The announcement of Jenny McCarthy as Tanya in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 may have drawn a "uergh" or two from fans of the series. "She's no fucking Kari Wührer", some said, which... well, we're not sure if that's a compliment or an insult. But the guys at EA sure like Jenny.

Chris Corey, executive producer for Red Alert 3, says that McCarthy is a "badarse" Tanya, that's she's more than capable to tackle the role of the special ops commando. After co-piloting a two-player coop demo of the PC version of the real-time strategy game, Corey tried to allay fan fears that the former Playboy Playmate wasn't ready to fill the tank top. Corey sounded pretty enthused to have her on board.

Hey, if they're happy, I'm happy.

Blizzard's set up at Games Convention this year was identical to the last — one half dedicated to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the other to StarCraft II. What had changed, rather dramatically, was how StarCraft II played, with massively rebalanced Terran and Protoss forces, as well as the inclusion of a playable Zerg.

Having spent considerable time with the Terran and Protoss at BlizzCon last year — and no access to the Zerg at Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational — I thought it might be fun to take out my old favourite class for a spin.

As you might expect, there was a wait, one that gave me ample opportunity to watch the Zerg in action. Most noticeable was the lovely look of the Creep, the purplish goo that the hivemind race builds upon. It has a constant visual pulse to it, not something that distracts when one actually gets one's hands on the keyboard and mouse.

And by "you", they probably mean "me", as I was wondering the same thing. Talking to Executive Vice President of Product Development Frank Pearce and PR Manager Bob Colayco at Games Convention, my prying into the current status of StarCraft II didn't put us any closer to a hard date.

"No, there's no hard date", Pearce told us. So that's that. More pylons needed, maybe. Clearly, we should just leave Blizzard alone and let them do their thing, which currently is continually iterating the internal StarCraft II alpha, exposing it to larger and larger circles of players.

Those who have gotten their hands on the playable version of Blizzard's spacey real-time strategy game may think that the thing is ready for beta, but to the folks on the development side, despite near complete appearances, there's still plenty of work to be done. So what's Blizzard working on now for StarCraft II?

Not to be confused with the newly-edited cinematic clip, this trailer is all gameplay, and shows naught but the new Tyranid units doing unspeakable things to those poor, innocent Space Marines.

Forget everything I said about that Ectomobile stunt a few months back. Because that was too damn easy. It's just a car! All you gotta do is tart it up a little! No, our new "above and potentially too far beyond the call of duty" award for gaming PR goes to THQ's UK branch, who to kick off Dawn of War II's publicity campaign in earnest have set about...building a real Rhino tank from Warhammer 40K. To do this, they've got hold of an ex-British Army APC, are modifying the bodywork with some heavy welding and will fill the cargo space with banks of PC demo rigs. Madness.

WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR II - RHINO DIARY 1 [THQ, thanks Mike!]

What the fuck, EA? No Kari Wuhrer? We are not impressed. Yet as you scold us with your left hand, we cannot help but notice how you caress us with your right, as the announcement that George Takei, J K Simmons & Tim Curry will be running the game's factions goes a long way towards making up for an absence of B-grade T&A. A long way, EA, but not the whole way.

Thanks, Jelmer for the tip!

Cinematic Trailer [EA]

EA announced at its Leipzig Games Convention press conference today additional details on the cast of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, including the casting of Jenny McCarthy, pictured, as Tanya, the staple special ops unit. But that's not all. The leaders of the three factions — Allies, Empire of the Rising Sun and the Soviet Union — will be played by JK Simmons, George Takei and Tim Curry, respectively. In the trailer we were shown, Takei's lines appear to be dubbed with his own voice, dialogue intentionally out of synch with his lip movements.

Also announced was the appearance of Kelly Hu, who will join Gina Carano and Gemma Atkinson as the Empire of the Rising Sun's obligatory sexpot. EA's definitely going straight for the groin with this one.

