Rare is to open a new second studio facility in Fazeley Studios, Digbeth Birmingham in April which will complement Rare’s longstanding headquarters in Twycross. Fazeley’s main area of focus will be as a production, test and usability site to accommodate Rare’s evolving methodology in game creation.

Blacklight: Tango Down is a fast-paced FPS based in a new fictional universe called Blacklight. The game's near-future setting is brought to life with disturbingly detailed and old-world architecture dripping with modern sci-fi lighting and brightly lit advertisements, an effect that causes each environment to appear both futuristically alien as well as hauntingly familiar.

THQ announced that it will open a new, state-of-the-art Usability Lab located at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University. Expected to be fully operational by summer 2010, the lab will enhance game testing capabilities, and generate important opportunities for collaboration with faculty and the post-graduate community, as well as potential paid internships and research projects.

Since the launch of high-selling Tony Hawk: RIDE, Robomodo has grown by 20%, increasing in all areas of the studio, including art, engineering, production, and design. The company is currently looking to grow an additional 17%, looking to fill positions in all areas across the company to work on projects across all platforms.

A steam-ship period naval combat simulation games focusing on fleet-scale battles in real time. Manage financial and strategic aspects while planning your squadron's structure. The naval combat game allows you to set up battles squadron groups, their formations and management, with realistic ship models and characteristics, as well as advanced ballistisc and weapon models.

Now here's a bizarre story. G4's Patrick Klepek reported last night that relations between Activision and Infinity Ward have been "tense" for several months. Yesterday, the studio heads had a meeting with owner Activision, after which IW's Vince Zampella and Jason West have not been seen at the studio. Once security personnel arrived on the IW premises, employees became "freaked out" and "confused," but no further information was available. Its otherwise chatty community rep Robert Bowling has been awfully quiet, only tweeting he had no information on the matter. Later last night, Jason West's Facebook status changed to "Jason West is drinking. Also, no longer employed," while his LinkedIn profile now shows his career as IW president spanned January 2001 – March 2010.

UPDATE: Found in a March 1st, 2010 SEC filing by Activision, "The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward."

I've finally given up. The old iPod's on its way out, and a new one is coming in. When I went in to get it repaired, the Apple customer service rep said they would give me a discount if I were to replace my current iPod, so you can't beat that deal.

Passed a quiet evening watching 24, Leverage and nothing else.

Going to be making my schedule for GDC; lots of meetings and press events to go to. I'm not looking forward to it because that only means that E3 is not far behind.

Another day, another batch of game trailers was released. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are trailers for:

• C&C 4: Tiberian Twilight [PC] - Global Stratospheric Transport Trailer
• Alpha Protocol [ALL] - A Man Alone Trailer
• CryENGINE 3 [ALL] - Cascaded Light Propagation Volumes Trailer
• Trauma Team [Wii] - First Response Trailer

We will update this throughout the day when new trailers become available. Read more for download links ...

Set in the deceptively idyllic town of Bright Falls, Alan Wake immerses players in an intense and expansive cinematic world that enables players to explore the hyper-realistic and interactive environments.