Our friend Sal over at Scrawl got his hands on some early scans of Shonen Jump (shown above). In addition to showcasing the Chocobo new look and giving us a glimpse at yet another summon, the magazine reveals that Japanese versions of Final Fantasy XIII will come with a beta code for Final Fantasy XIV.

This of course doesn’t mean we will experience the same good fortune here in the states, but I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed. Either way, there will be plenty of leaked internet footage for us to drool over when the time comes.

I’ve never had the pleasure of playing the Tropico games, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become a bigger fan of sim games, so Tropico 3 caught my eye a while ago. The closed beta is either starting soon or has already started, so you can go sign up for a chance to get your Tropico on.

Stardock President Brad Wardell has put up a post on his blog regarding the Demigod beta, during which he delivers an interesting piece on the state of PC betas at the moment. They’re “not supposed to be fun,” he says, “they’re supposed to be solving specific problems.”
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The PS Blog has the news that PS3 owners have been waiting for since, well, they got their PS3- the Home open beta launches tomorrow, December 11. As an ‘open’ beta, this means that all PS3 owners can download and use PlayStation Home; the words ‘open beta’ are becoming more and more synonymous with ‘you can use it, but don’t complain if it sucks’ nowadays. In case you hadn’t heard about Home, it’s an open platform for social interaction, similar to Second Life, with customisable aspects. More after the jump.
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Electronic Arts has apparently teamed up with Brad Borne (of Borne Games) to create a flash version of the just-released Mirror’s Edge. The beta is playable now online, and even though it’s essentially just a repeating level, it’s a nice taste of what the full release may be when it lauches in “a week or two”. Read more…

As a huge fan of the SOCOM series, I eagerly anticipated the release of SOCOM: Confrontation since the PlayStation 3 was first unleashed. Once the game was actually launched last month, however, my anticipation turned into sorrow as the game was plagued with problematic issues such as locking players out of the servers, players “warping” around the map, and people shooting through walls. To keep things short, the game was really unplayable — not the launch Sony and Slant Six Games had in mind. Read more…

With just a week until the full game’s release, the Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer 360 beta is now open to all Xbox Live Gold members. Read more…

So, I have been playing the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King beta for for some time now. I took a break for a few weeks, after they moved around the arms tree for warriors, and decided to come back when I saw that they had removed the speed nerf from the highly anticipated fury warrior 51 point talent, Titan’s Grip.

For those who don’t know, Titan’s Grip would allow a warrior to duel wield two hand weapons. When originally announced, TG came with a speed penalty, but warriors had the option to spec additional points into it to reduce the speed debuff. Blizzard then changed their mind, moving TG down one level, making it a 51 point talent with no penalty — but the fun didn’t stop there. Read more…

If you did what I did and pre-ordered a copy of SOCOM: Confrontation at GameSpot, you were lucky enough to get a passcode for the Public Beta that launched last Friday, September 5th.

If you were even luckier, you were actually able to get online and play the game. Read more…

Wanna play Battlefield Heroes? Sure ya do. We tried it a few weeks ago, and we totally dug it. Well, don’t get your knickers in a bunch – DICE is planning to launch a closed beta soon enough, but this’ll be a “closed” beta in the Gmail or Facebook sense, meaning they want as many people to be in it as possible. Says Executive Producer Ben Cousins:

We’re going to have a very large closed beta almost to the point where every hardcore gamer in the world will probably be able to get a key if they want to – it would just be within a closed beta so that we can control the size of it to a degree.

Cousins says they aren’t expecting to have a huge splash release, but that they’ll have built up a large player base by the time the game leaves beta.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

A member of the Official Sony PlayStation message board got tired of waiting for his invite to the Home Beta (originally scheduled to go out yesterday) and decided to take matters into his own hands by calling up the all knowing customer support team for some answers.

The first rep he spoke to (call recording here) stated that if he applied via email, per the company’s instructions, that he would be finding out soon, and then adding that “it should be arriving today.”

While this news may sound good for those who genuinely want to believe, he tried back again, this time getting a different rep (call recording here) who responded by saying that the company doesn’t tell them those things and that he should check the site for answers. Give that girl a Klondike bar.

Source: boardsus.playstation.com (via: feedonps3.com)

People, please! What is all the fighting about? There’s plenty of keys to go around! And by plenty of keys, I mean there’s only one. Okay, commence fighting.

This just in: In some epiphany of clarity (and insanity, surely) EA/FilePlanet have decided that they’d like more people in on the Red Alert 3 beta. If you’re a long-time fan of Command and Conquer or just someone who has a minute interest in real-time strategy games, go for it — you have nothing to lose. But hurry! It looks like it’s on a first come, first serve basis. All you have to do is click here and sign up for a free FilePlanet account and you’ll have your key (maybe). The only downside is that you have to wait in the atrocious download queue… and that supplies are limited and possibly already gone. Good luck!

EA opens the door to its Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning beta on September 7th, and those wanting in will have to pre-order a copy of the title.

Those already in the closed beta are good to go, but everyone else will need to hit up one of the select retailers, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, GameStop, Circuit City, and several others listed here.

Hit the jump for the full press release. Read more…

Calling all gamers: we have a situation on the internet, all units respond.

All Points Bulletin, the MMO from UK developers Realtime Worlds – the people behind Crackdown, that game that you bought for the Halo 3 beta – is accepting email addresses in preparation for beta testing. Read more…

Want into the Resistance 2 Beta program? Well, if you live in the US, you will be able to log into the PSN, buy episode three of Qore (Sony’s online monthly subscription based programming) for $2.99, watch some advertisements, and boom — you are cleared for Resistance 2 Beta action.

Of course, according to Insomniac’s Community Manager, James Stevenson, this is only one of the many ways you will be able to get into the beta. However, as he explains on myresistance.net, their will be a pre-order option that will allow the earliest form of access, but that has yet to be announced.

Stevenson’s clarification of the Beta announcement is available below. Read more…

Two things: Do you play World of Warcraft? Do you live in Europe? If you answered yes to both of those things, then I have some good news for you after the jump. Read more…

Pixel counters at the ready!  There’s been some debate over the final rendering resolution of Metal Gear Solid 4.  Screenshot pixel counting has been hazy, so the first sign of a possible resolution is found in the launch of the Metal Gear Online Beta.  The Beta has now begun in Europe (yes it’s up, go and play!) and the results are in. Read more…

The long awaited beta for Metal Gear Online is finally upon us, but for some unfortunate people the codes supplied to access the beta are invalid.
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Over the next couple of weeks things will function as usual on the PlayStation Store, but no new downloads will be made available as Sony is in the middle of updating the store’s interface. Read more…

Indie developer Silverlode Interactive accosted me outside the press room at GDC to show me their new MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy) game, SAGA. The game looks interesting enough, and given the fact that it’s essentially free, it very well may be worth your time. I checked out the beta yesterday, and I have to say that I have no idea what I’m doing. There seemed to be plenty of people who did, however, so maybe I just missed something.

Either way, SAGA has just entered open beta for the public, so you can give the game a shot for yourself. Full press release after you click the link at the end of this sentence… wait for it… okay, now! Read more…