I should of course mention the big WoW news and Diablo deal

Personally I don't really care about it, I got tired of WoW a long time ago and even though I've sampled each expansion since and kind of hoped they would spark the magic back, I've always got bored within 48 hours and regretted the purchase. So I expect to skip this latest one, though I know my daughter will want to play the panda bears and will hassle me to get it. She's 9 years old, which is clearly the market they're going for with the panda bears and Pokemon pets nonsense.

As ever with a Blizzard product, I'm expecting it to be extremely well made and hugely popular... which is not exactly a shock statement.



Oh and apparently there's something about Diablo 3 being free if you buy a 12 month subscription to World of Warcraft. Not sure if that's worth anybody considering or not because of my own bias against both games. As previously stated I'm long tired of WoW, but (and I know this is contentious) I consider Diablo to be one of the most overrated games of all time. I think because I played a lot of Gauntlet in around 1985 and other than the loot whoring and modern visuals, I don't really see the difference. If you look at some of the early previews of Diablo 3 strategy its pretty simple and doesn't seem to be much different than the previous editions. I remember people banging on and on about Diablo 1 and 2, but both times when I tried them I was like "er... is that it?"

A bit like Starcraft really, I think that's so hugely overrated it's bloody ridiculous. Solid, polished and it plays well sure, but it's no more than a distinctly average RTS with nothing special whatsoever, other than it's own hype that everyone laps up.

Blizzard are the absolute masters of repackaging other people's games and somehow blagging everyone to think it's God's gift to gaming. I have to say fair play to them really, they really know how to pull everyone's strings. They're like Kaiser Sose's more reputable and less evil twin, but for games... Uhm... yeah...

Anyway, no shock at all they've announced this just as the SWTOR marketing machine starts ramping up towards launch. Not sure if a release date has been mentioned for WoW MoP, but I would guess at February for the biggest Blizzard style fuck-SWTOR-right-up-the-arse factor.