This has been one hell of a month for Blizzard, as the studio announced Diablo 3 just last week and hosted the Worldwide Invitational event. The studio is in the spotlight this week, too, as it has begun allowing World of Warcraft subscribers the chance to register for the beta of the upcoming expansion pack – Wrath of the Lich King.

The European and North American account pages for subscribers now features an “opt in for a chance to participate” link. No need to rush though, as the selection of participants will be completely random.

As reported earlier, the expansion will introduce new areas, spells and whatnot, but will most importantly offer the Death Knight, which players will be able to create once their characters reach level 55. The expansion currently doesn’t have any release date, but is expected by the end of the year.

SouthPeak Games has announced Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger, a “unique [blend] of real-time strategy and first-person shooter genres.”

In development for PC and Xbox 360, the game is set in the near future, putting players in control of eight mercenaries each with “distinctive skills and weaponry,” with players being able to switch between RTS and FPS gameplay at will.

The game is being developed by Hungarian studio Atomic Motion and will be published by Evolved Games. It is due out this Fall.

An update for Day of Defeat: Source has been released, offering a new map, achievements and more for the WWII multiplayer shooter. To celebrate the release, Valve is holding a free weekend for all Steam users, so if you’re reading this right now, you’re missing out on some serious multiplayer fun.

The update brings a set of 51 achievements to the game via the company’s Steamworks development suite. It also introduces the nemesis and revenge freeze cams as seen in Team Fortress 2. Additionally, detailed player statistics are now reflected in Steam’s community features, breaking down kills and other information in a team and class-based format. The update also includes the new map Palermo, a new remixed version of the popular community-created map.

Last year was touted as the best year for gaming. There was an unusually high amount highly anticipated games such as Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Bioshock, just to name a few. The idea was that after Halo 3, the would be a steady flow of triple-A titles that would keep gamers occupied for the rest of the year, and then some. So what happened? The article will examine several reasons why 2007 didn’t quite live up to the hype and why 2008 will take the title as best year ever for gaming.

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Free stuff can be hard to come by, and quality free stuff is extremely rare. Hoping to make a splash, GameTap has announced its plans of releasing American McGee’s Grimm for free during its first 24 hours of availability after which users will be charged to download. This will apply to each episode of the game, which will be supported by “minimal up-front advertising.” The price for episodes is yet to be determined.

Famous for twisting the world of Alice, American McGee is focusing on Western fairytales, giving them a similar dark edge. “A Boy Learns What Fear is,” the first episode, is set to launch on July 31.

Battlefield: Heroes may be a hit or miss for EA, but for gamers it’s going to be free action and mayhem all day round. While the game is not out yet, its official website is playing host to the official theme, offering a special version for those who wish to use it as a ringtone for their cell phones.

Three versions of the ring tone have been put up, ranging from good quality to outstanding quality for audiophiles. Oh, and it’s free!

Heroes will be a completely free-to-play multiplayer action game featuring a cartoonish style in the same style as Team Fortress 2. No release date has been mentioned yet.

Partying, drinking and picking fights at Vegas will have to wait, as Gamespot reports a delay for This is Vegas, the upcoming open world Sin City action title originally expected later this year. The game has now been pushed back to sometime next year, but the title will be presented at E3 by publisher Midway.

The publisher reasons the additional time to make it a “must-have” title for gamers. This is Vegas is in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

The graphics of both Diablo and Diablo II were far from revolutionary. They were certainly good for their time, but the games captured a sense of the dungeon-crawling atmosphere by having detailed backgrounds, fiendish enemies and gloomy, shadowed areas where the light cast by your character barely seemed to penetrate the oppressive gloom that hid the forces of hell. Despite the general outcry of joy amongst Diablo fans at the announcement of the sequel the ‘honeymoon phase’ seems to have ended already.

