these questions to Blizzard after all) and deal with issues like Zergling vs. Zealot ratios, being able to dodge an EMP attack in the game and allowing maps and mods for StarCraft II to have their own launcher. Meanwhile we wait for the beta test . . . and wait . . . and wait some more.

Amazon.com has the occasional one day sale that might be of interest to our audience. Today their one day sale deals with the "Battle Chest" game collections from Blizzard Entertainment. For today only three of these collections are on sale for 50 percent off.

If you haven't bought these games already you can get the Diablo Battle Chest (Diablo II and its expansion plus strategy guide) for $19.98, the Warcraft III Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for $19.98 and the StarCraft Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for just $9.98. That's 50 percent off their normal price.

Hey, do you remember any news about an upcoming RTS game called . . . StarCraft II? Why sure you do. Yes, we are all very upset that Blizzard won't deliver the long awaited sequel by the end of this year but that doesn't mean we should be bitter. Just think of it as an excuse to learn more about the game before it comes out.

And one of the ways to do just that is with the latest StarCraft II fan Q&A on the Battle.net message boards. The developers answer a few more of the fan questions like how many voice actors worked on the game (58), any word on additional map features (Nope) and a question about terrain sets (terrain sets are named after planets and there will be more flexibility to modify terrain sets in the final game). Now you know and knowing is . . well, you get the idea.

Sports fans, and we are taking die-hard sports fans here, always seem to have an opinion on how they should be running things if they were in charge of a sports team. Well, one of the executives of Blizzard Entertainment has decided to take some of his vast earnings and dive into the world of professional sports ownership.

Or at least a small part of that ownership. As revealed last week on the weeb site of the Pittsburgh Steelers, there is a new collection of 10 owners for the NFL pro football team. That includes the Sams family which has Paul Sams, currently the COO of Blizzard, as part of the group (along with his wife Susan and their three children). It's currently unknown exactly how much of a share the Sams family owns and how much it's worth.

[Via Joystiq]

As August comes to a close and we enter what is traditionally the busiest time of the year for PC gaming, we are looking back on the past 31 days to pick out what we believe were the top 10 news stories of the month for PC gaming. It was a time of new game announcements (thanks in part to Gamescom) but a lot of the news came from Blizzard's own event BlizzCon.

News stories we picked for the top 10 included the sad news of layoffs and even complete shutdowns of game developers, the release of a new version of a PC gaming client and word that a two year old console game might be released for the PC in an "AO" rated version. We also threw in a couple of extra news stories that, while big, didn't quite make the top 10 list.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Top 10 PC Game News Stories For August 2009

During out BlizzCon 2009 coverage last week we checked out the Pocket Books booth where they were showing off their previous and upcoming novels based on Blizzard's games. Among the books featured was StarCraft: Heaven's Devils, an upcoming hardcover prose novel from author William C Dietz.

Now Pocket Books has posted up an except from that novel on its web site. Designed to be a prequel to StarCraft II, the novel will be tell the story of the first meeting between Jim Raynor (hero of the first StarCraft game) and Tychus Findlay (the space marine that's the subject of the first StarCraft II CGI trailer). The novel is due in stores in mid-December.

Blizzard seems to be sticking to its guns for the most post on the subject of not offering a traditional offline LAN multiplayer mode for StarCraft II. While lots of players would like to see it happen, Blizzard wants the sci-fi RTS sequel to link up more to its Battle.net service.

However, it does look like that Blizzard is at least thinking about ways to give a LAN-like experience while not doing away completely with the online Battle.net connection. Chatting with Shacknews, Blizzard's Greg Canessa states, "Maintaining a connection with Battle.net, "I don't know if it's once or periodically, but then also having a peer-to-peer connection between players to facilitate a very low-ping, high-bandwidth connection.. those are the things that we're working on." Whether or not fans will be happy with that sort of compromise remains to be seen.

Blizzard's final StarCraft II panel at BlizzCon 2009 was on gameplay. Here are just some of the highlights:

StarCraft II's single player campaign will feature more story and go deeper into the characters than previous Blizzard RTS games. There will also be more choices in terms of which missions to take on and what upgrades and weapons you can take with you. There will also be more unique missions with different kinds of goals and challenges.

