You may have heard about Half-Life 2. Even CNN Money has reported on it, and how it, together with Doom 3, could save the PC games market.

Shacknews had a good preview that described the Half-Life 2 action sequences that were shown to the press in more detail. If you read between the lines, it sounds like there might be a lot of emergent character behavior.

From what I can tell, it sounds like Valve has been doing a great job. They seem to be focussing heavily on character display, animation and behavior. Zelda: The Wind Waker takes a similar approach, although using a cartoon style instead of photorealism. It makes a lot of sense: so much can be conveyed through characters - and so much can be destroyed if they don't look and act right. I'm surprised the overall technology level is not further ahead than it is. Perhaps Half-Life 2 will help.

A good news site can be worth their weight in gold (irony intended). The ones I currently use are Game Market Watch.com, Gamesindustry.biz for the UK perspective, and MCV Online for what's happening in Germany. What are your favorites?

Salon.com has an article about how the storyline of The Matrix is distributed over several films, animated series, and the upcoming video game. It discusses what's special about this approach compared to other detailed fictional universes, such as Star Wars. You'll need to click through an ad to get to the article.

It also links to the development diary of Michael 'Saxs' Persson, lead programmer of 'Enter The Matrix'.

Axe, a cosmetics brand that's fairly big in Europe, recently released a couple of new types of shower gel. Both their visual design and their message reminded me strongly of health potions:

I wonder if its accidental. In any case, these real-world products have not yet reached the effectiveness of their virtual equivalents. My magic power is still at zero.

My archives magically started working again. I have no clue why. Next time I'll wave a JPG of a dead chicken at it.

The New York Times has an article on The Matrix and its influence on fashion and culture in general. Access to the article requires free registration.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a laudable organization fighting for digital rights, has created a game that "highlights the ways that consumers' privacy and fair use rights are being whittled away by digital rights management technologies, online spyware and data profiling services." It's not particularly subtle, but it's for a worthy cause.

Thalion, the German game development company which still has some loyal fans - now a cosmetics company?

(This is only potentially interesting if you know the game development company.)

Angst Technology, a web comic about game developers.

(Thanks, Katy.)

An innovative new computer game input device, mainly aimed at men, has been developed at MIT.

I'm refraining from any naughty suggestions because I'm really afraid of what I would find in my referrer logs...