Gamers are irate over the fact that they were unable to play Diablo III last night. Servers were down, and players weren’t allowed to enter the game, even if they wanted to play on their own. This is due to Diablo III‘s required internet connection, which bars any players from entering the game’s world unless they’re online.

Additionally, Blizzard’s DRM tomfoolery isn’t helping, and this has become one of the main reasons for some huge criticism among players. As a result, Diablo III has received a massive amount of negative fan reviews on Metacritic. Gamers are calling the title a disaster, and they even go so far as to unleash their verbal hatred for its gameplay and graphics, with people saying that the game is boring and repetitive, all the while failing to deliver decent visual design.

I haven’t had the chance to play Diablo III, and because I mainly use my rig to play indie games, the chances of that happening are pretty slim. But wow, guys, is the game really that bad? Does it deserve the 3.6/10 rating that it’s gotten from gamers on Metacritic? If so, I’m glad I never invested any time into the series, because this just seems like one steaming pile of disappointment.

GPU manufacture NVIDIA today announced GeForce Grid, a cloud gaming platform capable of “streaming next-generation games to virtually any device, without the lag that hampers current offerings.” The tech leverages NVIDIA’s Kepler-based family of graphics processors to deliver low latency gaming over the cloud. A single Grid instance can simultaneously encode up to eight game streams, allowing providers to scale efficiently with less overhead in regards to power and costs.

What’s under the hood? A Grid GPU boasts 3,072 CUDA cores — the same as NVIDIA’s flagship GTX690 card. It also includes 8GB of VRAM, with memory and shader performance clocking in at 320 GB/sec and 4.7 TFLOPS, respectively. The wattage rating comes in at a respectable 250W — reasonable when you consider how much power the card is packing.

Impressively, with the Grid tech, NVIDIA says server power-consumption per game stream has been reduced to about one-half that of previous implementations. Under ideal conditions, the Grid platform reduces server latency to as little as 10 milliseconds. According to NVIDIA, “gamers will feel like they are playing on a gaming supercomputer located in the same room. Lightning-fast play is now possible, even when the gaming supercomputer is miles away.”

OnLive competitor Gaikai will be one of the first providers to deploy the new tech. Additionally, several industry figures and developers have praised NVIDIA’s latest effort.

“Cloud has the potential to deliver an even more powerful experience in the future by enabling ultra-high-end GPUs like the GeForce GTX 680 to stream ultra-high-quality graphics such as those made possible by UE4 to a huge range of devices, well beyond console capabilities. The result will be that more people can enjoy EPIC’s games on more devices at higher quality,” said Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney.

“It is exciting to watch how cloud gaming is becoming mature and gives better and better user experience — and NVIDIA’s GeForce GRID technology is example of it. We are looking forward to see how cloud computing using this technology will change the future of gaming and the overall gaming experience and how it will affect consoles and PCs,” said CD Projekt RED lead programmer Bartlomiej Wronski.

Many have questioned the viability of cloud-driven gaming platforms in the past, but it goes without saying that NVIDIA’s Grid tech looks to be a game-changer. Going forward, it’ll be exciting to see how the platform evolves.

The Xbox 360 adaption of Minecraft has already proved itself a hit on Xbox Live, selling more than any other title in the first 24 hours of availability. On top of that, it was also profitable in its first hour of release. Now Microsoft has taken the opportunity to gloat some more, announcing that the title has tipped one million in total sales – one week after release.

Additionally, Microsoft PR guru Major Nelson reveals that a whopping 5.2 million hours have been spent in the game, with a total of 2.4 million hours going towards the multiplayer component. To date, 4 million multiplayer sessions have been created. Impressive statistics all around.

Clearly, console gamers were frothing at the mouth for Minecraft. Here’s hoping 4J Studios deliver on their promise to bring the Xbox edition up to parity with its PC brethren, which can look really nice with a few graphical enhancements as shown in the screenshot above.

Jetpack Joyride is an addictive little iOS game that manages to deliver a compelling experience that’s both worthwhile and rewarding. The game strays away from the model that plagued mobile titles in the past, and though it’s certainly a simple game with intuitive controls, it still manages to capture gamers’ attention and gives them a reason to care about the mobile gaming scene.

