It looks like layoffs are the "in" thing these days. While NCSoft lost less people than rumors previously said, Radical Entertainment was not so lucky. According to the Vancouver Sun, the studio's staff has been cut roughly in half. More in the full article.

Just how rough a year was 2007 for the Need for Speed franchise? Well, things with Need for Speed ProStreet (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii) got so bad that it forced EA's hand to reform the distribution of manpower in its Vancouver studios. There will be twice the staff and longer development periods to allow devs to increase quality on their projects. More in the full story up ahead.

 With the closure of EA Chicago, some thought that the night may have ended early for the Fight Night franchise. Not so, says EA as it announces Fight Night Round 4 for the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360. Along with the comprehensive list of all-time greats, the devs promise us that plenty of improvements will be added. Controversial ex-champ Mike Tyson will also return here. Details in the full article.

 

While "Canuck" sounds like a cross between a cough and a hiccup (now don't hurt yourself trying to reproduce it), the second Annual Canuck Awards is more affectionately known as the Elan Awards. This new awards event held in Canada annually will honor the best artistic productions in electronics: anything and everything in games.

While being just another awards ceremony to add to the countless ones coming out each year, the Elans is slated to honor any and all platform titles, including casual, arcade and mobile games. It will also honor story and concept writing in games, a dedicated Hall of Fame for games that make the cut, and even animation and voice-over productions. Everything art, they've got just the fart part (pardon our French).

The awards categories will each have their own panel of five judges (no judge sits on more than one panel) to decide on the criteria for choosing the winner among qualifying nominees. Judges only qualify in the panel if they are respected minds in the industry. Other strict procedures are as follows:

• All Companies/Institutions providing Jurors may provide more than one.
• No two representatives from one Company/Institution will be selected to sit on the same Panel.
• Every Juror must sign a non-conflict contract to be approved by the CAEAA.
• Each CAEAA Category is judged by Panels from outside of Canada.
• Each International Category is judged by Panels from within Canada.
• All Nomination and Winning Ballots will be handled directly by the Elans Auditing Firm, Buckley Dodds.

Click on Full Article to view the complete listing of categories plus a few more details.

The Vancouver Film School in cooperation with Evergreen events will hold a day long lecture and seminar session called "Career Discovery: Games" on March 24 in Bellevue, Washington to teach interested students the keys to getting in and making it big in the game industry.

The event aims to cater to everyone who seeks the path to a career in one of the most sought-after industries in this day and age. Evergreen and VFS are pulling out all the stops to gather necessary funding in order to support even those students who cannot afford the fee for the learning experience.

The VFS is committed to making things happen in order to help deserving learners get aboard the interactive entertainment business. "VFS is excited to be working with Evergreen Events and the Career Discovery group as an AAA scholarship sponsor. We're eager to support the development of the future creative minds in the video game industry," said Stephen Webster, School Director for VFS.

The event aims to draw in middle-and high school students who have the genuine interest and raw drive to be in the line of work where they show passion. Registration is at US$ 25. Visit www.evergreenevent.org for all the details if you want to sign up.

Last September, Ubisoft kicked off the first unique Canada-wide recruitment initiative, "Too Much Imagination", that was meant to pool in potential candidates that are interested in game development. Three months later, they have now narrowed down the search, and has come up with the winners.

Mart Lume, an international graduate of the Art Institute of Vancouver bagged the game design contest, with Nicolas Yur and Guillaume Couture from Montreal taking the runners-up place. And we're pretty sure they all went home definitely feeling like winners.

The prizes included Mac laptops, Ubisoft Game and Game Design book libraries, and HDTV, and iPods. You might want to check out their submitted designs over at  the Ubisoft site, although as of press time, they have yet to be posted.

To win the challenge, participants had to deal with 25 multiple-choice and three essay questions that will evaluate their comprehension of game-design theory, as well as their familiarity with game philosophy, and practical know-how of issues that game designers have to contend with in their daily existence.

Well, that seems really tough. Kudos to the winners!

Whenever a developer comes up with a good title, fans are immediately drawn not only to the game but to the developer itself. Take for example Rockstar Games' GTA series. We're pretty sure the moment Rockstar deviates from GTA and develops a totally new title, all fans will be sure to give it a second look.

Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment on the other hand, has always been known for real time strategy titles such as Company of Heroes and Homeworld among others. Earlier this year, the company made an exception when it developed The Outfit, an action strategy game for the Xbox360. Unfortunately for the developer, their first attempt didn't quite generate a lot of attention.

However, it seems that the company is not a bit disappointed with this (at least according to THQ). In its own section at their official site, Relic Entertainment is looking for developers and designers to work on a secret RPG game, as well as a new MMO title. While the MMO title signals Relic's first entry to the genre, there is no mention as to what console the RPG game would appear.

Going back to Homeworld, it would be remembered that the developer lost the copyrights of the series to Vivendi SA is a video game developer; formerly known as Vivendi Universal">Vivendi. In relation to this, there have been a lot of hushed talks surrounding the industry that Relic is taking some steps to take the game back.

Fight Night Round 3 comes to PS3 around the console's release this November 17. When you think about it, there's a big seven months difference between this and the X360's version. Admittedly, this boxing game still remains as one of the great titles to hit next-gen. We can only imagine PS3 fans muttering to EA Canada, "Better use this time wisely or else."

The Vancouver-based studio happily shares that they did exactly that- studying and learning from what the EA Chicago crew did with the original release and getting a strong feel of the PS3 hardware. To begin with, the look is just simply, off the charts.

It really is hard to judge graphics based from screenshots alone. But with the release of the PS3 demo, the images look more alive and more real: the skin doesn't glisten too much; the sweat drops are more vivid; the blood is more intense. As they say, it's the subtleties and the little things that really count.

Furthermore, the Get In The Ring Mode is as good as what they promised before, even better. Essentially, EA Canada wanted the audio and the visuals to be main components of the game. When in this first person view, the display screen will get blurry should you receive too many punches. This is because of the "blood" and "sweat." Accordingly, too many punches at the side of the head affect the sound.

Need For Speed Carbon is definitely making sure you'd get the paramount street-racing experience as it gets ready to invade the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, Nintendo DS, GBA, PSP, PC and mobile.

Whew! Those sure are a lot of grounds to cover!

No worries, though: EA earlier revealed more cars from the handsome list of wheels featured in the game. From the vintage to the newest models, the cars in NFS Carbon will definitely make your heads spin with its cool collections.

The 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, together with the 1967 Shelby GT500, makes an appearance side by side the 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG and the 2006 Corvette Z06. The 2005 Monaro Vauxhall VXR is also available for you to let rip across the treacherous canyon roads. And those are but a few of what NFS Carbon has stashed in its garage.

Check out these screens to pick your ride.