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“Yo momma plays Protoss at Starcraft” would make a devastating, if rather surreal riposte when playing the dozens. If Blizzard’s Chris Sigaty gets his way, though, it could just be a perfectly acceptable thing to say because, you know, she might.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, the game’s producer made it clear that although Starcraft II was intended to please the hardcore audience that still flocks to the original game for its strategic depth, some effort was being made to open the game up to the more casual player.

“We’ve trying to make sure that it’s perfectly balanced for e-sport,” said Sigaty, “but look — I’m going to try to get my mom to play this game. I know she can’t [micromanage] at the level that these pro gamers can, so we’re actually experimenting back in the opposite direction… so that even the layman can come in and get a grasp of these cool things in the game.”

Rockstar Games has officially pushed back the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC, settling on a two-week delay and a new December 2nd release date. The date confirms what was reflected at retailer listings updated earlier this week.

According to IGN, the official minimum and recommended PC system requirements have also been revealed. The recommended requirements closely match what was posted on the official Games For Windows site — then pulled — last month. The full specs are after this.

Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista – Service Pack 1 / XP – Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
* Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista – Service Pack 1 / XP – Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
* Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
* 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

And if John Riccitiello has say in the matter Mercenaries 10 will be coming to the next-next-next gen platform of your choosing. Responding on today’s earnings conference call to a question if some EA’s recent releases would be “sequelable,” Riccitiello unsurprisingly said “Yes.” Mercenaries 2: World in Flames has sold 1.9 million copies for the company, making the third entry — and probably even the tenth — a bottom line no-brainer. At least EA’s mercs have job security…

Riccitiello also re-confirmed that Dead Space and the soon to be released Mirror’s Edge would be further franchised but were “not likely to be annual sequels.” Same for Spore, which will see new expansion packs and “new business models.” Let’s just hope all this franchise success doesn’t put the kibosh on the company’s drive for new IP.

World of Warcraft isn’t the only game getting into the Halloween spirit, as Rockstar Games has kicked off a “zombie infection” in Grand Theft Auto IV. That explains all those dudes in shiny golden bikini briefs, then. And why not? Variety is the spice of life, so who couldn’t use a little decaying flesh ambling about Liberty City for a while?

Rockstar warns, via the official Social Club that “The infected DON’T necessarily have to be wearing the Zombie skin, some show NO SYMPTOMS!” If you’d rather not partake in the fun, we’d advise steering clear of anyone with the zombie “skin,” anyone with a “Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie” achievement and, well, staying offline altogether.

The Rockstar Social Club has handy charts and graphs about the status of the GTA IV zombie plague, should this sort of thing tickle your undead fancy.

Rockstar Social Club [Rockstar]

GameTrailers TV got its hands on the backstory trailer for Halo Wars. The 3:28 video sets up what’s going on and why in the forthcoming RTS based on the Halo universe. Seems the Covenant have been scraping around in the ice on some planet and have found something that, of course, “it could just be the key to the whole war.” No gameplay, but a lot of threatening mandible-flexing.

Looks like anyone with a hat cam can waltz into E for All this weekend and film Gears of War 2 to their heart’s content. We’ve been tipped to a bunch of multiplayer footage in different locations, so for those who want to see if chainsaws and blood spatter = server lag, here are plenty of clips. Everyone on camera gives a raving testimonial for the game, which is out Nov. 7 for Xbox 360.

Your first clip is above (showing Horde mode, from youtube user donjugored), and there are four more on the jump.

Part two of horde mode:

Another YouTube video, from Voice of Reason

And two more user-shot vids on Gametrailers:

A suit brought by retired NFL players not only alleges they’re due money for Electronic Arts’ use of their likenesses and career stats, but also that their own union brokered a below-market deal as a favor to EA, helping it secure exclusive NFL rights for its Madden franchise.

