Blizzard announces that they plan to extend the end date of the Starcraft 2 beta from May 31 to June 7. A representative from the company wrote on the Battle.Net forums that they intend to "extend the current phase in all regions until Monday June 7" and will keep the game offline for a couple weeks. What's a fiending Starcraft 2 player to do between sessions? Well, they could always check into a rehab clinic....

 

Actor Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill plans to retire from voicing The Joker after Batman: Arkham Asylum 2. In an interview with IGN U.K., Hamill reveals that he originally intended to stop after the first Arkham Asylum game, but developer Rocksteady managed to talk him into recording for the sequel. "This will be my last; there's no question about that," he said. Maybe if Rocksteady makes a third game, they can just cut-and-paste a bunch of the Joker's lines from Batman: The Animated Series.

 

Nintendo's score improves in Greenpeace's Guide to Green Electronics from 0.8-out-of-10 in 2009 to 1.8 in 2010. The company earned points for releasing information on its standards for chemical management for the production of their video-game systems and for the energy efficiency of the Nintendo DSi AC adapter. They lose points again this year, however, for not disclosing other information about their practices. Why all of the secrecy? It's not like the company has mountains of nuclear waste hidden somewhere.... [GreenPeace via 1UP]

 

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor praises video games for their educational value. She describes educational titles in general as "fabulous" and cites a test where "the students go up 20 percent in their knowledge by playing those games." I am actually a perfect example of this phenomenon, since I learned about diseases like dysentery and cholera from playing Oregon Trail. [ABC News via Gamasutra]

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