Now, developer Halfbrick is taking the addictive gem to Facebook to reach an even wider audience. While this version of Jetpack Joyride is technically in beta, it still feels like the complete experience found on iOS devices. Power-ups, coins, and obstacles are all there to deliver a fast-paced runner experience that’s really entertaining. And if you’re wondering about the missions and achievements, those are in the Facebook version of Jetpack Joyride, too.

I only got a chance to play a bit of the game on a friend’s iPad not too long ago, but in those few short sessions, I fell in love with Jetpack Joyride. Now that the game is on Facebook, I’ve taken the liberty of seeing if it’s as worthy of my time as the original and, well, let’s just say this post was supposed to go live a lot earlier. I know what I’ll be playing this weekend.

Street Fighter X Tekken launched on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in March to positive reviews. The game is now officially available on the PC via digital download.

You can currently download Street Fighter X Tekken at any major digital download site for $49.99. The game includes 38 fighters from both the Street Fighter and Tekken universes, and it features all of the game modes from its console brethren. Additionally, the PC port will also sport 3D functionality.

I actually didn’t enjoy Street Fighter X Tekken at first, mainly because I found the gems system to be too much of an exercise in boredom and monotony. Still, if you dig deep enough, you definitely get a dedicated fighter that showcases Capcom’s expertise in the genre. If you have yet to play Street Fighter X Tekken but you’ve been meaning to, it wouldn’t hurt to look into the PC version. It is $10 cheaper after all.

Blizzard and Valve jointly announced today that they’ve come to terms over the use of the DOTA mark in upcoming products. Under the agreement, Valve will continue to leverage the DOTA mark commercially – which means DOTA 2 will remain unaffected —  while Blizzard “will preserve noncommercial use of DOTA for its community with regard to player-created maps for Warcraft III and StarCraft II.” Additionally, in accordance with the agreement, Blizzard DOTA has been renamed Blizzard All-Stars.

“Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to, so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that,” said Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s executive VP of game design.

He added, “As part of this agreement, we’re going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date.”

“We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” said Valve boss Gabe Newell. “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

Rockstar is running a promotion in which gamers can score a free copy of Midnight Club 2 on Steam. Released back in 2003 — it’s an oldie, but nothing beats free, right? In order to be eligible, all that’s required is joining the official Rockstar Community group on Steam by 6pm GMT on May 15.

Those that join up will receive a free copy of the game by May 29. It’s non-giftable, so you’ll receive nothing provided you already own the title, unfortunately.

Oh, and according to the Steam page for Midnight Club 2, it’s currently not supported on Windows 7 or Vista. There’s a workaround outlined here, one that comes at the expense of disabling a built-in security feature. Here’s hoping Rockstar has a compatibility patch in the works for the majority of us running on a somewhat recent OS.

Renowned programmer and id Software co-founder John Carmack has taken a trip down memory lane, recording a 20-minute commentary on Wolfenstein 3D. The timing is appropriate, considering today marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark title, which is often credited for kickstarting the FPS genre as we know it.

Carmack’s retrospective provides insight into the design decisions and technical hurdles involved with development. Remember, this was back when games shipped on floppy disks. Well worth a watch. Additionally, for those feeling nostalgic, Bethesda has launched a version of Wolfenstein that runs entirely in your browser.

Originally scheduled for an October debut, publisher Take-Two has delayed BioShock Infinite by four months. It’s now scheduled to release next year on February 26.

“When we announced the release date of BioShock Infinite in March, we felt pretty good about the timing. Since then, we’ve uncovered opportunities to make Infinite into something even more extraordinary,” said Irrational Games creative head Ken Levine. He added, “Therefore, to give our talented team the time they need to deliver the best Infinite possible, we’ve decided to move the game’s release to February.”

In addition, the title is going on a media blackout through E3 and Gamescom this year. In Levine’s words, “the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box.” A delay of this magnitude will no doubt ruffle feathers, especially since the title was announced way back in 2010, but having a high standard for quality is something we can’t argue with.

Rockstar’s announced a total revamp of its Social Club website, complete with redesigned Facebook-like profile pages that show status updates, along with display of recent stats from linked titles. Users can add accounts and friends from several providers, including Xbox Live, PSN, and Twitter.

This Wednesday, the company will launch a new feature dubbed Social Club Crews, allowing users to organize Max Payne 3 Multiplayer Crews ahead of the game’s May 15 launch.