In 1998, Blizzard unleashed their secret weapon for taking over the world: Starcraft. Making an absolutely huge splash in the gaming and RTS community, Starcraft still has a huge fanbase and is still one of the most popular games in the world.

When Starcraft 2 was announced, followers (including myself) shed tears of joy as Tychus Findlay uttered the fateful words: “Hell, it’s about time.” And when you found out about the opportunity to sign up for the open beta you jumped at the opportunity.

Jimmy Raynor, Heaven's Devils.

Like myself, you didn’t get into the beta. (If you did, congratulations and you should be proud.) So you watched videos that HD Starcraft and Husky post onto the Youtube channels, and that kept your fix in check.

Now, I am proud to announce that even you can play the Starcraft 2 beta on your computer. I’ll tell you the catch straight up front — you can’t play against other players online, only against AI bots. But what the hell, that made no difference for me and probably wouldn’t for you.

You need, of course, the Starcraft 2 beta. You can probably find it on some Torrenting sites, but I’m not going to point them out. Do your own dirty work. Haha. Or, if you’re in university, you can get it off your DC++ network! It’s approximately 1.68GB in size, shouldn’t take anymore than a night to download.

Once downloaded, head over to the Teknogods forums using this link: http://teknogods.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2229 and download the launcher (but follow the instructions on the page, please). This launcher allows you to directly start a SC2 game without going through SC2. And that’s basically it, you can now play SC2.

With that said, you will probably run into an issue. There will be an antivirus warning claiming that the launcher is a piece of spyware or a trojan. This is because it is a piece of third-party software that illegitimately accesses SC2 and forces it to start the game. So it is kind of malicious. But it shouldn’t harm you.*

So, fellow Starcraft 2 lovers, game on and enjoy. Tell me what you think of SC2!

Image source: http://us.starcraft2.com/screenshots.xml

*I am not responsible for what happens to your computer, use at your own risk. But for what it’s worth, it hasn’t harmed me yet. The juice is definitely worth the squeeze.

It’s been a huge couple of years for Blizzard Entertainment — with the World of Warcraft being such a hit with the fans, as well as anticipation building up for the inevitable hit Starcraft 2, I couldn’t have expected anything more.  Nonetheless, Blizzard Entertainment has once again shocked crowds by announcing the upcoming game Diablo 3.  With the Diablo series already an extremely successful hit, I have to wonder — will Blizzard be able to pull it off once again?  From all the demos that I’ve seen circulating around, it sure looks like it.

Source: http://www.maxfreak.com/diablo3/images/diablo-3-announcement.jpg

With myself not being a huge Diablo fanatic (I was always a bit creeped out by the freaky environment), I did have a chance to try Diablo 2 out.  Diablo 3 will retain many of Diablo’s successful environments and characters, including character classes (a new one is called the Witch Doctor) and even the return of Deckard Cain!

Unfortunately, no release dates or even minimum specifications have been given by Blizzard yet, which I think is perfectly reasonable because they only announced Diablo 3 very recently.

It has been twenty years since the events of Diablo II. Of those who faced the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction in the battle over the fate of Sanctuary, there are few still living who can bear to remember the horrors that the Prime Evils wrought upon the world. And of those who did not witness the terrible events firsthand, most believe the stories to be little more than myth. But something evil is stirring once again in Tristram, and it may already have claimed its first victim: Deckard Cain.

That aside, I’ve got nothing more to give you but a bunch of links to more comprehensive sources that had a firsthand look at the demo, so I’ll give it to them from here.

Visit:

• http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/84728-Blizzard-Announces-Diablo-3
• http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/faq/
• http://www.maxfreak.com/diablo3/