Via Ars Technica and GamePolitics, former Buffalo Bills defensive back Jeff Nixon has written an open letter to John Madden (also a Hall of Famer and former Oakland Raiders coach) which details some documents discovered in this suit. Nixon alleges the plaintiffs have communication between the a union official and an EA developer cc’d to another union official, in which everyone agreed to scramble retired players’ likenesses to keep from paying them, beginning with Madden NFL 2002. The players may not be identifiable visually, or by number, but they still have the same height, weight, years of service and performance characteristics, making them wink-and-nod identifiable.

The reason for the scrambling? Take-Two apparently was going after retired players’ image permissions for a game that never got off the ground. Nixon alleges EA and the NFLPA’s marketing unit, NFL Players Inc., rushed to lock down a contract that secured the most valuable retired players’ rights for below-market payments, and says he has an email (jump) admitting this.

Writes Nixon:

When a substantial competitor to EA [Take-Two] began to emerge for use of retired players, EA and Defendants rushed to enter into a contract locking up the most valuable retired players’ rights in exchange for payments that were admittedly below market. [NFL Players Inc]’s Senior Vice-President, Clay Walker, admitted as much in the following email:“Take Two [the EA competitor] went after retired players to create an “NFL” style video game after we gave the exclusive to EA. I was able to forge this deal with [the Pro Football Hall of Fame] that provides them with $400K per year (which is significantly below market rate) in exchange for the HOF player rights. EA owes me a huge favor because that threat was enough to persuade Take Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there.”

Ars Technica also pointed out another email dug up by the suit:

An e-mail sent November 1, 2007, is equally plain in its language. Andrew Feffer, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the NFLPA wrote to EA Sports’ representative Paul Cairns that “Clay and Joe’s negotiation of these discounted terms was a significant contribution to EA as you more than likely would have paid in excess of $1 million for these rights without their involvement and assistance.” In other words, you saved a cool million because you had people negotiating who weren’t hoping to strike the best deal for the players.

As for the agreement to scramble players’ likenesses, Nixon’s letter also says this is from LaShun Lawson, the VP of multimedia for NFL Players, Inc., to EA producer Jeremy Strauser, cc’d to Doug Allen, then president of NFL Players Inc.

“For all retired players that are not listed… their identity must be altered so that it cannot be recognized. Regarding paragraph 2 of the License Agreement between Electronic Arts and Players Inc, a player’s identity is defined as his name, likeness (including without limitation, number), picture, photograph, voice, facsimile signature and/or biographical information. Hence, any and all players not listed… cannot be represented in Madden 2002 with the number that player actually wore, and must be scrambled.”

The lawsuit goes to trial next month in San Francisco.

At the end of July, Electronic Arts announced it was delaying the launch of Tiberium on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Without citing any specific issues, the publisher postponed the first-person spin-off of the Command & Conquer series until its 2010 fiscal year, meaning the earliest it would have hit retail was April 2009. Today came news that Tiberium won’t hit retail, period. This afternoon, EA confirmed to GameSpot that the title has been canceled outright, a victim of an internal quality-control audit by EA. The game was in development at EA’s Los Angeles studio, where the next installment in the C&C series, Command and Conquer Red Alert 3, remains in the works for the PC and Xbox 360.

“EA has suspended work on Tiberium effective immediately,” corporate communications spokesperson Mariam Sughayer told GameSpot. “The game was not on track to meet the high quality standards set by the team and by the EA Games Label. A lower-quality game is not in the best interest of the consumers and would not succeed in this market.” Since taking over in 2007, EA CEO John Riccitiello and EA Games president Frank Gibeau have said they are implementing a more strident quality-control system at EA’s numerous internal studios. As a result of the cancellation, an unidentified number of employees are being let go from EALA. Sughayer explained that “every effort” is being made “to place talented people on other projects.” Besides Red Alert 3, EALA is home to a number of Steven Spielberg-produced games, including a 360/PS3 sci-fi shooter. It’s also where 300 director Zack Snyder will be setting up shop to work on a trio of new IPs with EA.