Last month, as we were working on our exclusive story about two of the three games being developed in collaboration by Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts Los Angeles, we spoke with some other industry executives about the continuing dance between Hollywood and the videogame industry. A lot of our reporting was left on the cutting room floor; thankfully, the staff of Level Up has an outlet to bring you some of those deleted scenes. One of the execs we contacted with was Steve Allison, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer for Midway Home Entertainment, who previously contributed one of our blog's most buzzed-about guest essays about what developers must do to improve their games. We asked him about his company's creative partnerships with Hollywood talent; its licensing deals with movie studios; and Midway's own properties that are being adapted for the big screen. Here's what Allison told us via e-mail:

What is the difference--creatively, financially and otherwise--when working on a games like The Ant Bully and Happy Feet, which are presumably straightforward licensing deals, and games like John Woo's Stranglehold and The Wheelman with Vin Diesel, which are more along the lines of financial partnerships?

They both have what I would call traditional licensing terms. So financially, deals like Stranglehold, Wheelman or Happy Feet frankly aren't that different, they are in fact essentially the same. The difference between Wheelman, Stranglehold and our similar other projects is that these projects are true creative partnerships--we look to bring the talents of our partnerships to bear on our final product. The thesis is the talent we've chosen to align with brings something creatively relevant to the videogame space. For these particular franchises--Wheelman, Stranglehold and a couple of others we have yet to announce (and won't until 2008)--we look to bring their creative process and ours together so that the end product is something special, more so than it would have been if we'd just cooked it up ourselves. We also match the partner and the project so they make sense based on the partner's body of film or creative work. Net net, we're looking for perfect genre alignment.

These are not joint ventures or financial partnerships. At the development costs we have, we can't work outside of the traditional licensing framework for the game without making it an impossible project to cost justify. What we have done with these projects that is very unique is that we give certain rights outside the gaming space to our partners in perpetuity, like the film rights. These rights have real financial and emotional value to our partners and in fact are proving to be very motivational as a working mechanic. Our partners are passionate about building these properties for us, so it works as a game for us, and for them it could also work as a film.

1. EGO...trip: the Level Up staff on GDC Radio
   
2. DAD...Terry Pratchett's daughter writes games
3. PS1...on PS3: act still not together in U.S.
4. Wii...Toilet Training, as demoed by MTV
5. BLU...Ray gets lift in Japan from porn?
6. ART...and games: the debate rages on
7. EYE...of Judgment: sleeper or flop?
8. VH1...lists game nods in "The Simpsons" flick
9. REW...The history of Activision, chronicled 
10. RND...How energy efficiency could help the military

A good part of the day of the typical Level Up staffer consists of inbox management. It's a game in some ways, as we try to determine which emails are should be read immediately; which should be saved for a later date' and which should be promptly deleted. We know that the game industry has a hard time coming up with creative names for their products, but when we see a subject line like "World Announcement--THEY debuts at Games Convention 2007," it's an immediate candidate for the trash bin. We're not going to Leipzig (if our editors are reading this, we'd really, really like to attend) and 'THEY' is neither appealing enough nor sufficiently descriptive a title to make us want to devote any mental energy to opening and reading the attached message. Yet for some strange reason, we did.

Generally, the role of a press release is to inform. But having read the THEY press release, all we've taken away from it is hyperbole and buzzwords, assembled Mad Libs-style for maximum unintended hilarity.

What is THEY? Apparently, THEY is a "next generation mystery first person shooter for PC and next generation consoles."

Who are THEY, you ask? "'THEY' are huge--'THEY' are different--'THEY' are hostile!"

How good will THEY be? It's "so mysterious, so stunning and so amazing--that 'THEY' might become one of the most anticipated world premiere titles from this year’s Games Convention!"

What is THEY's best feature? The "haunting single player mode," the "heroes to identify with" and the "diversified enemies--thrilling and intelligent" were all candidates. But in the end, the winner was its "unique weapon system that makes you 'love' your weapons." After all, one of the of the holy grails of videogames is to elicit emotions from players beyond excitement, frustration and fear. Therefore, we applaud the ambition of the creators of THEY--whoever they may be, since who they are is not part of the information contained in the THEY press release. Because if THEY can make us "love" our weapons, THEY might just become one of the most anticipated world premiere titles from this year’s Games Convention. Even if we're not there to see it.

Click on the link to see the full release, along with a screenshot of one of THEY's love-ly weapons.

Director Russ Meyer and film critic Roger Ebert

Anyone who faces the blank page or screen on a regular basis knows that he or she always runs the risk of filling it with b.s.; we've certainly dropped our share on this blog since its inception ten months ago. Over at the Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert seems to have similarly relieved himself, in "Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker," a fisking of writer-director-producer-game designer Clive Barker's recent statements criticizing Ebert's two-year-old assertion that games can't be art. It's rare enough that one of the nation's foremost critics of a well-established medium like film deigns to address a newer medium like videogames; more's the pity that Ebert couldn't be bothered to address Barker's critique with Barker's own searching seriousness, choosing instead to spend most of his 1100 words vamping for the entertainment of his presumably gaming-illiterate audience. But since we've got our own blank screen to fill, we thought we'd do so by fisking Ebert's column.

Ebert: A year or so ago, I rashly wrote that video games could not be art. That inspired a firestorm among gamers, who wrote me countless messages explaining why I was wrong, and urging me to play their favorite games. Of course, I was asking for it. Anything can be art. Even a can of Campbell's soup. What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it.

If Ebert had done a bit more research--well, any research--he could have bolstered his argument by citing some notable game designers--e.g. Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto and Keiji Inafune, each of whom has gone on record as saying that they don't believe that videogames are art--and engaged what game creators themselves have said. Or he could have elaborated on the distinction that he's drawn between high art and low art. No such luck. Instead, he'd rather dismiss videogames with the sarcastic magnanimousness of "Anything can be art. Even a can of Campbell's soup," as long as we vidigoths don't attempt to desecrate the Temple of High Art, where presumably the gods of Cinema stand comfortably next to those of Theater, Dance, Painting, Sculpture, Opera and Literature.
 