Finally, in the cinematic trailer shown at Leipyzig, it appears that Peter Stormare will play a part in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Oh snap!

Brilliant. Having teased it yesterday on their community site, Relic have today come out and formally announced that their Dawn of War sequel will feature the Tyranid as a playable race. And it's about damn time. Bringing the Tyranid into the series will be perhaps the sequels' most radical departure from the first game, seeing as they'll play so differently to the two-legged races. If you're new to Warhammer and need a reference point, know before you shoot your mouth off that when Blizzard decided to rip 40K off wholesale while designing Starcraft, they based the Zerg on the Tyranid. Above's the first screenshot, while after the jump, the latest trailer has been expanded to give the Tyranid a little pre-rendered love.

Never ones to shy away from a chance to earn an extra buck or two, EA have announced they'll be releasing a "Premier Edition" of upcoming RTS Red Alert 3. Exclusive (at least in Europe) to GAME, the premium box will see the game packed in a metal tin, along with five exclusive MP/skirmish maps, a DVD with a making-of featurette (along with the sure-to-be-tasteful special "Women of Red Alert 3"), a soundtrack and, curiously, an "Exclusive Beta Key to a future C&C game!" Exclamation is theirs, not ours. The only C&C game we can think of on the horizon is Tiberium, but with that not due for a while, be sure to keep that beta key somewhere you won't forget about it.

Command and Conquer Red Alert 3: Premium Edition - GAME Exclusive! [GAME, thanks Ben!]

As we mentioned earlier this week, the wraps have been taken off of Godfather II, in fact we'll be playing a bit of it next week.

Today, though, Electronic Arts officially unveiled the game which will go beyond the second film's story and have gamers take on the world of organised crime in 1960's Florida, Cuba and New York. After taking over New York in the first game, players will work to expand their organisation to other cities through extortion, crime rings and wars with other crime families.

As Luke mentioned, the game will include an strategy-heavy Don's View:

To help players manage their empire, The Godfather II introduces "The Don's View" - an innovative strategy meta-game that allows players to oversee the entire world as they grow the family business. Using the Don's View, players will be able to build, defend and expand their crime rings, while keeping an eye on the movements and plans of the rival families. Players will also learn to master the business of organised crime by building a family of Made Men, hiring crew, handing out orders, and promoting their best men up the ranks.

The lengthy and detailed release is on the jump.

If you happened to miss our live coverage of the Halo universe panel at Comic-Con this weekend, we're not offended. It was pretty missable for the casual Halo fan. But if you're the least bit excited about the release of real-time strategy game Halo Wars, you'll be ecstatic to learn that maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to play as the Flood.

During the Q&A session, a good portion of the panel, a fan asked "Is there going to be a Flood appearance in the Halo Wars campaign?"

"That's a very good question", a panelist responded. "We haven't talked about any other races. All I can say is that it's a complete Halo game". It has already been announced that players will get their hands on a playable Covenant.

We're not going to assume that's code for "Yes, you'll be playing the Flood" — they may just make an appearance — but won't be surprised when their inclusion is announced.

Snagged on the showroom floor of last week's Comic-Con. It's...certainly looking a lot like Battlefront, which is mostly a good thing. Battlefront with arrows. A lot of arrows. And while everything looks quite lovely, we're still a tad unsure over the choice of levels: in RotK, that battle had thousands of bad guys. This level has a few dozen. Which makes it look like you're on mop-up duty, instead of war-winning duty.

Halo plus real-time strategy plus gamepad controls may sound like a recipe for a franchise misfire, but Ensemble Studios has polished Halo Wars to the point of an immediately playable console title. While some may argue that, like first person shooters, RTS games should only be played on a mouse and keyboard, Ensemble has done an admirable job of nailing the controls. We got a chance to go hands-on with the game at E3 and came away surprisingly pleased.

Why? For some recent work they've done on the OTT WW3 RTS. First, and above, the game's box art, which could well be box art of the year. Note, developers: the world needs more Soviet women in leather hotpants, tesla mechs and armoured fighting bears. After the jump, one more thing the world needs more of: elite Japanese schoolgirl psionic commandos.