As people are wont to do, Diablo fans are reporting their dissatisfaction with some of the stylings of the newest game in the franchise. Chief amongst their grievances and a topic of a petition currently boasting 10,000 signatures is the complaint that the game needs to be more in tune with the stylings of the previous titles. They’ve claimed that Diablo III artwork has taken on a note of the cartoonish nature prevalent in World of Warcraft.

Several screenshots have been doctored to illustrate the way hardcore Diablo fans want it to be. One screenshot shows the shadowed realm of Diablo we’re all familiar with, which I agree looks far more atmospheric than a well-light dungeon. The second removes the bluish/greenish tint to some of the dungeons, which I particularly like as it feels like the place glows with an eldritch light.

With Blizzard just announcing Diablo III days ago, it only makes sense that a leaked demo of the game would hit the internet, right? Maybe.

According to a website baring the moniker Revolution, a 568.9MB file said to be a leaked demo of the game has been uploaded to a popular file sharing site. Other than a few screenshots of the file (complete with in-game screenshots) uploaded there is no telling whether or not this is legit.

To further seal the deal, Revolution urges us not to share the file and keep it private. Yeah, like anything readily accesible on the internet will be kept private. But wait, the demo was leaked by an official beta tester so it has to be real right? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll keep you updated.

Giving Mac gamers some respite, Ubisoft and Mac developer TransGaming have announced plans to release the publisher’s games on the platform. Initial offerings will include ports of pet simulators Catz and Dogz, as well as Hard Evidence, a CSI-themed adventure title from Telltale. No other games were mentioned.

TransGaming specializes in PC-to-Mac ports through its Cider technology. It is currently working with several developers, including CCP (EVE Online) and EA (Spore) to bring their games to the Mac.

It appears just dominating the MMORPG market isn’t enough for Blizzard… they have to have another game in there! The studio, having revealed Diablo 3 over the weekend, has confirmed that it has another MMO in the works, though no details weren’t given.

“There is still one unknown project,” Blizzard executive VP Rob Pardo revealed to OnlineWelten at the company’s Worldwide Invitational event. “We have another development team.”

Fans are already speculating that it may be in the veins of World of Warcraft, building on the StarCraft universe with a World of StarCraft game. Others believe that the studio is working on a completely new franchise; Blizzard hasn’t made any new franchises since the release of StarCraft back in 1998.

Activision today announced that they will allow gamers to choose the package for Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, its upcoming entry in the famed superhero franchise.

Starting today, fans can visit the game’s website and vote for their favorite videogame package options, all featuring the web-slinger as he prepares to take on a devastated New York. This campaign will continue through launch, letting fans vote on various aspects of the game’s marketing campaign as well.

In development at Shaba Games and Treyarch for release this Fall, the game has Spider-Man donning both the red and black suits in a bid to stop crime and fight evil. It also employs a different fighting mechanic that will let gamers swing and fight at the same time.

Microsoft Game Studios European business director Peter Zetterberg has revealed that simultaneously releasing a major first-party game on both PC and Xbox 360 in Germany would “basically shoot [Microsoft] in the foot” due to the popularity of the PC platform.

“If we launched a Halo game on PC and 360 in Germany simultaneously, 80 per cent of sales would be on the PC,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “We basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version.”

It may seem that Microsoft is intentionally limiting the PC market to further its console business – a complaint which Blizzard raised – the executive notes that both platforms are “equally important” on a global scale. He, however, notes that the PC is “dominating” because of much wider uses and that they are forced to make Xbox 360 games there.

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Whether it’s nostalgia, people looking to catch up on the series or former players who are looking to re-hone their ubercharacter building skills after giving up hope of a Diablo III, the Diablo Battlechest has shot to the top sales spot on Amazon’s PC games chart. It’s even #18 across all platforms. It’s also currently listed as sold out.

The announcement of Starcraft II also sold massive amounts of the original. Maybe that’s Blizzard’s business model: wait until everyone’s loaned, sold or tossed out their copies of the previous game before announcing the next and they’ll be so excited that they won’t mind shelling out more cash to get back into it.

