StarCraft II vs Bejeweled vs L4D vs Iron Chef

One of these days, we must take a long, hard look at ourselves. And also at the StarCraft II modding scene, to see how well it's living up to the promise that the modkit could turn the game to whole new genres.

Blizzard themselves have now made good on that promise, releasing the final, public versions of three long-promised cheeky nods to other games...

The three custom map packs put out earlier today include StarJeweled, a competitive Bejeweled homage of sorts which has you summoning units as a result of successful jewel combos.

Left 2 Die is, despite the Valve-baiting name, more about building and protecting a safe haven from a rampaging Zerg swarm (not played it, but I'm guessing it's based on the similarly-themed level in the SC2 campaign). It's co-op based, hence that cheeky number 2.

Meanwhile, Aiur Chef is... well, it's a cooking game. Specifically, a race to accrue recipe ingredients. But in space. Rightio then. Said ingredients are gained by killing mobs and grabbing pick-ups - so it's basically a competitive WoW quest.

The maps have been in beta for a while, but their apparently improved final versions are now open to any and all comers. You can hunt 'em down from within StarCraft II's Join Game Interface. Oh, and there are new achievements to accompany 'em, if that sort of thing shizzles your nizzle. I have no idea what I'm saying.

Oh, and speaking of Valve-baiting, a fourth map based on DoTA remains in the pipeline. What a war this shall be.