Keith Stuart ruminates on Cloverfield’s similarity to Half Life over at the Guardian Games Blog:
I watched it last night, and was astounded by the number of similarities between Valve’s alien invasion series and the digi-cam monster movie. Just as Lost is essentially a survival horror game, Cloverfield is a narrative FPS, employing the visual tricks, [...]

Black Rock Studio have revealed their first Disney Interactive Studios game:
First game from Black Rock (formerly Climax Racing) is off-road racer Pure
Obviously building on their existing strengths, but I wonder what kind of spin the game will acquire from Disney.

Via Develop comes news of the Unreal Engine being licensed to create walkthroughs of stadiums. The link to Mark Rein’s February piece for Develop quotes them:
“It renders 30 frames per second instead of one per hour – that’s 3,000 times faster than traditional animation methods. This makes it a first (and only) in the architectural [...]

Pixel-Lab will next week effectively pack up and be off for 10 days to the States.  David & I will be attending GDC, the largest games industry conference, and are exited that as a company we will be there in force.
I am speaking at the IGDA Government & Associations Summit on the Monday, and at [...]

More potential funding for games projects:
The Technology Strategy Board, sponsored by the UK government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, has announced that up to GBP 7 million will be made available in grants for projects that could be developed by games companies in the UK.

It started with a GameSetWatch op ed:
The gaming press is conflating two trends in game development into a single category that they label the Independent Game. The first is commercial oriented, casual, independently produced games by people attempting to make a living from writing and designing games without committing to a publisher. These I’m happy [...]

EA are streamlining their testing and localisation operations to a centre in Madrid:
Electronic Arts, has opened a European test centre in Madrid, which will employ between 200 and 400 people from 20 European countries.
According to Sky News, Madrid was chosen over 27 other cities, including London, Prague and Warsaw, because of its geographical location and [...]

AIAS have announced $2500 scholarships for game design students:
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced the creation of the Dr. Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund, established to support students pursuing careers in game design, development and production.
The fund, honoring Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design Dr. Randy Pausch, will [...]

There they go, chipping away a little more at the uncanny valley. Not long now until we start climbing the other side, but all those photo-real, ersatz humans are going to act in a downright spooky way unless we can bootstrap AI to match the standards of their appearance.

Bruce Everiss points out a viral campaign for GTA IV, and several reasons why it’s a well orchestrated one. The comments are a bit of a standoff over old media and new media, and the GTA IV campaign is an example of both working together.
I really wouldn’t like to look like Nico (The character on [...]