Ebert: How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports.

Wow. Only two paragraphs into his column, Ebert proceeds to dismiss an entire medium in just five sentences--two rhetorical questions; a list; and an assertion--none of which display much familiarity with the subject. Ebert knows roughly how many games he's played; were the number high enough for him to speak authoritatively, he'd have said so. It's no accident that the one game he cites by name is Myst, because that 13-year-old title--whose reputation is somewhat tattered as befits its stature as one of this emerging medium's evolutionary dead ends--is probably the last game that he played for any meaningful length of time.

1. HMM...Sony's "Game 3.0" neologism is catching on
2. OLE...Before echochrome, there was OLE
3. POP...Prince of Persia's Jordan Mechner speaks
4. RND...No room for a dog? Why not rent?
5. RND...There she goes, Miss (Geek) America 

The winners of the 2007 Game Critics Awards will be announced this week, but for now, the nominees are all savoring their well-deserved recognition-that is, when they're not jamming to finish their games. We reached out to the makers of a couple of our pre-E3 candidates for Best of Show-Harmonix and Infinity Ward-to get their reactions to the nominations they received. Here's what they told us:

Grant Collier, president and studio head of Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 

Four nominations: Best of Show, Best Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game

Considering the hundreds of exciting, high-caliber titles at E3 this year, all of us here at Infinity Ward are extremely thrilled to receive so many E3 nominations for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We've worked really hard to make this the best title we've ever created, and to be considered in four of the coveted Game Critics Awards categories speaks to the game's strength and showing on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. We have incredible respect and are good friends with the development teams who are also up for consideration, and it gives us great honor to be within such top-tier company.

Alex Rigopoulos, CEO, president and co-founder of Harmonix

Rock Band 

Five nominations: Best of Show, Best Console Game, Best Original Game, Best Hardware, Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game

The team at Harmonix has been pouring its sweat and blood into Rock Band for a very long time, so obviously we're all thrilled with this recognition. The reception that the game received at E3 speaks to rock music's universal appeal and its power to sway people's emotions. We can't wait to finish the game and release it to the world.

We also slipped in another question for Rigopoulos: how did he feel about Rock Band being nominated for Best Original Game after Activision, publisher of the Harmonix-developed Guitar Hero franchise, called its new rival Rock Band an imitator during a May conference call?

1. 1st...If this is your first night at Game Club, you have to play
2. GTA...IV: Buy 360 version for "complete experience," says rep 
3. MAN...ifesto: a veteran game creator speaks out
4. NEW...content for Xbox Live Arcade
5. MTV...grills Nintendo about game availability
6. BLU...Target joins Blockbuster in pushing Blu-Ray
7. XBX...cuts price of HD-DVD add-on
8. Wii...want these games for the Virtual Console
9. RND...Kanye West, gone crazy like Gnarls Barkley
10. RND..."Serious" pundits object to label. Seriously.

1. EGO...trip: New bet by Level Up, noticed, debated, discussed
   
2. HMM...Rockstar Games = "The Office"?
3. WTF...This is your ESA on drugs. Any questions? 
4. UE3...Epic Games exec responds to Koei's criticism 
5. NUM...bers on June gaming, from Nielsen 
6. REW...If you saw this, go here for more insight
7. VSM...Jack Thompson vs. GamePolitics.com: fight! 
8. PS3...adds wallpaper support; fans go wild
9. DEV...elop Award winners, named
10. RND...Beyonce, still a survivor 

Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in.

--Michael Corleone, "The Godfather: Part III"

What is it with Microsoft employees and their zeal for wagering with the staff of Level Up? After Sony's gang-who-couldn't-shoot-straight handling of its talking points surrounding the price cut for Playstation 3 in the North American market, and the introduction of a PS3 value pack in Europe, a friend--Xbox director of technical strategy and attack blogger Andre "Ozymandias" Vrignaud ("the Sean Hannity of the Xbox division's blog army," as we affectionately dubbed him last year)--tapped out this post and emailed us the link. In it, he wrote:

The old 60 GB SKU is being cleared out for $499 as quickly as possible - as you might recall, this was the supposed "price cut" that Sony announced. In reality, once supplies are gone in the next couple of months it'll be gone forever. However, that doesn't leave Sony in a good place. A single, $599 SKU would be untenable; if they don't move significant hardware this holiday they'll basically be dead for this generation.

My prediction is that you're going to see the creation of a new, low-end SKU this holiday. It'll likely remove integrated WiFi, memory card reader, and most controversially, all backward compatibility. (Remember, there's still some back-compat hardware in even the new "software only" back compat SKUs; removing the remaining CPU is a significant cost savings.) You'll see a new WiFi dongle made available. And finally, this low-end SKU will likely come with a smaller 40 GB hard drive. The low-end price will be set at $399, with the higher-end 80 GB SKU dropping to $499.

So there you go - nothing magic about the current value SKU. It's just a classic retail technique of clearing the channel for new SKUs. Now we just need to wait a few months for the announcement - it'll have to be before Thanksgiving, so I'd expect October. 

We pinged him back with our prediction for the remainder of 2007 after store shelves had been cleared of the 60 gigabyte PS3: one SKU, $499. Not long thereafter, Vrignaud placed a call to Level Up HQ, challenging us to a wager on the subject of Sony's pricing plans for this holiday.