Try to look past the setting and the visual themes, which are being done for the 1132th and 2319th time this year respectively. Focus instead on the fact this is being made by Creative Assembly. Yeah. The Total War guys.

There's a new Dawn of War II trailer doing the rounds, no doubt minted in honour of the week's E3 festivities. Its purpose seems two-fold: to show that Relic, bless them, aren't afraid to put out a trailer comprised solely of gameplay footage, and also (SHOCK) to announce that the Eldar will be amongst the game's races.

It's a real-time strategy game. It's a first-person shooter. It's both! SouthPeak Games has just announced Raven Squad, an RTS/FPS hybrid under development by Atomic Motion for the PC and Xbox 360. Unlike S2's Savage series, which allows players to chose which role they want to take, Raven Squad requires players to master both FPS and RTS gameplay in order to guide their two mercenary squads through enemy lines in the Amazonian jungles.

"Raven Squad combines two extremely popular genres into a single robust experience where either gameplay mode could stand on its own merits," said Melanie Mroz, CEO of SouthPeak Games. "Atomic Motion is creating something that's visually compelling and building new boundaries in what a military title can accomplish. Fans of both RTS and FPS games are going to love it, as will anyone who enjoys intense, action titles."

I don't know. I generally have to be in the mood for one genre or the other. I'll have to see how things pan out as Raven Squad gets closer to its planned fall release.

No, Blizzard hasn't yet applied an official date to Starcraft II, but that hasn't stopped a trio of retailers from pegging its release. That'd be December 3. Of this year. According to Best Buy, Circuit City, and Gamestop, via Joystiq, the long awaited RTS sequel will make it in time for Christmas. We've contacted Blizzard to get comment, but won't be surprised if they remind us that the Worldwide Invitational is going down this weekend and to hold onto our butts.

Update: We got word from Blizzard, who say, unsurprisingly "There is no official release date for StarCraft II. The game will ship when it's done". Good thing we didn't start holding our breath!

Rumour: Retail chains showing December 3 release date for Starcraft II [Joystiq]

I know, it's the PR equivalent of water torture with Blizzard and Starcraft 2, what with their "one at a time" release of assets, but it's been a few weeks since we indulged them. They've today released three new images for Starcraft 2: a single screen, and two pieces of artwork. One piece above, the other - and a very busy-looking screen - after the jump.

More John Riccitiello at the William Blair & Company conference! This time, he's talking about the company's Godfather sequel, and what he's saying doesn't sound too bad at all:

You can play this game both at the street level, much like a GTA-style game, but you can also play it top-down, almost like you're in an RTS, controlling the strategy of the boroughs so you can see what's going on..

So...there are parts where you play, and parts where you command at a more strategic level? So...X-Com, with mobsters? Neat idea, if they can pull it off.

EA Talks "Godfather II" [Next-Gen]

Halo Wars Addict got an interview with Graham Somers, Ensemble Studios' community manager. Naturally, this outreach is in his job description, and a blog titled "Halo Wars Addict" will probably deliver a positive piece. But it's still worth a look if you're interested in the real-time strategy version of the Halo universe, due out sometime this year, hopefully, or early next year.

Somers speaks at length about the pitfalls of RTS design, the responsibility the dev team feels in working with Bungie's existing Halo universe, and other things that make up a great RTS game experience. But he doesn't drop much in the way of confirmable news tidbits, just:

• Halo Wars and Ensemble Studios will have a presence at E3 this year. (We'll keep our eyes peeled).
• The game will ship "when it's ready", so, nothing specific on the date.
• No promises, but developers are aware of Machinima enthusiasm and may ship Halo Wars with tools to assist in its creation.

