December's just a few days away, but the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 PC beta won't be happening next month after all. Instead, it'll kick off "very early next year." DICE has good reasons for the delay, however.

Here's a keeper for the weekend: Valve has just put new updates up on Steam for Audiosurf and Race Driver: GRID, the latter being part of the follow up the version 1.1 patch that released for the retail editions of the racing game. While Audiosurf seems to be gearing up for additional content in the future, the GRID patch corrects issues with game initializations and shut downs. More at the full story.

Codemasters has announced that a patch for Race Driver: GRID (PC, Xbox 360, PS3) is now up and ready for download through various mirrors. Learn more about the patch by checking on the full article.

If you sent in some feedback regarding the first ever BlizzCast, then you may want to check this article. Over on the World of Warcraft forums, Bornakk has posted the winners G51 Logitech 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker sets and StarCraft II hats.

Interested in knowing if your name was picked? Check out the full article for more!

The official Blizzard podcast has finally gone live and in the first episode, Sam Didier (StarCraft II and World of Warcraft art) and Jeff Kaplan (WoW's Sunwell Plateau) were on the centerstage while Karune and Drysc were the interviewers.

Find out more in the full article, you can check out some Sunwell Plateau screenshots too.

Around a month ago, Bethesda announced a Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) perk making contest, and 17,000 entries made their way into the Bethesda gaming vaults, hoping to become the next Fallout perk. Well, Bethesda has announced the winner of its Fallout 3 perk making contest, and we can certainly tell you right now... it's not us!

Find out who won after the jump!

Here's an example of serendipity: a guy who lost his PlayStation 3 controller (never mind why, we don't know either) used a PC controller and it "worked perfectly." This was confirmed numerous times in the PlayStation 3 forum thread where it was first posted.

The controller he used was the Logitech dual action game pad. It's also been noted that this "discovery" has been discovered before by other individuals but some might not have caught whiff of it yet. At least now, you know you have an alternative in case you lose your controller (never mind why).

Note that it won't have the same functions as the DualShock 3 or the SIXAXIS controllers if you try it for yourself though. Here's the PC controller in action on the PlayStation 3:

Blizzard is announcing that as part of the preparations for Halloween, they are now accepting submissions for their annual Pumpkin-Carving Contest. The said event invites contestants to submit pictures of pumpkin carvings based on Blizzard games like World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo.

The 10 winners for this event will each receive a pair of Logitech 51 Surround Sound Speaker Systems. Before you get bust out the carving knife, here are some extra contest reminders:

• Most of all, your pumpkins should be original. If they feature original art, even better.
• Your pumpkin must be lit up in the photo. You can show another photo of the pumpkin unlit.
• The pumpkin must be related to one of the Blizzard game universes - Diablo, StarCraft, Warcraft, etc.
• Make sure to send in high quality pictures. Try to take the best picture possible. You might have to read up on how to take night pictures.
• Make sure you tell us what the pumpkin is supposed to be in the caption, just in case it's not clear
• We love humor, and it's always good if you can tie that into your pumpkin
  

Those interested in submitting their best works have until Monday, October 29, (12:00 a.m. PDT) to do so. Now, if you've got your carving all ready for the competition, you can submit it to Blizzard's judges via the Read link we've provided below.

  

For UK's more hardcore racing game fans, we've got something you might be interested in. Playseat has just announced that they will now be marketing their Playseat Evolution chair for your local market. As compared to other gamer chairs you've probably encountered, this chair is built with the resident racer in mind, and currently hosts these features:

• Folding racing seat
• Fully adjustable oval piping steel construction
• Available in White or Black colour options
• Compatible with all major consoles are supported including: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Wii, X-Box, X-Box 360 and PC
• Compatible with all electronic steering wheels and pedals including the new Logitech G25 (gearshift holder required - see image above right)
• Other accessories available
  

Interestingly, Playseat Evolution is also a sponsor of the Dutch A1 racing team. In fact, the chair has been tested by all of the team's drivers. The chair currently retails for £ 239 (US$ 326.50).

  

This writer has one of those Logitech Extreme 3D Pro USB joysticks where the throttle is inexplicably in the center of the unit base, and not to the left of it. Dang it, do you know how hard it is to coordinate a three-point landing in Flight Simulator when when that throttle tab is in the worst possible place it could be, in the way of your right arm (see above-left picture)?

Well, the Afroman of Afrotechmods was feeling quite the same way (with a ton of jive, sucka). And with the best alternative - a flight control set with a properly-mounted throttle slider - being way too expensive for this brother's tastes, he decided to get all ghetto and create a Ghetto Throttle Slider for his Logitech 3D Pro - much the same way as Joe Stranger patched up a detachable PS2 joystick for his PSP.

And the same principles, too. You just have to properly connect the potentiometers (the doohickeys that govern the way a slider tells a computer where it is) of the throttle slider with the potentiometers of another slider - in Afroman's case, the volume slider of an old Sony cassette deck. You'll be looking for those three-wire ribbon cables. Easy-to-follow instructions at the source, with maximum illustration... and minimum of jive.