1. WoW...At 9 million strong, even pols want in 
2. SAM...Cooke, channelled by Peter Moore
3. GAT...Leave the Wii Zapper, take the shotty
4. MMO...from the Cartoon Network
5. BRR... Manhunt 2 fallout's chilling effect
6. SHH...Library holding Halo 2 tournament
7. RND...Lindsay Lohan: hot mess edition

1. NPD...DS still prints money; PS3, not so much
2. MEM...ento: could an RE5 tattoo have helped?
3. SAD...or happy? Depends on our Real Lives
4. POL...GOP candidate Romney takes aim at retail
5. RED...More thoughts on the 360's flaws
6. CLI...ches in games: a necessary evil
7. $$$...Deus Ex Mickey-na: Spector on the Mouse
8. RIP...Remembering a children's game designer
9. NOT..his cup of tea: Jaffe on Miyamoto's latest
10. RND...A man's faith, destroyed

Rock Band, developed by Harmonix

The Game Critics Association, of which the Level Up staff is a member, has just announced its 2007 Game Critics Awards nominations for the best games shown at the recent E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. Leader of the pack? That would be the would-be Guitar Hero slayer known as Rock Band--developed by Harmonix and published by MTV and Electronic Arts--with five nominations. Lighters up, people.

Just behind Rock Band, with four nominations each, are Infinity Ward/Activision's military shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Irrational Games/2K Games' action-RPG BioShock. The three games were nominated for Best of Show, along with Bethesda Softworks' Fallout 3 (three nominations) and BioWare/Microsoft Game Studios' Mass Effect (three nominations.) Our personal favorite, Media Molecule/Sony Computer Entertainment's LittleBigPlanet, received three nominations, including one for Best Original Game. The winners will be announced next week, but in the meantime, you can get a fuller breakdown of the awards by the numbers here.

For the full list of nominees, click on the link below.

Mr. Yellowhead, from the Craftworld prototype of Media Molecule's PS3 game LittleBigPlanet, courtesy Gamespot

Going into the E3 Media & Business Summit, our Best of Show shortlist consisted of two choices: Rock Band and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. And until the last day of the show, the two titles were still our front-runners. Then we attended a closed-door showing of Media Molecule and Sony's LittleBigPlanet, followed by our first hands-on experience with the game, and we were reminded once again why LBP stole the show at this year's Game Developers Conference. It's got the creativity possibilities of a child's toy box, the charm of a Pixar movie, and the joyfully simple controls that were promised in the now-legendary GDC stage demonstration, shown here. We have no idea what our fellow Game Critics Awards judges will nominate tomorrow, but for us, the choice is clear.

During the Q&A portion of LittleBigPlanet's E3 demonstration, we asked founders Mark Healey and Alex Evans about Craftworld, the different-but-equally charming 2-D prototype that had convinced Sony to sign the startup to a deal, which they'd shown during a smaller session at GDC. Specifically, we wanted to know whether Media Molecules had any plans to further develop and release it. The response--which involved shock, stammering, a near-admission and ultimately a demurral--is transcribed below.

Level Up: The 2-D prototype that you guys did was also very striking. Do you have any plans for that? PSP? Playstation Network? A hidden unlock? Something else?

Mark Healey: [Laughs.] There's--we're not allowed to talk about that, are we?

Playstation publicist: No.

Alex Evans: Sorry, we can't.

Healey: But that prototype you saw, the physics in that is exactly what's being used here. This is almost that prototype, just with remastered graphics really, and the added extra layers.

1. MJJ...The Music Video: Dyack Vs. Rein
   
2. NCL...A defense of Nintendo's casual focus
3. TEN...or so E3 videos worth watching
4. NEW...ish way of thinking about game design
5. RND...Gay flash mobs in L.A., explained

The HAL 9000 computer from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"

At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. Our de facto Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling, who in his day job is the creative director for Newsweek.com, posted here last month about his brief playtime with the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, sandwiched between the obligations--and joy--of raising his new daughter. In today's entry, he reflects on how his affection for his Xbox 360 has been tested in recent weeks.

My first Xbox 360--that's right, my first Xbox 360--died just two weeks after I received it as a surprise for my wedding anniversary last summer (my wife still gets Hall of Fame status for that gift idea.) One minute it was humming along nicely as I parachuted into position on Bridge Too Far in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, the next it froze up and stared me down with its HAL 9000-esque eye burning three-quarters red--the dreaded "ring of death" came to visit. I somewhat sheepishly brought it back to my local Best Buy, secretly afraid--after a night of Googling message boards--that I'd suffocated it in our TV cabinet and melted its innards to mush. The salesperson at the returns desk barely looked up as I gingerly pushed the repackaged unit across the counter. "So have you been getting a lot of returns on these?" I ventured after the silence became uncomfortable. "Uh-huh," she said, eyebrows raised, "good luck with this one," pushing a new unit back across the counter. I left quickly.

Truth be told, the Xbox consoles are the first Microsoft products I've truly loved, and the only PC-based products I've spent money on--otherwise, my household is all Apple. It felt like Redmond had gotten it right with the first Xbox: solid-if-chunky industrial design; smooth and bug-free operating system; genre-defining games like Halo, and Xbox Live--the lifeblood of my nightly gaming. Miraculously, Microsoft had become the underdog I rooted for: they even wooed me away from my PlayStation 2 after only a year.

The Sony E3 Press Conference.

Why should I care?

PS3. PSP. PS2

Where did it take place?

Culver City Studios.

Opening act:

Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton appearing as a digital avatar in Home.

First game shown:

Since we refuse to count trailer montages, we'd say that Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron took the pole position.

High point:

The trailer for the Playstation Network's Escher-inspired Echo Chrome (we'd already seen the Killzone live demonstration the night before—and got the world exclusive first hands-on a few hours after the press conference.)

1. YOU...got served: Silicon Knights vs. Epic Games 
2. BYE...A recap of Peter Moore's Xbox tenure
3. PSP...slim's battery, explained
4. SH2...Inside the perversity of Silent Hill 2
5. RND...Virtua Cop, Romney-style?

