Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty release date announced

In a recent press release, Activision Blizzard has finally given a release date to it's long awaited sequel in the Starcraft Universe. The new game, officially titled Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, will be released worldwide on July 27th.

"We've been looking forward to revisiting the StarCraft universe for many years, and we're excited that the time for that is almost here," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Thanks to our beta testers, we're making great progress on the final stages of development, and we'll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net in just a few months."

Devil went down to Bungie

In a press release issued this morning, Activision announced that they have signed a ten year deal with development studio Bungie. Under this new deal, Activision will receive "exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices." Bungie is best known for it's ongoing Xbox exclusive franchise Halo. So does this mean Halo is coming to the PS3?

Under the terms released so far, it seems as only new properties from this point will be released via Activision, so existing franchises such as Halo will not be included with the deal. What is interesting is how Activision states it's a "partnership to bring Bungie's next big action game universe to market." So will Bungie be leaving the Halo universe for good and start a brand new franchise?

While Bungie will remain an independent developer and retain all rights to their intellectual property, this is a major boon to Activision that has recently more or less lost their prized in house development studio Infinity Ward. Will Acitivision continue it's domination of the FPS market with the combined force of Call of Duty and an as yet unannounced Bungie project? Only time will tell.

Breaking News - JoCo Concert DVD is dated

Jonathan Coulton's first live concert DVD, entitled "BEST. CONCERT. EVER.", has finally been given a date of birth. The magic number is April 28th for the release. Per information given to us from a JoCo representative, the DVD will feature such hits as "RE: Your Brains," "Code Monkey," "Skullcrusher Mountain," and "Tom Cruise Crazy." The DVD will also include behind the scenes look at Coulton preparing for the show, interviews, a short documentary about the fan experience and a audio commentary by Coulton and special guests. The whole package, which will be $20 and include an companion audio CD. It will be available in music outlets nationwide and at JoCo's live shows. You can expect a full review of the DVD when we get our dirty, sweaty, little hands on it.

Till then, enjoy this great live video of JoCo performing one of my favourite songs back in 2006.



For more information on Jonathan Coulton, please visit his website.
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/