But we have to admit that their opener, "We, your most loyal fans, implore you to reconsider adding LAN as a network feature to StarCraft II," is a little soft for our taste. C'mon guys, when this totally doesn't work at all, you need to feel like you gave it your best shot.

[Via Eurogamer]

Well, it's definitely true. Blizzard has killed LAN support in the upcoming StarCraft II, and here's the official word from Bob Colayco at Blizzard PR:

"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future."

So, let it hereby be noted that pirates killed the LAN parrrrrty.

According to an IncGamers interview with members of the StarCraft II team, one of the major components of the original game won't be included in the sequel -- LAN play. "We don't have any plans to support LAN," VP of game design Rob Pardo told the site. Blizzard has reportedly confirmed to IGN that LAN support is indeed out the window. We're reaching out to Blizzard for comment as well, so don't throw out all your cables yet.

If this is true, Battle.net is the only multiplayer option in StarCraft II, and the era of the LAN party has officially ended -- we suppose you could still bring your computer over to someone else's house, but you no longer need to. More than that, we suspect that this will be just one of the things that thousands of daily StarCraft players are going to freak out about, because it's something in the new game that is the slightest bit different from the old game.

[Via IGN]

Chris Sigaty has been a faithful Blizzard employee for thirteen years and served as the lead tester on the original Starcraft. He's worked his way up the ladder on various titles, and is now hauling the reins of three different races as the lead producer on the followup Starcraft 2. Additionally, he's the rhythm guitarist in Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain and has a rockin' metal head of hair.

We sat down with him recently to talk about the much anticipated sequel, which became a trilogy somewhere along the yellow brick road of development. Blizzard is still hoping to release Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty later this year, featuring the Terran single-player version of the game along with all three races in the multiplayer that you've come to love like a dear friend ... a dear friend that sucks up all of your free time and enjoys kicking you in the ribs when you're down.

Read on for all the Starcraft 2 goodies we could squeeze out of him, and find out why this title is poised to glue more butts to seats very soon.

We already blame World of Warcraft for most of the problems in the world -- loneliness, social atrophy and, generally, man's inhumanity towards man -- but now we've got another grudge to harbor against the MMO juggernaut: It delayed StarCraft 2 development for an entire year. That's 365 days of sweet, sweet strategy (by which of course we mean constant, unwavering zerg rushes) that we could have already been enjoying.

This startling revelation came to Eurogamer by way of Blizzard vice president of game design Rob Pardo, who explained, "A fair amount of the design team went onto World of Warcraft for a year to really help finish that game off." We guess that explains why Starcraft 2 took six years to finish. See, and here we assumed it was because they were all hopelessly addicted to WoW, not because they were actually making it.

It's been nearly two years since we were first embarrassed in a StarCraft II multiplayer preview, but we recently got our long-awaited shot at redemption. During the interim, we've logged countless hours with the original StarCraft and its Brood War expansion (having picked up new, digital copies for a mere $15) in order to prepare for this opportunity. The bad news? We still managed to get owned. Although, in our defense, we were playing against some hardcore fansites, and the setup of Blizzard's recent hands-on event was not unlike being dropped into a televised StarCraft tournament match in Korea with an announcer saying, "Okay, and ... GO!"

That's the bad news. The good news is that StarCraft II looks simply amazing, and it plays even better. After you've pounded your brain with several hundred hours (for some of you, it's probably thousands of hours) of StarCraft, and you fire up StarCraft II, it's like being jolted by 1.21 jigawatts of mouse-clicking rapture -- which, thankfully, also numbed the pain of our ongoing losing streak.

Seven minutes and six seconds, to be exact. That's pure, raw, Starcraft 2 footage coming at you just beyond the break, and it features Terran, Zerg, and Protoss units going at it. If you're still not sated, try out the direct video file here (it's 250MB), free from flash encoding.

See how much you can resist trying to move the screen around with your own mouse, continually forgetting that – alas! – it's just a video. For us it happened right at the very end when that swarm of Ultralisks started pounding on that poor Terran Command Center. Ouch.

To kill time until the game ships (hopefully) later this year, be sure to check out our new hands-on with the multiplayer and our interview with lead producer Chris Sigaty, both coming later today, and the new images in the gallery below.

Another StarCraft II battle report just hit the interwebs. This one is out a little early, as you won't find it anywhere on the official site just yet. Blizzard's third battle report (as obtained by Gamez.nl) shows off some new units, a new map called Scrap Yard and also features over 17 minutes of Zerg vs. Protoss action.

While 17 minutes may not be enough to completely satiate a decade-long deficit of StarCraft goodness, it sure does leave us smiling and gets us excited about playing it later this year. Get briefed on the full battle report right after the break.