1. VSM...bell801 vs. NeoGAF vs. 1UP: Fight!
2. UWE...Boll vs. the NY Post: no matter who wins, we lose
3. BUG...Testers vs. games: the industry's underbelly
4. RND...Sharpton vs. Imus: we can all get along

1. VSM...Rockstar Games vs. GI.biz, Round 1: Fight!
2. PS3...sees a slew of new games announced in Japan
3. 360...Shane Kim on Microsoft's Japanese prospects
4. MTV...The harsh life of a Game Critics E3 judge
5. RND...The incredible shrinking blockbuster

In what could best be described as a slow motion game of musical chairs, Microsoft yesterday announced that corporate vice president for entertainment and devices Peter Moore will leave the company in September to assume the job of label president of EA Sports for Electronic Arts. Replacing Moore at Microsoft is EA's former president of worldwide studios Don Mattrick, who is currently serving as an external adviser to the entertainment and devices group at Microsoft. (Got that? Good--there may be a quiz later.)

We were briefed by executives at both Microsoft and Electronic Arts; Moore himself, however, was not on either call. Robbie Bach, president of the entertainment and devices division--and Moore's boss--said that he was sorry to see Moore leave, but that Moore wanted to move his family back to the Bay Area. We inquired of Bach whether there was any connection between Moore's departure and the recent announcement of the Xbox 360's hardware flaws; he flatly denied it. When asked why he decided to step off the sidelines and back into the game, incoming Xbox chief Mattrick--whose title will be senior vice president--said that as far as he was concerned, the opportunity was too strong to pass up.

EA CEO John Riccitiello gave us Electronic Arts' side of the corporate do-si-do. He explained that he'd tried to recruit Moore to EA on a couple of occasions in the late '90s and early 2000s, praising Moore as the toughest competitor that EA Sports had ever faced, as well as for his work on both software and hardware at Microsoft. We're still trying to suss out what all of this means, but at first glance, Microsoft has brought in a respected industry veteran to fill Moore's shoes, while EA appears to have assembled the deepest bench of executive talent of any third party publisher. Caveat competitor.

Nintendo E3 2007 press conference in Santa Monica, California

What is it?

The Nintendo E3 Press Conference.

Why should I care?

Wii. DS. Game Boy Advance.

Where did it take place?

Santa Monica Civic Center.

Opening act:

Video montage of Wii phenomenon--complete with YouTube clips.

First add-on shown:

The Wii Zapper. $19.99. Light gun game creators rejoice.

High point:

New footage of Super Mario Galaxy.

More E3 At-a-Glance after the jump.

1. TOT...al recall: Xbox 360s, by EB, in Australia
2. 2nd...line: See Gamecock's funeral for E3
3. Sec...ond Life: See L.A. Times funeral for the MMO 
4. BAD...Is there such a thing as a B-game?
5. IND...ie game: Iranian students go gold
6. RND...Carney vs. Kristol: Fratricide at Brand X 

Next, when Killzone 2's mind-blowing E3 2005 trailer turned out to be a computer-generated movie, the hearts of all but the stoutest of Sony fanboys hardened, with many predicting that Guerrilla would never be able to live up to its own hype. In the wake of that perceived betrayal, neither 2006's well-received PSP installment (Killzone: Liberation) nor an intriguingly promising but not-quite-there-yet technical demonstration of Killzone 2 multiplayer's physics system did much to sway journalists' opinion. But through it all, SCE and Guerrilla kept pushing for what they firmly believed they were capable of achieving. And when the "Killzone 2: Mission Accomplished" slide came up at the end of the 20-minute demo, followed by loud, sustained applause from the skeptical crowd of journalists, the gesture transformed itself from a "F--- you" to a statement of fact: for the moment, Guerrilla's promise had been realized.

When we arrived at SCE's Santa Monica studios for our world exclusive first hands-on session (see here for our report), we were escorted into a conference room to sit down with Guerrilla managing director Hermen Hulst, producer Steven ter Heide, and game director Mathijs de Jonge. We began with another playthrough of the level with de Jonge at the controls and ter Heide manning a keyboard plugged into the PS3 development kit, periodically slowing down or pausing the action so that we could discuss a particular detail.

Once our intruder landing vehicle hit the ground, it was time to go to work on what we were informed was the third level of Killzone 2. We immediately took refuge behind a berm, hit L1 to drop into a crouch, shouldered our standard-issue ISA assault rifle and started shooting at our Helghast opponents. Pushing in R3 on the right analog stick gave us the iron sight view through the assault rifle's scope--which, when we informed our Sony and Guerrilla hosts was the aspect of the demo which had most impressed us, gave them a bit of pause, followed by minor hilarity, until we explained ourselves further. It's not that there aren't several other impressive aspects of the game. It's just that the focus blur on the outside of the rifle scope, the scope's green tint and curved glass feel, and the green laser dot that indicates where your bursts of ammo should land--all combine for a wonderfully immersive view of the game that sucked us in both as spectators and active participants.

Microsoft E3 2007 press conference in Santa Monica, California

What is it?

The Microsoft E3 Press Conference

Why should I care?

Xbox 360. Games For Windows. Halo 3.

Where did it take place?

Santa Monica High School.

Opening act:

Corporeal, a Halo-inspired rock band. The kids were all right.

First game shown:

Harmonix-MTV-EA's Guitar Hero killer, Rock Band, featuring Harmonix founders Alex Rigopoulos and Greg LoPiccolo jamming with Xbox chief Peter Moore.

High point:

Playthrough of a new level from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Olive green never looked so good--or so lethal.

More E3 At-a-Glance after the jump.

EveryDay Shooter creator Jonathan Mak

How did you connect with Sony to publish EveryDay Shooter?

One day, Warren Currell, who represents me in the business side of things, called me up saying, "pack your bags, we're going to LA to meet Sony." I hate doing pitch meetings, talking business, basically doing anything other than making games, so it was a bit of a chore to fly down. When we arrived at the Sony studios, I remember walking into the conference room thinking "oh geez...this is going to suck!" Let me put this into perspective: one of the publishers we met trashed Everyday Shooter because it had no sound effects (Huh!?? Did they even play it?). So I had a lot of bad experience with publisher meetings.

