Diablo III: It’s official (Diablo III)

Just want the screens?
Or the videos? 

You heard it here, right from the floor, as it’s announced, Diablo 3 is coming to the PC at an as-yet unannounced time. Announced by a man playing the theme on acoustic guitar, a man with a marvellous beard, no less.

From the trailer:

“It has been said that in the end of all things, we would find a new beginning. But as the shadow once again crawls across our world and the stench of terror drifts on a bitter wind, the people pray for strength and guidance. They should pray for the mercy of a swift death. For I have seen what the darkness hides.”

£237 for a steering wheel? You could buy a car for that! (PC)

How rich are you feeling? Fanatec brought their new Porsche 911 Turbo wheel to the GR offices for a hands-on demonstration… and left us gobsmacked when they told us it costs 300 Euros. That’s over £230 or $470. In other words a LOT of money, or enough to buy an Xbox 360 or Wii on its own.

So we asked the company’s CEO, Thomas Jackermeier, to give us five reasons why the wheel’s worth the money. And this is what he said:

No KOTOR for E3 (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

LucasArts won’t be unveiling any new games at next month’s E3, if comments from Margaret Grohne, director of public relations, are anything to go by.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about layoffs within the company and projects that may or may not have been canned.

According to a report from Venturebeat: “LucasArts is currently developing a number of obvious sequels in its Star Wars game franchises. These titles include Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3, which is allegedly in co-development at BioWare, and Star Wars Battlefront 3, which is rumoured to be in development at Free Radical. There’s also supposedly another LEGO Indiana Jones game in the works at TT Games, which makes sense given the back-to-back LEGO Star Wars releases and strong sales and critical acclaim those games earned.”

Retailers list StarCraft II for Dec. 3 (StarCraft II)

Three major US online retailers have given Blizzard’s RTS sequel a release date of December 3, 2008, just a week ahead of a huge event for the developer. There could be something in that…

Circuit City, GameStop and Best Buy websites all offer December 3, 2008 as the day StarCraft II will be released into the wild.

Blizzard or Activision Blizzard or Vivendi or Sierra or whatever they’re called at this moment in time have yet to officially put a street date on the title.

New Brother in Arms footage and screens (Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway)

Today we have some lovely new Brothers in Arms Hell’s Highway screens for you, to go along with a new vid that showcases the destructible environments. Take a look:

Randy Pitchford, Gearbox president, hammers home the importance of destructible environment cover.

Pyro update – fire puns abound (Team Fortress 2)

Following yesterday’s Meet the Sniper machinima, Valve has released the full details on upgrades to the Pyro class in Team Fortress 2.

Along with 35 new Achievements (Dance Dance Immolation for the win!), there are three new weapons at the Pyro’s disposal and two new maps, selected from the finest of community-made maps out there. CP_Fastlane and CTF_Turbine are sure to make for an interesting game, even if you’re not playing as the Pyro. But if you are, be sure to check out the new Flare Gun, the Backburner and (our personal favorite) the Axestinguisher.

BioShock DRM is no more! (BioShock)

2KGames informs us that the much-maligned SecuROM copy protection has been removed from BioShock. From the official 2Kgames.com forums:

“Good news! As promised, all activation restrictions, including install limits, have been removed from BioShock PC as of today. You don’t have to patch or install anything for this to go into effect for your copy of BioShock – it’s already done!

Enjoy your time in Rapture, and thank you for supporting BioShock and the 2K teams.”

Oblivion copycat done from home (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)

A developer behind the game at the centre of a plagiarism row has said that the title was entirely their creation.

Laurence Francis, one of a trio behind Limbo of the Lost developer Majestic Studios, made the claim to his local paper in an interview on May 2.

“Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home,” he said.

The allegations of plagiarism started when a writer noticed similarities between the title and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

New Need for Speed uncovered (Need for Speed ProStreet)

The next Need for Speed game from EA will be titled Need for Speed Undercover, EA boss man John Riccitello has confirmed.

Little-to-no gameplay details were given when we contacted EA, but Riccitello did reveal during a recent speech that the game would feature a “very strong mission structure,” and an embedded storyline, according to various reports.

Riccitello also admitted that the previous game, ProStreet, wasn’t quite up to scratch, but to make sure that doesn’t happen again, he went on to reveal that the series has been shifted over to a two-year development cycle, which has two separate teams working to release games biannually.

Try the Spore Creature Creator now (Spore)

Maxis has released the Spore Creature Creator today, which you can either snap up now for cash or download the demo for free.

Although it’s a (large) part of the upcoming game Spore, the creature creator is a stand-alone product that allows you to shape, paint and play with your own custom-created creatures that can be used in the full game. Check out our hands-on with the glorious invention.

And if you really need a phallic fix, you can go get an eyeful of PC Gamer UK’s “contribution” to the Spore universe.