Although it’s probably not going to be much of a surprise to the majority of Starcraft fans – although it will be a big disappointment – the sequel to one of the most popular RTS games of all time has been delayed until the first half of 2010. Of course, Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was never actually given a release date in the first place but people were still hoping that we would see it sometime this year, mainly through comments made by staff working for Activision Blizzard.

Apparently the delay is due to the relaunch of Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net service, which handles all the online gaming across their range of games. It will also play a large part in the online aspects of Starcraft II, especially as LAN support has been pulled from the game. One of the development team had this to say;

“Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.” - Source

Activision Blizzard had previously stated that Starcraft II will need a four to six month beta period, which obviously made a 2009 launch seem very tight to begin with. We still have no idea when a beta will actually take place, so in the meantime you will have to be satisfied with the Battle Reports that the developers have posted on the game’s official site.

The delay will also affect Activision Blizzard’s revenue expectations for this year, lowering their estimate from $4.3 billion to $4.05 billion. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as Diablo II is also expected to be released in 2010.

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If you were planning on using your all-powerful Shepard from Mass Effect to take out those dirty aliens then you’re out of luck. Bioware has stated that the abilities and statistics you earned in the first game won’t carry over to Mass Effect 2, at least in an obvious fashion anyway. Instead the game will explain why Shepard has lost his level 60 and ultimate badass Renegade status, but hopefully that won’t mean the cliché’ of amnesia.

“It’s something we can’t go into detail about for obvious reasons, but it actually happens the other way around. Our goal with the story, in terms of getting the game started quickly and players into really compelling story situations… that dictated and allowed us to do certain things including changing the way that your abilities work and the way you develop your character.” - Computerworld

The reason behind the loss of your hard work – development wise - is that the retooling of the game’s core systems would make using the abilities from the previous game impossible. Of course, that’s totally understandable as plenty of new games in a franchise tend to use completely new or updated engines where things from the previous game just wouldn’t work without series headaches on the development team’s behalf. In this case Casey Hudson, Mass Effect 2’s lead designer, explains that “literally every system” in the game – which includes the inventory, guns, abilities, etc. – have been improved, making the transfer of systems from the last game impossible.

However, he did go on to stress that “all those things have been dramatically improved” and that “we’re taking into account all of your accomplishments in terms of building a character from the first game”. He then added; “So things you’d expect to be acknowledged, like if you were a level 60 character, or you were highly Renegade and don’t want to start out at the middle again”. Importing your characters game save from Mass Effect will be “acknowledged in ways that map across to the new system” so you will ultimately feel that “you are continuing as that character”.

This makes complete sense, as you can hardly expect to have a fully levelled up character from the get go as it would defeat the object of Mass Effect 2 which, let’s not forget, is rooted in the RPG genre. You also have to respect that new players may be joining in on the franchise, even if it is a little odd why you’d want to play game that continues a story you know nothing about. In the end all I wanted was for Mass Effect 2 to acknowledge some of the decisions I made in the previous game, just so it didn’t break the flow of the story with something that would seem completely out of character for the Shepard I had created.

Mass Effect 2 is set for release sometime between January and March 2010.

Mass Effect 2’s producer talks about the game - Computerworld (Via 1UP)

I stopped playing World of Warcraft a few years back - mainly because it was taking up way too much of my life - but if I had still been playing it and I owned an iPhone then the official ‘World of Warcraft Mobile Armory’ application would be a must have.

Since this new application has officially been designed by Blizzard you no longer need to rely on third-party applications, which are sometimes unreliable, to keep track of your WoW characters while on the move. The free application has all the functionality of the web-based armory, but with the added bonus that you can do it away from your computer.

A few of the features include the ability to check your current equipment set-up, those of other players, guild databases and information on every item in the game. There’s also a spec calculator to help you plan out your character, a calendar that keeps track of upcoming raid events and an achievement tracker. It’s also under 10mb, so you can easily download it away from your computer with 3G.

So, for you WoW obsessive’s this new application means you’ll never have to be all that far away from the ‘delights’ of Azeroth. I’m not actually sure if that’s a good thing or not…

(Image source: Kotaku)

If you’re a World of Warcraft player then you’re probably aware that that it’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, hits shops on November 13th. If you’re not a WoW player then, well, move along swiftly! Myself? Well, I used to play WoW but gave up when I realised I wasn’t getting any free time. However, I can’t move on as I want

Anyway, Blizzard has kicked off opening events for the hotly anticipated expansion with an attack on Horde city Orgrimmar by Scourge forces. The attack is on a loop of 20 minutes, so don’t worry if it’s nearly over by the time you get there. WoW Insider has the full list of events going on in Azeroth, so you’ve no excuse not to check any of them out.

Gamestation, Tesco and HMV will also be opening up stores across the country for midnight launches tomorrow night. Tesco is 24 hour anyway and, knowing supermarkets, you may actually be able to pick up the game before midnight if you’re lucky.  The flagship launch event will be taking place at London’s Oxford Street HMV store, so get down there if you want to revel in the atmosphere and possibly see some cos play costumes.

The expansion will raise the level cap to 80, give you a new continent - Northrend - to explore, the new Death Knight class and a tonne of other features. Basically, WoW just took up even more of your life.

Check out the official site for more details.