I'm sure you're all well aware of how much we here at SI love Starcraft, so we dropped everything and squeed like little girls when we heard this happy news.  Like I'd personally hoped, shortly, Blizzard will be opening up a beta for the long anticipated sequel to the RTS megahit.

Right now, yes RIGHT NOW, you can try to get in on the hot hot beta action by heading over to the newly revamped and reopened battle.net website.

The nitty gritty details:

1. Go to the battle.net account management area (specifically the beta profile settings page), where you can sign up for beta opt-in status for Starcraft II
   
2. Upload a screenshot of your system specs (as directed by the Blizzard overmind) instead of the annoying dxdiag of the past.
   
3. Send me a cookie for telling you about all of this.
   
4. Squee in glee!
5. Cross your fingers and hope you (and I) get picked to play.
   

In Japan, Square-Enix released a Blu-ray demo of Final Fantasy XIII that fueled the game's Playstation 3 sales like wildfire through the California countryside in the summer.  However, at this point, they aren't planning on releasing this same demo in North America.

When Yoshinori Kitase, producer of FFXIII, was interviewed by VideoGamer.com they asked if there will be a Blu-ray FFXIII demo.  He answered, "The type of demo version we released in Japan, we currently have no plan of doing that abroad, partly because we are going to carry on with the project alongside the Xbox version, so we really can't just make it available only for the PS3."

From the sounds of things however, there's still hope for a demo, it will just be in the usual downloaded format, with no discs.  Which seems to be a giant gaping copout, since last time anybody checked, Japan gets downloadable demos as well, and oh yeah, they also have 360s.  Just admit you like doing something better for your homies guys.  Jeez.

Might be time to brush up on your Japanese and import a console and the title if you'd like to play this before you're ready for the old folks home.

Earlier today, Richard Garriott filed a lawsuit against the NCsoft Corporation at the Texas Western District Court's Austin Office.  The nature of the suit is Torts - Property - Other Fraud, and the cause being Diversity-Fraud, in the jurisdiction of Diversity, for the amount for $24,000,000.00.  Yes, you read that correctly, TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS.  Of course, that's US Denominations, so let's say he really just wants a crate of astronaut ice cream, on good authority of Liquid-X.

For further explanation, read the whole story!

Ok, that was bad, I know... Bethesda just can't get a break; Angry Fallout 3 fans are reporting that the PC download for just-released DLC pack Broken Steel is corrupted, meaning nobody can play it.

After downloading the DLC through Games for Windows - Live players are greeted with an "Install of item Broken Steel Failed", message, official forum users report.

The mishap comes at a bad time for Bethesda, as it saw massive fan outcry when the last DLC release, The Pitt also failed to work properly upon releasing on Xbox 360.

The Xbox 360 version is said to be unaffected.

We here at SI radio are awaiting comment on the situation from Bethesda, but to be fair the blame probably lies on the GFW authentication side...  We love you windows...

Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia is going to appear in and co-produce a new series called Ultradome where geeks get to settle amongst themselves important debates like who would win in a fight, Han Solo or Indiana Jones. 

On Hollywood Reporter, he says, "My whole life has been spent engaged with friends in intellectual debate ... like whether Captain Kirk is tougher than Spock or if Middle Earth is a more difficult place to live than Tatooine," Ventimiglia said. "With 'Ultradome,' we can bring these debates to the public and settle them in the most logical way possible: through armed combat."

In each episode, two geeks engage in a heated slap fight... I mean debate -- for example the above cited "Who's tougher, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?" -- then the geeks duke it out using all the weapons, skills and our favorite references of course from their respective character's arsenal.

I could see this doing awesomely on Hulu, since NBC owns half of it and well, yeah, he's got a foot in the door with NBC already obviously.  They're in negotiations with a few places with where they can put this web series up.  

Ventimiglia will be in the first episode, which pits "Star Wars" vs. "The Lord of the Rings." He'll be backing LOTR, but only because his co-star pleaded to represent Star Wars. My money's on Star Wars on this one.