But Sony was different. Surprisingly, and refreshingly different. They were one of the few who understood the game on a personal level, and this is the main reason why I decided to connect with Sony.

You're the quintessential one-man garage band game creator, while Playstation 3 is supposed to be incredibly hard to program for. Were you nervous about moving development of EveryDay Shooter from PC/Mac/Linux to Playstation 3? How long did it take you to get the game up and running on the PS3, and what kind of help did Sony provide?

It's only incredibly hard if you're trying to emulate life. This bugs me a lot. The technology in EveryDay Shooter is old. The collision systems are based on algorithms from the 90s, and the graphics/sound technology is based on techniques from years ago. But those technologies/techniques are still incredibly powerful/expressive! I can't understand why people don't use it more often. It's like they're substituting technology for creativity.

To specifically answer your question, yes I was nervous, but after a few days without sleep I had EveryDay Shooter running on the PS3. Of course there were problems, and there are probably still more problems to fix--you should ask me again when it's all said and done because who knows what QA will find.

However, I'd say that the most frustrating part of building ES for PS3 was converting the gameplay to fit a widescreen [16:9] format. Originally, I spent a good deal of time tweaking the game so that it played perfectly on a 4:3 screen, and so I wanted to maintain the same game balance that I worked so hard to achieve. I mean, if I'm going to do this, the conversion has to be perfect. Anything else is unacceptable. Fortunately, after an unbelievable amount of worrying and work, I think I've finally implemented the last major tweak to make the game play perfectly.

As for Sony's involvement, they were helpful in hooking me up with useful resources like documents, sample code, and answering whatever questions I had.

How has the game evolved since you began working on the PS3? Is the album metaphor that you've been working with still in place?

The third level of EveryDay Shooter, titled "Lush Look Killer"

Confession time: because of our focus on boring, big-budget videogames at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, we missed all of the exciting independent games on display. So when a little birdie informed us that Sony Computer Entertainment had snapped up Queasy Games' award-winning indie title EveryDay Shooter for a Playstation Network release later this year (sooner, rather than later, we're told), we knew that the best way for us to do penance was to bring you the news--first. So we scored an email interview with Queasy's multifarious designer-artist-programmer Jonathan Mak (see here), then jetted over to the swank The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica to play it on a Playstation 3 test kit, running at 1080p and 60 frames per second, for those of you keeping score at home. It didn't take us long to realize that we were playing something special. After five minutes, we were hooked; after an hour, we had to tear ourselves away to meet up with some fellow journalists for drinks.

EveryDay Shooter is a twin-stick, um, shooter. You steer your ship--in this case, a white pixel--with the left analog stick and fire in whichever direction you push the right analog stick. You can simply shoot down all your enemies and collect the pixels they leave behind for points, but the most efficient way to take them out is to shoot the objects that trigger chain explosions. But each level not only looks completely different from the level that came before, it also has its own rules as to how its explosive chains work. Best of all, the surreal graphics are vector-based, which means that they're created from mathematical equations; and every enemy you destroy plays a musical note or a riff which is layered on top of the default musical theme for the level. The whole thing adds up to a unique experience that requires your complete attention at the start of each level as you try to figure out its rules, then zone out once you know what you're doing.

Our handler couldn't get the cheat codes to work, which meant that our progression was limited to our ability. That got us through three levels of the game, titled "Level 1," "Root of the Heart" and "Lush Look Killer." It's hard to describe what the game sounds like, other than to say each level will remind you of one of your favorite alt-rock bands. We're suckers for synesthesia-based games like Rez and Every Extend Extra, and the feeling of holding the right analog stick forward, unleashing a volley of firepower at a tough-to-kill enemy and hearing a sustained guitar riff blasting out of the speakers is an all-senses-on-deck rush that we can't wait to experience again. From Geometry Wars and Mutant Storm Reloaded to Super Stardust HD and EveryDay shooter, it's clear that the twin-stick shooter is undergoing a renaissance. And if the boredom is the disease afflicting videogames, the best twin-stick shooters--like EveryDay Shooter--are the cure.

1. CAC...David Jaffe shut out of E3. Profanity ensues.
2. Wii...collateral damage: hardcore gamers?
3. HUH...Trion sounds cool, need more info
4. RND...Spinal Tap. Live Earth. Must-see.

A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

--The Narrator, "Fight Club"

Next, an analogy.

The staff of Level Up have been Laker fans of long standing. This, in turn, has made us fans of one Kobe Bean Bryant. But this fandom is not absolute. Nor does it preclude the right to critique, to question, to opine--especially in situations best described as force majeure. We did so when Bryant, in the days immediately following his being accused of rape, attempted to use his up-until-then squeaky-clean, devoted family man persona as his defense in the court of public opinion, saying, "But you guys know me, I shouldn't have to say anything. You know I would never do something like that." Um, no, Kobe. We knew you--at least, we thought we did, when thought you might be the one NBA player that wouldn't cheat on his wife. But since the best-case scenario here is that you broke your vows, we'd be fools to assume your innocence based on our "knowledge" of your character. As for more recent matters, when Kobe finally goes before the media--either this summer with the U.S. men's basketball team or this fall during training camp--we'd want to know exactly what was going through his head during his recent tantrum, which--as warranted as it may have been given the ineptitude of Lakers' management--went on far too long and far too disrespectfully to be swept under the rug and forgotten. Blandishments like "I haven't thought about that in a long, long time," and "What I say is what I say. We'll just have to see where it goes," aren't good enough after an outburst of that magnitude. In other words, when something of this magnitude happens, all former assumptions and good faith are inoperative. The offending party begins once again at zero.

