I’m going to see Harry Potter at midnight. Does anyone have any suggestions for line entertainment?

News Blips:

Duke Nukem is not quite the king as Cole Phelps beats him out for the best selling game of June. That means either Duke is really popular or there are a lot of very responsible Americans who still have all of their pre-order receipts from the mid-1990s. That is my excuse. I had my Duke receipt in this Home Improvement Trapper Keeper since the day Funcoland began accepting pre-orders. The June NPD rankings are as follows:

1.       L.A. Noire

2.       Duke Nukem Forever

3.       Infamous 2

4.       Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

5.       The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

6.       Call of Duty: Black Ops

7.       NBA 2K11

8.       Mortal Kombat

9.       Cars 2

10.    Just Dance 2

The Call of Duty: Elite beta starts today. PANIC! Activision is coming for our multiplayer! Relax, I’m only joking -- though I’m sure that hasn’t stopped many of you from marching to Bobby Kotick’s house with a pitchfork in your hand. A small group of gamers should be receiving an invite to the beta today. The beta will include all of the free features like social networking, video sharing, advanced statistics, and clans. If you want in, then you’re gonna need an invite. The only place to grab one of those is callofduty.com/elite.

Nintendo DS modder Smelaum has released a demo for his homebrew version of Minecraft running on the DS. Smelaum (pronounced Smi…Scmi...hell, I don’t know) has only implemented the most basic functions as players can place and remove blocks and not much else. The modder hopes to eventually add saving and terrain generation. Basically, if you get angry when people call Minecraft a “game,” then this will probably make you tear your hair out. Still, it is more evidence of the rabid community surrounding this indie phenomenon. Check the demo here.  [TinyCartridge]

Over 1.5 million people had a go in the Uncharted 3 beta. Turns out people don’t just use their PS3s as a means of handing over their personal information to e-criminals. In a crafty move, Sony knew exactly how to make a load of gamers forget about all that PSN hacking stuff: Give them a really good game to play. Uncharted 3 will undoubtedly be one of the biggest holiday titles on any console. Hell, Sony could steal Mike Minotti’s wallet and trade it for oranges, and he would still consider it to be game of the year. The third entry in Nathan Drake’s adventures will hit store shelves on November 1, 2011. 

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