Here's today's roundup of top stories from elsewhere on the internet:

OnLive closes its biggest round of funding so far (GamesIndustry.biz) - Gamers might consider the service to be vapourware that will never get off the ground, but apparently some big corporations have faith in it. Cloud gaming service OnLive has closed a "major round of funding" from AT&T, Autodesk, Warner Bros, Lauder Partners and Maverick Capital. OnLive CEO Steve Perlman said the funding – an undisclosed amount – was much larger than previous rounds and "gives us a serious jolt of rocket fuel" as the company prepares to launch its on-demand gaming service this summer. It began beta testing in September.

Australian authorities split over video game ratings (News.com.au) - The recent decision by Australia's censorship board to refuse classification of zombie shooter sequel Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve is appealing the decision) has highlighted Australia's broken ratings system, which tops out at MA15+ for video games. Bringing in an R18+ rating would require all of Australia's attorneys-general to agree, but South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson is holding out. He said the interactive nature of video games meant they had a much greater influence than viewing a film or reading a book.

 

It was back in Singapore earlier this year that we first met Rich Briggs, as part of EA's media event for Asia-Pacific.

After eight years marketing a wide variety of video games, Rich joined the Dead Space team last year and has been part of its development ever since.

As the "Producer in Charge of Scripted Events and Other Story Elements for Dead Space" (no, we're not sure how that fits on his business card either), he watches people play Dead Space and discusses it with them as part of his weekly focus group work. He then analyses the data and creates a report with proposed action items for various departments, making him the perfect person to give us inside information on what makes a game like this tick.

Electronic Arts have released a new video for Dead Space, their survival horror title due for release in October.

In Dead Space, players step into the role of engineer Isaac Clarke – an ordinary man on a seemingly routine mission to fix the communications systems aboard a deep space mining ship. It is not long before Isaac awakes to a living nightmare when he learns that the ship’s crew has been ravaged by a vicious alien infestation. He must fight through the dead silence and darkness of deep space to stay alive.

Check out the "Zero-G" trailer at GP Downloads (91MB).

 

It is a new direction for EA - this "M" rated title (which will probably make it R16 or higher here) is lining up to set a new standard in the Survival Horror genre.

The developers were given free reign over the creative vision, resulting in an atmospheric, intense, visually stunning piece of work which immerses the player in a dark and disturbing world. It’s not for the faint of heart.

Isaac Clarke’s got issues. Sent in to repair the communications array of a ship that mysteriously went silent after it came into contact with a mysterious alien artefact, he finds nothing but carnage on his arrival. Isaac’s mission goes from “repair” to “l just want to get out of here alive”. (And in case all you Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke fans are wondering - yes, the protagonist is named for those two giants of sci-fi.)

EA has released a new trailer for their third-person sci-fi survival horror title Dead Space, which is set to ship in October for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Dead Space follows Isaac Clarke, an ordinary man on a routine mission to fix the communications systems aboard a deep space mining ship. Isaac soon realizes that the ship's crew has been ravaged by an alien infestation, so he must fight through the dead silence and darkness of deep space to stay alive.

Download the trailer now from GP Downloads

 

Electronic Arts have released four new screenshots for Dead Space, showcasing this upcoming survival horror title in the works.

Dead Space is expected to be released around Halloween this year - check out the GP preview here, and the screenshots are below.

Electronic Arts has released a new developers diary trailer from Dead Space, a third-person sci-fi survival horror game currently under development and scheduled to be released on October 31st, for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Download in HD.

 

We've been following the development of Dead Space for quite some time now, eager to discover any news at all that will shed some light on what we can expect. Today, we got more than we bargained for at the Singapore EA developers meeting. Rich Briggs, who hails from EA's Redwood Shores, took us through a live demonstration. Once again however, no cameras allowed! Fortunately they made up for it with some great new screenshots.

Briggs: Dead Space, as you may well know, is our entry into the survival horror genre, and it is a story of Isaac Clark, an engineer, who is chosen to go on a mission to investigate why communications have broken down on a ship. The ship is a "planet cracker", what that means is it's a huge ship - the size of a small city - which goes out to a dead planet, carves a chunk in the crust, rips it out, and then mines it down for all the resources we need back on Earth. There's no resources on Earth, so all the resources we need, we get out of dead planets. Of course, it wrecks the planet, but who cares?

So, unfortunately, when they ripped open this planet, they let something out. It takes over the ship, and communications go down, so Isaac Clark is sent out. They don't know there's this infestation on board, so when they get there, he's separated from his team, and that starts the players experience.