A little bird has told Joystiq that Microsoft will be conducting a beta program to test out the Kinect software and hardware. The company has been sending email invitations to participate in the program.

There’s nothing like a good ole interactive fiction game. Bionic Heart by Tycoon Games, is now in the first stages of beta testing (also known as the closed period).

Bionic Hearts is a comic-book style downloadable interactive fiction game for the PC, Mac and Linux that takes place in London in the year 2099 in a world where Earth’s climate is so ravaged by pollution and global warming that most of the world is covered in an unending rain. You play as Luke Black, an information engineer working for Nanotech, one of the leading nanotechnology companies of this time period.

Interactive fiction (IF) is basically a adventure game but, instead of searching around for an item, you talk to people and make choices that will effect the outcome of the game. There is usually still an inventory but the game play is much different. Think of it as a Choose Your Own Adventure type game…

World War III, the sequel to the hit conflicts WW1 and 2, is coming to the Xbox 360 this summer.

While this war won’t pit the world’s superpowers in a global struggle in the real world, gamers will get the chance to play Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s EndWar in open beta through Xbox Live to help ready the game for its October 7, 2008, release.

The beta is expected to run from June 2008 through July 2008. All Xbox players with a Live Gold membership can sign up for the beta on the official EndWar web site. The beta will require…