The front runner for the IGF Awards this year; Audiosurf has been confirmed for a release on Steam this Friday the 15th of February. It is now available for pre-purchase with a 10% discount off the $9.95 retail price until it is released. Audiosurf on Steam will include The Orange Box soundtrack which includes hits such as ‘Still Alive’ from Portal. Audiosurf is also one of the first title to make full use of the recently announced Steamworks and will offer full support for Steam achievements available via the Steam Community Profile Pages.

Audiosurf is a music-adapting puzzle racer where you use your own music to create your own experience. The shape, the speed, and the mood of each ride is determined by the song you choose. You earn points for clustering together blocks of the same color on the highway, and compete with others on the internet for the high score on your favorite songs.

Watch out for this landing this Friday and I for one will be getting this and providing my thoughts!

A report by the Guardian newspaper says that UK ministers are discussing plans for introducing a cinema like age rating system for all games sold in the UK.

At the moment only games showing sex or “gross” violence to humans or animals require legally enforceable age limits. Ministers plan to impose measures requiring all games to carry a legally binding age restriction rating. Ministers also are thought to make a recommendation to parents that games should only be played in the kitchen or in an area where parents/carers can view and manage what is being played.

Ideas are also being discussed regarding enforcing filters on internet sites that are deemed unsuitable for children.

Hugo Swire, a former shadow culture secretary, has suggested that the default setting for internet content would be for children, with a password or pin needed for unfiltered material.

Finally it is expected that Tory MP Julian Brazier will launch a private members bill aimed towards setting up a new body to assess and appeal against BBFC classification of games and DVDs.

The Guardian.

A new EA games division has been revealed to the world and is known as EA Blueprint being led by former Electronic Arts Los Angeles general manager Neil Young and that studio’s director of artist and repertoire for Electronic Arts Alan Yu.

The two execs are leading a small team in what the company calls EA Blueprint, a new division that will ally with small-sized developers, assisting them with strategic funding and project management.

The products out of EA Blueprint will be both brand extensions of existing EA games as well as original IP. What differentiates Blueprint from any existing business model at EA is where Blueprint games are destined to end up–across various platforms, but with an emphasis on burgeoning social networks such as Facebook, for example

An interesting new area for EA to explore, much more information on GameTap.

Two new videos right now (thanks to GameTrailers) with the first showing off the new Mechapede unit for the Scrin in C&C3: Kane’s Wrath. It looks….like a bug….freaky shit!

Secondly is a GameTrailers exclusive video for Facebreaker showing off a few boxers and the pure Facebreaking potential of the game!

I cannot promise that this will be the only time I use a smiley in the title of a post, time will tell on that! However it has emerged that there is going to be more Puzzle Quest! While my review on 411 Mania may not be the most praise giving of all, I do quite enjoy the game. So to hear that there is going to be more is great!

At the bottom of a press release by D3Publisher of Europe announcing the appointment of Adam Roberts (formerly of Vivendi) the following is revealed.

The company will also be releasing video games based on Aardman’s popular Shaun the Sheep character in 2008, alongside the eagerly-awaited follow-ups to the best-selling Ben 10 and Puzzle Quest.

The full press release follows.

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It seems that the issues I reported on back in January have been resolved in a new Steam Client Beta. I have had download speeds go from 25k/sec tops to around 100k/sec.

A Steam client beta is now available. To access it, go to File -> Settings and on the Account tab choose “Steam Client Candidate” in the Beta participation section. The specific changes include:

- Fixed downloads becoming paused
- Improved download speeds
- Decreased application launch time
- Fixed URL links in chats to not include trailing punctuation as part of the link
- Changed group event notifications to open at most 8 dialogs

Steam Forums.

Tom Jubert the writing genius behind the Penumbura horror games and Black and White 2 has likened video game storylines to cinema in the black and white era in an interview with CVG.

“Blacksite gets a lot of flak for its botched political message - but at least they gave it a shot. Bioshock was altogether less ambitious. But it’s early days - in cinematic history we’d still be in black and white”.

I must agree that video game stories are at the moment still a bit ‘old fashioned’ with only a handful pushing the boundaries and being innovative in what they do. What can developers do to change this? Focus less on graphics and more on getting players involved in an engrossing storyline. That is my take, what do you think?

[CVG]

Quick heads up, Rock, Paper, Shotgun have a good article here talking about the Byron Report and its impact on the games industry.

I have just reinstalled C&C: The First Decade and played some Red Alert 2 and remembered what a great game it is. I take a ‘Look Back’ at the game and give my thoughts on why it was so damn good!

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My random goog’ling (as part of an upcoming little article) led me to find the following image from Tesla Downunder.

The guy behind this project has made a real working Tesla Coil and after making dummies of the Red Alert 2 units set them up for the shot. He used some special tricks to get the sparks to extend the distance to the targeted unit, but this is pretty darn cool!

Get more pics and information on this here.