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Blizzard North considered making Diablo Junior for the Game Boy Color
David Craddock is a freelance writer (and former Joystiquer) who's putting a book together about Blizzard North, the studio that created the enormously popular Diablo series. Up until the book's release (it is called, of course, "Stay Awhile and Listen"), Craddock is doling out some insights that he's picked up from his research on Diablo's past development.Like, for example, the fact that a version of Diablo 2 was considered for the Game Boy Color and/or the Game Boy Advance. Following the release of the popular sequel, Blizzard North considered a single-player handheld game with the working (and adorable) title of Diablo Junior, which would have three separate cartridges on offer, each featuring a different class of hero. The game was never made, mostly due to the high costs of mobile development at that time.Craddock says Blizzard North also considered a second expansion for Diablo 2, which would have come out after Lord of Destruction. That expansion would have focused on multiplayer features, and set up customizable guild housing and banks. In the end, however, that expansion was also scuttled, and Blizzard North got to work on the long project that would become Diablo 3.
New StarCraft II screenshots released
Avid Blizzard fans are already watching the official StarCraft II website. Much like other unmentionable Blizzard products, information about StarCraft II is slowly making its way into the world. There may not yet be Tauren marines in our immediate future, but sharp-eyed David Craddock at the Big Download Blog spotted new screenshots released this week.While some of the screenshots won't be recognizable or meaningful to new StarCraft initiates, most of the action is generally recognizable (in a general sense) to a veteran RTS player. You can definitely get an overall sense of troops, constructed bases, and how the fight might progress if it were animated.These new screenshots feature the Banelings, which sound like pretty fierce critters in their own right. Banelings -- a "morph" of the zergling -- are chemically volatile little buggers who spend their lives angry, temperamental, and ready to explode at any given time. Through tender loving care, Zerg Queens have been able to engineer the banelings in such a way that they'll explode exactly when needed. Presumably, "when needed" means "all over your troops." You can see the Baneling's idle animation on their feature page on the official site. They pump and undulate, and really do look like something that's over-filled and ready to pop given a moment's notice. Kind of gross, really.Most of the details about Starcraft II will come "closer to release date," but it's still pretty tantalizing to get a first look at notable, trademark troops.