It’s had a few false starts and speed bumps, but Myst Online: Uru will be relaunching. After being dropped by Ubisoft while the game was in beta and then being picked up by GameTap it was then dropped by the online gaming service due to ‘business reasons’. In a world where lawsuits are frequent and intellectual property rights are guarded closely it’s surprising to hear that GameTap has handed back the rights to the game to Cyan Worlds, creator of the original Myst.

Citing a good business relationship as the cause, the companies have agreed on a plan for compensation if the game becomes commercially successful after the re-launch. The new scheme for keeping the game alive is one very much in tune with the basic premise of the Myst universe: the game will be kept afloat by the standard subscription fee plan, but at a low price of $25 for six months, while new content will be totally user-generated. The date of the re-launch is still unknown.

A new countdown clock has launched on Cryptic Studios’ website, suggesting that the company’s project will be revealed in just 27 days. But what is the name of the project? Shacknews has figured it out: Star Trek Online.

The site notes that the countdown uses an early piece of concept art of the game as its background. It is yet to be confirmed, but seeing as how they have gotten that right, I don’t see how anyone could argue.

Star Trek Online was originally in development at Perpetual Entertainment, though it was moved to an unnamed studio when Perpetual closed down earlier this year. Many speculated that Cryptic (City of Heroes, Champions Online) was up to the task, and the countdown confirms that. Expect more information of the game on July 28, the day the countdown ends.

Though Hellgate: London did not create much of an impact in North America and Europe, it is making one hell of a splash in the land of the rising sun. The game recently launched in Japan, ravaging the PC sales chart of the country, which isn’t really friendly towards computer titles and especially not sales-friendly for Western titles, too.

Hellgate: London has debuted at the number one spot in the country, outselling popular MMO games Lineage and Ragnarok online, as well as heavyweight Final Fantasy XI. Quite surprisingly, Spore Creature Creator, which made quite an impact in North America, is nowhere to be seen on the Japanese and European charts.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Blizzard COO Paul Sams reiterated what his colleague Pardo said at last week’s GDC: “Microsoft needs to put more emphasis on gaming on Windows [operating systems].”

“Well, their gaming focus is very much on the [Xbox] 360. And that makes sense, cause they’re a hardware manufacturer as well as a software developer,” he said. “And so they’ve got a lot of money and investment tied up in that system.

“Certainly they have a lot in Windows. And Windows is a system that supports all the business applications as well as games.”

Sams continued, saying that Microsoft has the most prominent operating system in the world, noting that they should emphasize gaming on the platform “even more so than console boxes.”

The studio has shown their commitment to the platform in a time where developers are reluctant to work exclusively on the PC – Crytek comes to mind. Blizzard so far has three active projects – World of Warcraft, StarCraft II and Diablo III – all of which are exclusive to PC.

Continuing their story of nonstop success, Maxis’ latest endeavor Spore has topped the sales chart in North America for the week ending June 21. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the full game – since that’s not scheduled to ship until September – but the recently released Creature Creator, a sample of the studio’s work in the upcoming life simulation title.

The Creature Creator, which lets users fulfill their lifelong wishes of creating penis monsters, beat out another Maxis creation – The Sims 2 – for the top place, also beating out hardcore games such as World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. The game’s strong sales also saw it appearing at number six on the All Categories list.

The market needed Age of Conan it seems, as the MMORPG has been stealing gamers’ attentions over from World of Warcraft, the long undisputed leader in the arena. Keeping in that tradition, developer Funcom today claimed that the recently launched MMO is the “undisputed #2 subscription MMO in the Western world.”

According to the developer, Conan has over 700,000 subscribers since its North American and European release in May, with the game said to be topping sales charts everywhere. By comparison, WoW has over 10.7 million subscribers worldwide, bringing in over $1.2 billion annually for the company.

Funcom recently announced content expansions and enhancements for the game, making it even more lucrative for World of Warcrack Warcraft addicts.