Mine Your Own Business is the name of one of these missions, set on a volanic and hostile planet. The map will have some of the new features of the game's engine and map tools such as two distinct cliff types, some new water tools (used to rise lava levels) and new lighting tools to make the map look more realistic.

Check out the jump for more info on the panel:

As we reported earlier, today's BlizzCon's so-called "StarCraft II Lore panel" was actually a StarCraft II voice actor panel, where it was revealed that Tricia Helfer will voice Sarah Kerrigan in the sequel. Robert Clotworthy was also on the panel talking about returning to the role of Jim Raynor after voicing the role in the original StarCraft over 10 years ago. Chris Metzen, Blizzard's VP of creative development, moderated the panel.

Other actors on the panel include Fred Tatasciore, a veteran voice actor who plays two roles in StarCraft II (Zeratul and Swann). Next on the voice actor panel was Neil Kaplan, the gravely voice behind Tychus Findlay in the game. Dave Fennoy was up next; he plays the new character role of Gabriel Tosh. Finally James Harper, a veteran of the original game, returns for StarCraft II in the role of Arcturus Meigsk. As we previously reported, well known Warner Bros. Animation voice director Andrea Romano has those duties for StarCraft II

Check out the jump for more on the panel

The BlizzCon 2009 panel on "StarCraft II Lore" was in fact a sneaky way to introduce the main voice cast for Blizzard's upcoming sci-fi RTS game. Members of the voice cast were introduced and brought up to the panel one at a time but it was the last reveal that will certainly get the fanboys talking. Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer (yep, Number Six herself) will be portraying the key role of Sarah Kerrigan in the game.

As previously announced, Robert Clotworthy will return to voice the role of Jim Raynor in StarCraft II. In addition, the voice work is being directed by Andrea Romano. She is best known for the work she has done directing the voice cast for a ton of Warner Bros. animated TV shows and movies including Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League and the recent DC Comics direct-to-DVD movies. Stay tuned for more info on the panel later today.

Big Download has been concentrating our BlizzCon 2009 coverage on StarCraft II and Diablo III, naturally, but our sister site WoW.com has a whole team working the show and covering all aspects of the just announced third expansion pack World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

The site has info on the plot of Cataclysm along with coverage of BlizzCon's first Cataclysm panel where more info on the new two playable races was revealed. They also have coverage of last night's BlizzCon costume contest where there were even a few Diablo III and StarCraft II entries. Another sister site Joystiq is over at BlizzCon as well and among other stories they have posted word that Blizzard just might bring the Diablo series to consoles. Of course you can still check out out site for continuing BlizzCon coverage today and tomorrow.

Because we had never been to a BlizzCon before we thought that our first chance to go hands-on with StarCraft II would come with the game's multiplayer beta test. And then Blizzard decided to push the game's release back into 2010. That gave us the chance to head to this year's BlizzCon and finally go hands-on with the title.

The press room at BlizzCon allowed us the chance to sample part of the single player campaign along with its skirmish mode. Naturally we started our (time limited) demo with the single player campaign. It began with a cinematic sequence where Jim Raynor, the hero of the first StarCraft game, is on board a Terran ship under attack by Zerg. The ship manages to get away but news reports from all over show that the Zerg are attacking lots of Terran planets.

In this part of the single player campaign you navigate not with a simple UI interface but with more of a adventure-game look. You actually move around parts of the ship as Jim Raynor (bridge, armor, lab, etc) and that's how you gain access to your mission's weapons, extra technology and even what missions to take. In our demo we had our choice of two different missions. We decided to take on an escort mission to protect and some Terran scientists from an attack from the Zerg.

Click on the jump for more info:

It's been a long time in coming but today at BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard finally revealed more about the new features of their upcoming update to their Battle.net multiplayer matchmaking service. Blizzard feels there are still some good features in the current Battle.net including great matchmaking a large mod community and more. However, Blizzard feels that the chat system is disorganized, new players get killed too easily, and it was hard to find a custom game.

For the next version of Battle.net, which will launch around the same time as StarCraft II, the service will also allow friends to connect more easily and get news, info and more about the StarCraft II community.

Even while you are playing StarCraft II, you have access to your friends list. You can keep track of your stats and achievements and let your friends know how well you are doing in the game. Unlocking new achievements will also unlock things you can use like new avatars, decals and more.

Check out more info after the jump. Update: We have added some Battle.net 2.0 screenshots for you to enjoy