Halo Wars Addict Exclusive Interview: Ensemble Studios

The latest issue of GamePro magazine features cover story treatment on Ensemble Studios real-time strategy take on the Halo universe, Halo Wars. According to the mag, by way of TeamXbox, the Xbox 360 game will feature multiplayer for up to six via LIVE, with a two-player co-op campaign to keep things interesting. If you want more info beyond that, you'll have to seek out the July issue of GamePro for more.

In the meantime, the online arm of the publication has released four new Halo Wars screen shots—four obscenely watermarked and painfully blurry screen shots with a very odd perspective, but four screen shots nonetheless.

Halo Wars Screenshots [GamePro]

GameInfoWire.com has about a dozen new screen shots of Dawn of War II up. These follow the gameplay video that went up midweek. I'm gonna keep my trap shut about the game. Warhammer 40,000 scared the bejabbers out of me and my basic set D&D friends when we were in school. Mostly because the only kids who played it had passes to the smoking pit and grew moustaches. So, here's one, and there are four full-size after the jump and the rest on GameInfoWire, and please don't give me a noogie or a titty-twister, sir. Owwww ....

Courtesy of this month's GamePro, which is as you read this working its way to subscriber's mailboxes. While the cover feature promises news on all future Halo titles, it only dishes out hard information (and gorgeous new screens) on Halo Wars. But that's OK. We'll take it. Because a console RTS is a new experience for Ensemble, they've stripped back their traditional playstyle in favour of something a little more Halo-esque. Which means only one economic unit - "supplies" - and fast, fast, fast battles, with the team promising you can be fighting "within ten seconds" of hitting the battlefield. Also revealed is at least a partial list of the units that'll be available.

To go with their preview trailer of the game, IGN recently spent some time with Relic and Dawn of War II, and came away with some new details on the game. Two of which are particularly exciting. The first: the campaigns won't be linear. Instead, you'll be able to jump in a ship and tackle them in the order of your choosing, ala KOTOR/Mass Effect. The second: you'll be abe to customise individual troops, not just the overall paint scheme of your army. With your forces split into squads, each squad leader will have his own distinct personality, and you'll be able to customise the appearance and equipment of his individual troops. Kind of like X-Com, and how you grew so attached to the little guys, only it's Warhammer 40K. Making it even awesomer.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II First Look [IGN]

Could have been longer, yes, and could have been from a zoom level where we could actually see what's going on, but beggars (and hey, those of us dying for this game are begging) just can not be choosers. Obviously the graphics have been the subject of an overhaul since the first game, but I'm expecting them to make good on the promise of an evolution in gameplay (more along the lines of Company of Heroes and, you know, the tabletop game) than in visuals.

Ubisoft's voice-command real-time strategy game EndWay is getting a private beta this summer. A site set up for those invited into the beta says that it will take place for three weeks in June and July and only be in English.

The three gig download will feature three maps for 1v1 and 2v2 matches, but no offline play.

I hope they launch a public beta as well. As with most new ideas, the concept of voice-command mixing with real-time strategy isn't easy to wrap your head around without trying it first hand.

As I mentioned in my preview of the game earlier this year, it seems to work quite well and despite the reduced unit types, I think there's enough depth in the game to keep things interesting.

EndWar [Via Joystiq]

On the one hand, she really is doing amazing things to that tight shorts and tiny jacket ensemble, and the gun adds a certain something. She is rather pretty and well-spoken for someone who beats up other people for a living.

On the other hand, she beats up other people for a living and could probably kill me with an errant thought, or hell, even on accident, like some terrifying all grown-up Elmira from Tiny Toons, hugging and squeezing me until I die.

Phew, nevermind. Invoking Tiny Toons always cancels out any excitement...well, unless we're talking mink.

You may think there's better things you can do with 15 minutes. Tidy your room, for example. Marinate tomorrow night's steak dinner. Take a slightly-too-long dump while you finish a chapter in that book you're reading. All good things, but come on, if you can spare the time for those, you can spare the time for a 15-minute walkthrough of Red Alert 3 gameplay. Construction, combat, the works.

[via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]