Three unusual custom StarCraft maps up for beta

Feel like a little zombie survival? Some match-three action? A cook-off? Hit up the multiplayer tab in StarCraft II today and you'll have something to do besides curse other players' unit spam. Blizzard has made three of its Blizzcon-revealed custom maps available as an opt-in beta.

The strangest is Aiur Chef, which asks players to collect ingredients and produce themed dishes in a format similar to TV's Iron Chef.

Left 2 Die substitutes Zerg for zombies and has players taking down infested structures by day, only to retreat behind defences at night - complete with a wave-style survival mode.

Starjeweled continues Blizzard's love affair with Popcap (as evidenced by Peggle's appearance in World of Warcraft) by feeding you units and upgrades based on your jewel-matching capacities.

Interestingly, the fourth announced custom map, Blizzard DOTA, is nowhere in sight, leading to wild speculation on legal and copyright lines given the tension between the original DOTA mod team over Valve's DOTA 2. But no - it's just a big deal, and big deals take time.

More details can be found on the Blizzard Blog.

Thanks, Big Download.