Similarly, we like Peter Moore, Robbie Bach, and a number of other Xbox employees. They've built a great online service; they've delivered some great games; they've assiduously wooed third parties; and they've snatched a good deal of thought leadership in the process, forcing Sony to alter its pricing strategy much sooner than expected. And, to be perfectly clear, our just-before-launch Xbox 360 is still working flawlessly. But the recent announcement that the Xbox failure rate is significantly higher than the generally accepted 3-5 percent standard for consumer electronics products raises questions some important, as-yet unanswered questions. Did Microsoft's zeal to have the Xbox 360 both launch first and turn a profit--after the first Xbox launched second and lost billions of dollars--cause it to cut corners in a headlong rush to market, resulting in the current debacle? What, precisely, are the factors causing Xbox 360s to fail? What is the failure rate? How many devices have been returned thus far over the flashing three red lights? Was Microsoft aware of the magnitude of this problem before it launched the Xbox 360 Elite?

In the absence of full and forthright answers to these questions--answers that are critical to restoring consumer confidence in the Xbox 360--it is our firm belief that Microsoft should strongly consider a product recall, or at the very least, offer to replace those machines whose batch numbers indicate that they were manufactured before the design flaws were corrected.

PlayStation 2 print ad from India

In advertising, as in many other creative endeavors, it's difficult to achieve greatness without pushing the envelope. Sony Computer Entertainment, it seems, has a history of obliterating the envelope, whether it's pushing buttons on race, religion, or viral marketing. Truth be told, we weren't at all offended by the previous examples; we found the first two daring, and the last one merely clumsy. But we've just stumbled across a pair of PlayStation 2 print ads from India that truly gave us pause, one of which is pictured above. In the ad, a caricature of a bored young man struggles to stay awake while a chatty Cathy of a young woman goes on and on and on about her bitchy, trampy friends. But that's not all. In the lower right corner of the page, we see the tagline for the campaign: "PS2: Because Your Girlfriend Bores You S--tless."

Wow. We'll let that marinate for a while, as 48 percent of the Indian population slowly backs away from their PS2s. (You can see the other PS2 ad after the jump; full-size versions of both ads are here and here.)

1. 360...rumored to be in for a parts shrink 
2. WoW...on the iPhone
   
3. FBI...Where has the adventure genre gone?
4. PS3...third party games delayed, again
5. RND...Socialized medicine leads to terror?

The 80 gigabyte Playstation3, bundled with MotorStorm

Having long ago run out of adjectives to describe the Playstation 3's tortoise-like sales--just 667,000 units sold in North America this year, compared to 1 million Xbox 360s and 1.73 million Wiis--we knew this day was coming. But given the impact that a Playstation 3 price cut would have on Sony's bottom line, we thought the company might have no choice but to limp along until it could cost-reduce a slew of key components--chief among them, the Cell processor, the Blu-Ray drive and the RSX graphics chip--which we figured might not happen until sometime next year. Think again. Sony Computer Entertainment America has just announced that on Thursday July 12th, it will slash the price of the 60 gigabyte PS3 by $100, from $599 to $499. In addition, the company will introduce an 80 gigabyte model, with the off-road racing game MotorStorm packed in, for $599. Here's how SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton described the company's moves in the press release that just crossed the wires:

“As we move into the next phase of PS3, it’s important that we continue to evaluate our product line, offering consumers the technology and features that meet their growing needs for new forms of media and the way in which it is delivered,” said Jack Tretton, president and CEO of SCEA. “The introduction of the 80GB PS3, the new pricing for the current 60GB model, the availability of more than 100 new software titles this fiscal year and, finally, the expansion of services for PLAYSTATION Network, will provide even more options for users and will help bring new consumers into the PS3 fold.” 

An SCEA spokesperson attributed the cost reduction to savings that Sony has been able to realize in its Blu-Ray drive manufacturing office. We suspect that they've also removed the hardware chipset that had been responsible for the PS3's backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games in North America and Japan, replacing it with the software emulation backwards compatibility solution that has been in place for European and PAL territories. Finally, recent news out of Japan indicates that SCE has done a significant parts reduction on the slimline PS2, reducing its weight from 900 grams to 600 grams, and shrinking the external power adapter from 350 grams to 250 grams. By wringing additional profits out of the still-popular PS2--SCE expects to ship 10 million PS2s by the end of its current fiscal year in March 2008--the company is again better positioned to absorb the much-needed $100 price cut.

More interesting--though deliberately and frustratingly vague--are some of the reasons behind the introduction of the 80 gigabyte model. The Sony spokesperson indicated that the 80 gigabyte PS3, already available in Korea, is necessary because of SCEA's ambitions plans for downloadable content. These plans, said the spokesperson, include not only such upcoming online-only games as Warhawk and SOCOM: Confrontation, but also an in-the-works video download service that will let PS3 owners download high-definition movies and TV shows, just as Xbox 360 owners have been able to do since November 2006. The frustration comes from the fact that while Sony will signal its intentions for the service during its E3 press conference, it won't go into any more details than that. We hear that it's because SCE Japan is still furiously beavering away at the guts of the service, and in keeping with the lips-sealed-until-it's all-shiny-and-ready-for-primetime culture of Sony's engineers that we discussed earlier this year with Playstation game software boss Phil Harrison, SCE will be, well, keeping its lips sealed until it's all shiny and ready for primetime. Bummer.

For further insights into the current state of the PS3 business, please see our Q&A with Tretton here.

Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton

To gather some additional insights into the thinking behind the PS3's just-announced price cut and the current state of the Playstation business, we spoke by phone last Friday with Sony Computer Entertainment America chief Jack Tretton. Though his 21-year career in the videogame industry has included stints at Activision and JVC, Tretton's 12-year stretch at SCEA--rising from director of sales to president and CEO--has made him one of the most visible public faces of the Playstation brand. Our conversation began with the vacationing Tretton gently ribbing the Level Up staff about its signature tool, the iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard. Read on.

