DICE has announced a multiplayer beta for the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3, Xbox 360). The beta will start on March 17, while the game will be available come June. Check the full article for details on where to get a beta key.

If you're a prayerful person and an MMORPG player at the same time, you may want to keep up the practice, as Funcom has given potential players of Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures something to pray about. Hint: it has something to do with the open beta. More on the power of prayer in the full article after the jump.

 

With the end of the Halo 3 Beta, a lot of players have reportedly gone into withdrawal. There have been reports of players screaming for their assault rifles in the middle of the night. If you find yourself experiencing the same symptoms, worry not and look to the future, the end of the Beta is the beginning of the countdown to the full version of the game.

The Halo 3 Beta posted some amazing figures in the short (arguably very short) time that it was available. There were a total of 820,000 unique participants who logged in a whopping 12 million hours of online gameplay. To give you guys an idea of how much time that is, it's roughly the equivalent of 1,400 years of continuous play by one person. Another thing of note is the amount of saved game footage from the beta which was said to be at 580,000 films, that's about 2.7 terabytes of data.

Obviously both Microsoft and Bungie are happy with the results of this trial run. The corporate vice-president of Microsoft Game Studios Shane Kim gave a few words on the numbers posted and the support the community gave to the Beta test.

The participation in the Halo 3 beta was staggering. Witnessing such a great reaction to a small portion of the game has been inspiring. It’s a testament to the fervor and anticipation that surrounds Halo 3. We’re confident that on Sept. 25 Halo 3 will drive an unprecedented wave of new gamers to the Xbox 360 platform and Xbox LIVE.

The beta is behind us now, and the Halo community mourns its loss...ok, enough mourning. We eagerly await the full release of the game. We wantsss it, our precioussss... Be sure to keep checking back here for more updates on Halo 3.

We believe that this deserves the term, "OMG," followed by a squeal of delight and some frenzied practicing of Halo 2. We just got informed that the Halo 3 Beta will be coming out in May.

According to the press release sent in to us,

Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios today confirmed the multiplayer beta of Halo 3 will debut to audiences worldwide via Xbox Live on May 16 at 5 a.m. PDT and run through June 6 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Coming exclusively to the Xbox 360console this fall, Halo 3 is the highly anticipated third chapter in the groundbreaking Halo trilogy from legendary developers Bungie. Halo 3 lets gamers experience Master Chief’s greatest battle as he launches an epic mission to stop the Covenant, destroy the impending Flood threat and ultimately save mankind.

No frills folks. That's what it said. Now, if you'll excuse us, there's a Halo 2 Deathmatch with our name on it, and we need to start practicing. To all those folks who got themselves a copy of the beta key, congratulations!

Everybody knew it was going to happen. The only question left was "By how much?" Today we finally got some numbers on how much the bundled beta key for Bungie's Halo 3 multiplayer demo affected the pre-order numbers for RealTime Worlds' Crackdown.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, specialist chain GAME reports that pre-orders for Crackdown have risen by 25 percent since Microsoft announced the Crackdown/Halo 3 deal. Alex Croft, MD of GAME Group's online business, said that "Halo 3 is one of the most highly anticipated Xbox 360 titles for 2007 and our customers are hungry to get hold of it."

He added that the Halo 3 beta is "a great way for gamers to actually influence the making of the game and will ensure the production of a truly amazing game."

Possibly one of the biggest selling points of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown is the fact that a lot of the the boxes of the action-driving hybrid game will include a prestigious Halo 3 Beta key. We already know that a selected amount of Crackdown copies will contain the beta keys set for the US, but according to GAME, the UK's largest video games retailer (unless they have made a mistake of course), every single copy of Crackdown they sell will include a Halo 3 Beta key. It is being sold as "Crackdown with Halo 3 Beta Access" on their website and the terms and conditions state "Requires Xbox Live Gold Subscription and Hard Drive. Beta comes on all Crackdown discs".

We still aren't sure how the beta access will shape up with other UK video game retailers and we don't know if it will continue to be sold as "Crackdown with Halo 3 Beta Access", so we'd advise any UK gamers to get their pre-orders in now if they want that golden beta. The only bad thing is that UK gamers will have to wait till March for Crackdown in the first place. Sure it sucks, but a guaranteed Halo 3 Beta can only be good!

There's a hot discussion about this going in the QJ forums, so don't forget to drop in once you've ordered your copy. Thanks for the tip atkinchris!