Forget about market share or profits, Starcraft 2 rankings is what matters and as of two days ago Microsoft just became the undefeated champions of eSports’ After Hours Gaming League winning the $5000 prize money for the charity of their choice, Amnesty International.

During the grand finals at Facebook’s headquarters, the Microsoft team defeated Zynga in a 5-set match to take out the competition’s first prize with a relentless 7 wins 0 loss season record. During the preliminary rounds, Microsoft played against and defeated all of Google, Yelp, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox.

The captain of the Microsoft team, Nathaniel “NATO” Tucker, credited the support from Redmond for their success in the competition. “We have a very active of people who love Starcraft at Microsoft so it was really their support to give us the energy to dominate this season.” The team also sported a cool shirt with the slogan “Macro hard, Microsoft” and the race symbols of Starcraft in the style of the “I love Windows Phone” shirt.

The first game of five is embedded below. The rest of the games can be viewed here. GG Microsoft.

Over the weekend, Bing released three new 30-second “decide with your friends” ads with the focus on the Social Search partnership for Facebook Likes. Although this isn’t the first time Facebook has been featured in Bing ads, these are however much more appealing than ones featured back in May.

The ads follow groups of people hanging out downtown, taking a road trip and doing an urban garden project respectively. Along the way, Facebook “likes” and the trademark thumbs up icon are superimposed in front of clubs, restaurants and other businesses that friends have recommended.

Admittedly it’s been a while since the last Bing Search Overload ads but I really like the style of these new ads since it illustrates a practical and somewhat unique feature of Bing (Google has +1) in-line with the “decision engine” branding. I look forward to seeing more of these.

Microsoft’s Metro-inspired websites are getting better and better. The latest is “What’s your inbox like“, a marketing promotional website for Windows Live Hotmail and sports one of the best “native” implementations of the Metro tiles I’ve seen in HTML5, JS and CSS yet.

The tile shadows are a nice touch reminiscent of the upcoming XBOX 360 dashboard update.

It’s hard to believe the latest installment of one of the best selling PC game series is a free downloadable. But don’t let its price-tag fool you, Age of Empires Online is a content-rich real-time strategy game with a hint of MMORPG that can deliver lots of fun even if you don’t pay a single extra dime.

Coming from a slightly unhealthy obsession with Starcraft 2, I know a serious RTS when I see one. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a master of precision clicking and keyboard shortcuts to enjoy Age of Empires Online.

The new Pixar-like art style reinforces the fact that this is a light-hearted and approachable strategy game. Whilst the menu and UI has discoverability issues, the gameplay is true to the series and easy to pick up.

As someone who enjoys playing games with friends more than alone, I was excited to see the inclusion of co-op campaigns. Even though co-op is quite rudimentary – it only seems to increase the difficulty of the AI instead of adding additional gameplay elements, other multiplayer features such as a Horde Defence mode and the ability to visit other people’s cities makes playing with friends a worthwhile experience.

Of course not before long the game will start bugging you for money and Microsoft Points for access to “premium” upgrades, items and gameplay modes. Most of the bonuses would just make the game easier and so far I don’t feel my gameplay has been limited or restricted severely.

Having said that, I may shell out $15 for the “Defense of Crete Booster Pack” because it actually unlocks additional missions in the Horde Defence mode. Considering I pay up to $90 for games otherwise, it’s not such a bad deal.

If you haven’t downloaded it already, there’s absolutely no reason not to check out Age of Empires Online. For what it’s worth, I hope this free-to-play model takes off. Even though the expectations for free games is already pretty high, Age of Empires Online raises it even higher.

Even though it’s a couple hours ahead of its official release schedule, the latest Age of Empires game is now available for download and play on Windows. The best part is, it’s a free game with plenty of content without paying a single dime so there’s no reason not to try it.

I miss the spoof videos that used to break the ice for most Microsoft keynotes, like the infamous Matrix spoof of 2003. Now more times than not, they seem to be limited to internal events such as the one above for MGX FY12, the same event that delivered “The Gmail Man“.

The video features an A-list of Microsoft’s senior management team including Kurt DelBene – President of Office, Andrew Lees – President of Windows Phone, Qi Lu – President of Online Services, and Chris Capossela – Senior VP of consumer marketing.

I’m not too sure what the context of this video is suppose to be, but even without one there’s something inherently amusing about senior executives carpooling, discussing TV shows, yelling at iPhone users, choosing between Larry Page or Steve Jobs and smack talking Google.

Apparently this is an alternative edit of the one that actually screened at the event but nevertheless worth a laugh or two.

Update: The video has since been taken down by the author.