The indie gaming world was abuzz after Microsoft announced it’s independent and student game development tool, XNA Game Studio Express, allowing aspiring game creators the ability to begin developing their own games for Windows XP and Vista at no charge. The most exciting bit of news from that announcement was the ability for game creators to develop for the Xbox 360 console starting this holiday season 2006 as part of what MS are calling the XNA Creators Club. This will be a subscription-based service, requiring a yearly subscription of $99, a low fee for any student or bedroom coder who wants to see their creation running on an Xbox 360. To follow that up today, Microsoft has announced the beta release of XNA Game Studio Express for Windows XP and Vista, leading up to the final release at the end of this year with XNA Game Studio Professional launching Spring 2007. Coinciding with today’s beta release, GarageGames has announced the enrollment program for their Torque X beta program, which will include both the Torque Game Builder engine and the Torque Shader Engine, which were developed in conjunction with XNA Game Studio Express.

Read more: Microsoft releases Game Studio Express beta | Garage Games

Ubisoft today announced the upcoming open beta round for Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, the upcoming fantasy action title developed by Kuju. Open beta rounds will begin Tuesday, August 29th at 9AM PT and potential beta testers will be able to sign-up via Might and Magic’s website. Ubisoft are looking to have approximately 100,000 players participate in this final open beta before the release of Might and Magic.

Read more: Dark Messiah - Might and Magic

“Acclaim” is offering open beta positions for it’s online action-bot title, BOTS. Allowing the player to create their own robotic characters with unique powers and transform abilities, BOTS allows players to take part in a wide variety of free-range robotic PvE and PvP combat throughout many gameplay sectors. Acclaim are currently looking for beta testers using the Windows XP platform, no word on a Mac OS X or Linux version is available at the moment (unfortunately).

Read more: Bots homepage | Acclaim Bots open beta announcement

Western-themed animmo Bang! Howdy is currently in an open-beta phase and looking for more players to test their game and services. The gameplay is a hybrid of turn-based and realtime strategy set in a 3d wild west setting, with lovely 3d toon-style artwork. Currently there are hundreds of special ‘playing fields’, dozens of unique units and 10 scenarios (missions I guess?). Currently the developers are working on adding new towns and new scenarios as testers test through the current missions.

Read more: Bang! Howdy