Battlefield 3 beta out September 29th

We’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more, and while all this waiting may have unreasonably gotten to our heads considering we’re not talking about the release of the actual game, excitement flows in the air as DICE and EA have finally let loose information on the September-bound — which we were slowly running out of — Battlefield 3 open beta.
It’s now known the beta will be out on all PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on September 29th through October 10th (there’s a dedicated site up too). Still a week and a half to go — unless you happen have pre-ordered the game on Origin or own a copy of Medal of Honor, in which cases it’s only a week worth of agonizing wait for you (September 27th) — but with the announcement comes relief of finally knowing the unknown.
Those lucky to have been part of the alpha testing will be familiar with both the mode and map available in the beta; Rush on Operation Metro, which encompasses not the vehicular warfare Battlefield is known for, but the new kind of settings DICE is rolling with, which are not only vast, open areas, but tight enclosed quarters as well.
Battlefield 3‘s social media network, otherwise known as Battlelog, will be made available as well, letting players “communicate and compete with friends, track their stats and share their progress.”
The beta will automatically appear on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace and Origin’s application’s demo page when available.

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Killzone 3 includes admission into SOCOM 4 multiplayer beta

Yo, readers: Sony heard you like shooting, so it put a shooter in your shooter so you can shoot while you're shooting. More specifically, the publisher has announced that both regular and Helghast Edition copies of Killzone 3 will include vouchers which give early access to the SOCOM 4 multiplayer beta.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the beta will arrive at the same time as Killzone 3's launch -- Zipper Interactive's Chris Roper explained on PlayStation Blog, "To find out when the SOCOM 4 multiplayer beta begins, be sure to check back at SOCOM.com once you pick up your copy of Killzone 3, hitting shelves on February 22nd." Perfect; so we'll have some time to get really used to Killzone 3's control scheme before switching over to SOCOM 4's presumably wildly different control scheme. We anticipate that we'll be eating quite a few of our own accidentally-thrown frag grenades.

Source: PlayStation Blog

Via:Joystiq

OnLive Playback game catalog free to all users through Jan. 31

When OnLive began testing its flat-rate $10 per month back catalog game offering, Playback, at the beginning of December, the company said that it would officially launch January 15, aka tomorrow. That's not happening -- instead, the Playback beta is being opened up to all users free-of-charge through the end of the month.

Initially, the Playback beta was accessible only to those users accessing the service via the OnLive MicroConsole system; it will now be available to everyone, on every platform, during this extended period. OnLive has promised that the catalog will include around 40 titles when it's out of beta (and people are being charged for it). Right now, it features about a dozen.
Source: BigDownload