[Via Incgamers]

RUSE is shaping up to become a nice addition to PC gaming, and also to the vacant market of real-time strategy games on consoles. Halo Wars and Red Alert have pretty much been the only standouts, but where's the real depth and longevity of a title like StarCraft? Ubisoft's RUSE is hoping to fill that gap, and based on the time we spent with it recently, it may be just the thing. That is if it'd stop with the gimmicks like showing it at E3 on a Microsoft Surface table and just give us the console goods. Not all of us have a spare $15,000 sitting around.

Head beyond the break to see a (very, very) long demo from the Tunisia setting in RUSE, and to read our thoughts about it. It's not something you can pick up and learn in a scant few seconds, but it offers you enough to keep coming back to it. Find out why inside.

We haven't heard much from Under Siege in quite some time. The real time strategy game may be a download-only game, but that's not stopping the development team from implementing a LBP-esque level editor. To ensure the in-game editor works as well as it should, the team has created the entire game using the tool. "Having built all our levels using a PS3 controller led to constant improvements in both the interface and the control scheme so that our level artists wouldn't feel constrained by the input device," the development blog notes.

With the release of the game's first trailer (above), it's clear Under Siege is getting closer to release. Expect much more on it in the coming months.

[Thanks, Marcus N.!]

Note: This interview was published earlier today, but featured a broken link to the second half. It has now been corrected. We're sorry for the goof-up -- enjoy the conclusion to our interview!

Showcasing his team's upcoming RTS, Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor sat down with us at E3 2009 to discuss Supreme Commander 2, console RTS releases and the concepts that didn't work in the original title. Prior to our lengthy chat, Taylor demoed the planned 2010 RTS on hardware we were told was a two year old PC with a new video card.

In our short demo we had the opportunity to see advancements made to the game's engine, including new shader and texture technology that Gas Powered Games created in-house. According to Taylor, a major goal for the team at Gas Powered was to create a high performance game, that will "run on 2, 3, 4 maybe 5 year old hardware." While Taylor admits the original title asked for a lot of processing power -- especially in later areas of the game -- the sequel will look better while actually using less polygons than units in the first Supreme Commander.

Even in its Alpha build state, Supreme Commander 2 was an impressive title to watch. But how has the series evolved and how will Gas Powered Games improve the franchise? Check after the break for our complete interview Gas Powered CEO, Chris Taylor.

Although we weren't surprised when Gas Powered Games revealed it had been working on a sequel to Supreme Commander, we did scratch our heads at the partnership that would see Japanese publisher Square Enix distribute the title. In a one-on-one interview with Gas Powered CEO Chris Taylor at E3 2009, we wondered if changes to the core design philosophies of Supreme Commander 2 were made due to the new partnership.

According to Taylor, Gas Powered Games had similar questions for Square Enix, but were told to maintain the same core philosophies -- philosophies that attracted Square Enix to the Western developer to begin with. "If we changed... we would be missing the point," Taylor told us. Taylor also mentioned a cue they took from Square Enix was they way they "embrace character and story," which is a focus for Gas Powered in Supreme Commander 2. Stay tuned for the complete interview with Chris Taylor, tomorrow.

Back in April, London-based developer Firefly Studios teased the big reveal of a new installment in its strategy franchise, Stronghold. Today, it delivered, revealing Stronghold Kingdoms, an MMORTS set in the franchise's traditional medieval world. Interestingly enough, Firefly is funding the project itself, giving it the freedom afforded to all independent developers, as well as imbuing it with the fear of crippling financial disaster in the event of failure. Now that's motivation!

We know next to nothing about the game, though Firefly is describing it as a "castle-based MMO." We don't know about you guys, but we're thinking about rolling motte-and-bailey.

We're a little worried about EA's card-based RTS, BattleForge. Less than a month ago, the game got a significant price drop, and just this morning EA announced the game will be adopting a free play model, allowing for even more old-fashioned microtransactions (a key part of BattleForge's card-based battle system), and, maybe, helping the game to survive a bit longer.

According to the game's website, the "Play4Free" version of BattleForge will replace the demo version and give players access to "all game content" -- it even comes with 32 cards (four times the amount that came with the demo). EA says that the retail box copy of the game will now serve as a "points box," as it comes packed with 3000 points ready for use in EA's store. It remains to be seen whether this move will spurn those who already purchased the game or bring in enough new players to support the continued existence of it. What say you, Joystiq Biomass?

[Via Big Download]

Amazon's daily deal features Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars, offering the game at the discounted price of $39.99 for the standard edition. It's a game that many on the Joystiq staff find to be "the tops," though others on the staff have found it to be "mildly satisfactory." It's caused a rift, one you need not bother involving yourself in because, hey, cheap game! And, should you decide to pick this up, you could always apply those saved duckets toward some of the new DLC. Just saying ...