Have you got out your magic keyboard? [Laughs.]

Well, no, I'm using my PC's keyboard.

I thought maybe you were so into that, that maybe you use that 24/7.

No, no. [Laughs.] I take a break from it when I'm not in the field. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me--I know you're on vacation.

Yeah. My pleasure. This beautiful E3 event being planned the week after the busiest vacation week in the country is another thing that I'll have to thank them for. But money never sleeps.

Exactly. Let's just jump right in.

Sure.

For the first PlayStation, SCEA cut the price by $100 eight months after launch. With PS2, however, SCEA was able to hold at its original price for 19 months. Now with PS3, you're cutting the price just seven months after its launch. You and I spoke extensively before, during and after launch about the value proposition that the PS3 represented: Cell, Blu-Ray, the built in hard drive and backwards compatibility. Why do you think that the perceived value of PS3 was unable to overcome the high launch prices?

Well, the value message is one that is extremely easy to appreciate once you understand it. I think the challenge is providing that education to consumers in a typical retail venue. There's so much for them to absorb before they can appreciate the value, that it's more of a challenge than we faced in previous generations.

Microsoft corporate vice president Peter Moore

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to be first. Microsoft's Xbox 360 videogame console beat its competition--Nintendo's Wii and Sony's Playstation 3--to the market by a full year. And despite the Wii's explosive start, Microsoft is still clinging to its global lead, while former market leader Sony struggles to catch up. But a growing problem whose existence had been mostly confined to the videogame intelligentsia--the three flashing red lights indicating that one's Xbox 360 has completely malfunctioned (also known as the "Red Rings of Death")--burst into the public eye Thursday afternoon. After the market close on the East Coast, Microsoft announced that it would take a charge of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion to cover the costs associated with the Xbox 360's "unacceptable" failure rate; specifically, for extending its warranty period from one year to three [for three flashing red light failures only], and to reimburse those who paid for repairs after their one-year warranties expired. We spoke with Microsoft entertainment and devices corporate vice president Peter Moore on Friday, and though he was candid throughout, the big question--what exactly is the problem?--remains unanswered. Asked whether the issue is a single problem with the cooling design--as several armchair engineers and numerous gamers believe--Moore stated, "I'm not going to pretend to be technical on this issue, but it's been a multitude of problems. There's no one specific factor we can point to." Yet Moore insists that the problem is not systemic, and he refused to say whether the flaws lie in design or manufacturing.

Nevertheless, the amount of money that Microsoft has set aside, when divided by the 11.6 million Xbox 360s that Microsoft has shipped, comes out to roughly $100 per unit sold, an amount that industry veterans say is right around what it would cost for shipping, handling, labor and replacing the entire motherboard for a console of that complexity. Excerpts from our conversation:

All right. You're live and direct.

OK. Let me take you though what we've just announced about 15-20 minutes ago. You know about the fundamentals. Business is strong; we're going to have a good E3, but to cut to the chase, there's something we haven't done so well, and that's that the rate of repairs that have been coming in showing the three-flashing-red-lights error message has been, quite frankly, unacceptable to us. So we've decided to take some steps to take care of that.

Firstly, we're making improvements to the console itself that will reduce the occurrence of these issues. But perhaps more importantly, we're implementing an enhanced warranty program to cover the general hardware failures, the ones that are indicated by the three flashing red lights. So we're announcing a specific warranty coverage extension to three years for any console that displays the three-red-light error message. If you get that, we'll repair the console, free of charge, including shipping, for three years from the purchase date. And perhaps equally important, for the people who have already paid us to get it fixed out of warranty, we're going to retroactively reimburse any customer that's had that problem and has paid us to fix their box--from the get-go. So we will be able to take care of everybody that's had this message from launch onwards. And the three-year warranty will be in place immediately, and will cover every box that's been bought or is about to be bought.

There's obviously no safety issue here, and this decision to do this is voluntary on our part. It obviously comes with a cost, and we're going to be taking a $1.05-$1.15 billion pretax charge to earnings for the quarter that's just ended, our fiscal year Q4 for FY07. That will cover the cost of being able to put this program in place. We continue to stand by the product, as you know, and we'll hopefully be able to take care of some people that we haven't done a good job with over the past few months.

The word that you used is that the rate of repairs for Xbox 360 consoles showing the three red lights was "unacceptable."

Yeah.

When did it cross that threshold? Walk me through the stages from awareness to growing concern to unacceptable.

Frank Gibeau, label president of EA Games

In Part I of our Q&A with Electronic Arts' Frank Gibeau, label president for EA Games, we talked about his priorities for the new division, where licensed products fit into his strategy, and how he planned to take on Activision/Infinity Ward and their Call of Duty franchise. In the second and final part of our interview, we discuss whether EA may have too many shooters in its pipeline, how the company can thrive under the long shadows cast by Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV, and what his intentions are towards the Wii given the announcement of a separate EA Casual division.

Coming back to Call of Duty--sorry, to Medal of Honor; your competition at Infinity Ward is not doing a World War II game this year--is there a potential of World War II fatigue setting in amongst the audience. There's been a lot of derision aimed at Midway's World War II entry, Hour of Victory. How do you combat that with Airborne? Can you capture the innovation that you're talking about in Medal of Honor: Airborne in a thirty-second spot, and is that enough? What do you need to do to signal to people that this is something different, that it's worth their time and money, that it's not just another World War II game?

Again, it comes down to the gameplay innovation, right? The category gets tired when the games start to feel all the same. With regards to Medal of Honor, the focus on the airborne jump and the ability to land anywhere in the level, we believe sets it up for some innovative and addictive game play that feels fresh. If it felt like prior Medal of Honors or felt like, you know, the Ubi game or the Midway game or even Call of Duty we wouldn't be successful and it would feel like another tired entry.

