Column: 'Media Consumption: Santa Cruz Games' Alex Neuse'

This week's media consumption, a look at the media and art diets of our favorite industry personalities, speaks to Santa Cruz Games project manager Alex Neuse. Neuse's games industry experience began at Lucasarts in 1997 in a testing position, where he was lead on Star Wars Racer for the Nintendo 64 and Jedi Power Battles for the PlayStation and Dreamcast. He was also among the core tester's for the Tim Schafer-designed adventure Grim Fandango for the PC. "I loved it, I absolutely loved it," he says of the game. "It's sort of my crowning achievement, in testing." Later at Lucas, Neuse moved up to a design role, spending three and a half years on Gladius. "I think it's a great game," he says, "though it's rough around the edges." Later, Neuse joined Activision's Minneapolis studio, in his first production role, working on Civil War: The Battle of Bull Run. While there, he met developer Santa Cruz while producing their licensed PC title Madagascar Island Mania, and when he made the move back to California, he was asked to join the team. Neuse is currently busy overseeing an unnamed project being developed for Electronic Arts, which is a fully 3D multiplayer game for the Nintendo DS and the PSP tied in to an upcoming movie. You can read the full Gamasutra column, in which Neuse discusses film director Terry Gilliam and gets in touch with his emotions (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).