Spore, Dead Space showing in London

Electronic Arts is planning to show off titles such as Spore, Dead Space and Boom Blox at this year's Sci-Fi London festival.

The festival will take place between 30th April - 4th May at the Apollo West End theatre. Other titles on show will include Mass Effect and Command and Conquer: Kane's Wrath. Exclusive trailers for the games will be shown before film screenings, and "there will be opportunities to play them and win merchandise", apparently.

"Great story-telling isn’t limited to the big screen," said EA's Gary Booker. "We’ll be at the festival to show that video games offer a fantastic way of telling and interacting with these stories at the same time."

For information about what else is on show, visit the Sci-Fi London website.

Meanwhile, London's Science Museum is holding a special event for "slimmers and gamers" on Wednesday 26th March. It's called Play Away the Calories and the idea is to see whether videogames really can make you healthier.

Visitors will be able to try out Wii Fit and watch a series of experiments designed to test its effectiveness. Some human guinea pigs will be put to work on a treadmill, while others play Wii Fit and a third group plays "a more sedentary game". Their heart rate and oxygen consumption levels will measured to calculate how much energy gets used up.

Epidemiologist Andy Jones from the University of East Anglia will discuss how and why adult obesity has quadrupled in the last 25 years. He will "look at the role technology has played in creating a more sedentary life". And the role of chips, presumably.

Also on hand will be former Edge editor Margaret Robertson. She'll talk about the history of healthy gaming, and visitors will be able to try out olden days stuff like the NES fitness titles and ye ancient dancinge mattes.

Play Away the Calories will be held at the Science Museum's Dana Centre from 7pm - 9pm. The centre is only open to over 18s, so bad luck kids. Don't worry though it's probably only puppy fat anyway.