Our bet is on innovating in the gameplay by giving you a different way to play. Whenever we look at a category, we definitely think about concept, but we also know that you have to nail the tech, you have nail the game play and you need to nail the concept in order to get a hit. When you just nail one or the other, you end up being one of the pack, and this is a category that, frankly, needs some innovation and some new thinking. Our hope with Airborne is that by allowing you to start anywhere and to play the game out that way, we've uncovered something that will make the brand feel fresh again.

With the sheer number of shooters that you guys have coming out this year--first- and third-person; internal to EA, and from EA Partners--is it starting to feel like you guys have a bunch of your own pit bulls amped up for a fight with one another? How do you distinguish among all those games?

1. RED...Rings of Death force Microsoft response
2. PS3...price cut moving from rumor to reality
3. PAT...Under the hood of Playstation.blog
4. OOH...DirectX 10 graphics cards, dissed
5. RND...Stephon Marbury = Tracy Morgan?

Frank Gibeau, label president of EA Games

Like Eric Murphy, the manager-turned-movie producer on HBO's Hollywood satire "Entourage," Frank Gibeau doesn't like being called a "suit." We couldn't hug it out, unfortunately, as the Q&A was conducted over the phone, but we'll certainly attempt to do so when we see Gibeau at next week's E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, the success Gibeau has had as executive vice president and general manager of the Americas for Electronic Arts would make any suit creatively-minded executive proud. With the previously announced reorganization of EA under the direction of CEO John Riccitiello, Gibeau recently assumed the position of president of EA Games, alongside three other divisions: EA Sports, EA Sims and EA Casual. In Part I of our two-part Q&A with Gibeau, we discuss his mandate for EA Games, how he plans to preserve the creativity of his studios under the new structure, and why Activision should get ready for war if it thinks that its Call of Duty 4 can take the modern warfare genre away from EA's Battlefield series without a fight.

EA Games is a pretty boring name for your group. Kathy Vrabeck's division is called EA Casual. Did you ever considered naming yours EA Hardcore?

We've been playing around with the name Core, but one of the things that I wanted to look at inside the unit as we stood it up was what was the real personality and feel. What I've discovered in the brief time that I've been looking at the role is that the value is really in these units, these local teams and these local leaders. When you go to Criterion and you sit down with Alex Ward on Burnout and Black, or you go to DICE with Patrick Soderlund on Battlefield, or even Hanno Lemke up in Canada on Need For Speed, each one of these units is its own vibrant little city-state.

I've been at the company for a long time. A lot of the times when we've bought companies or done EAP [EA Partners] deals or even stood up teams inside the organization, it's when you have a tight link between the creative teams' local culture and a vision for projects that you get the best games. So when I'm thinking about this brand and this unit, I'm really interested in these local teams, these local franchises, these little cultures; trying to foster them and bring them to a greater level, rather than coming up with the next big brand name for the division.

For me, it's more a notion of vibrant city-states with light central government. That's how I'm thinking managing this, rather than what's more traditionally thought of how EA does things. I'm going to try something a little different with this label and try to be more tied to the customer and the product and focusing on the small. That's not to say these aren't huge products--because Need For Speed is 10 million units plus--but I think of this as the brand brought to you by EA as opposed to the other way around. Make sense?

Yes, it does. So you're looking at EA Games more like the United States, with strong states' rights, as opposed to former Soviet Union with its central planning?

I am actually. Now obviously you have to have a highway system. [Laughs.] You have to have the FAA to make sure the planes don't collide. But I believe in the local personalities, those local leaders. I mean, when you look at the equity that people put into the games, they're really doing it because of the people around them and the games they're creating, that they have a vision contribution on. That's the asset, that's where the value is created, so I want to create an environment and a culture that allows for that to happen. That's where the innovation comes from, not necessarily centrally planned economies with strict federal governments.

So what's your mandate?

Bowser chases Samus Aran in Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii

In politics and business, Public Relations 101 dictates that bad news is announced on a Friday afternoon, whenever possible, to minimize the amount of damage that must be controlled. For Nintendo, it seems that a week or two before E3 is its chosen time to release less-than-optimal information, to set expectations, to prevent any ill winds from blowing through the legendarily clockwork operation that is its annual E3 press conference. Last year, on April 27th, 12 days before its E3 briefing, Nintendo announced that its Revolution console would no longer be known by its previous aggressive code name. Instead, we were now to refer to it by its kinder, gentler, stranger and eminenently more mockable final name: Wii. (By contrast, Sony saved its own bad news--the shock and awe of the PS3's staggeringly high price points--for the conclusion of its E3 press conference, violating the dictum to send 'em out on a high note. The results were rather predictable.)

At the time the Wii name was unveiled, Internet forums and message boards were choked with the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments as long-suffering Nintendo fanboys, forced to absorb the ridicule of PlayStation and Xbox partisans, and resigning themselves to seeing their adored Kyoto standard-bearer slide further into irrelevance. Today, it is the PS3 fan who gently weeps. It is the Xbox 360 aficionado who alternates between the bravado of the front-runner and the abject terror at the possibility inevitability that the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" will claim his beloved white chill box. (Hey, things break, right?) And it is the Nintendo stalwart, he or she who stuck by the company through its downward spiral--we speak here of market share and cultural relevance--who now chortles as the Wii displays more momentum than Barack Obama; while Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime shrugs at his rivals' woes as if to say, "Not my problem;" as all-smiles GIFs of Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata and design legend Shigeru Miyamoto under the banner "It Prints Money!!!" proliferate throughout the interwebs. What a difference a year makes.

Two days ago, Nintendo went back to its damage control playbook, first announcing that Super Smash Bros. Brawl would not be playable at next week's E3 Media & Business Summit.

1. OT!...Developers of the world, unite!
2. MIC...Club Nintendo fans in Japan get new DS game
3. BAN...When user-created content goes wrong
4. E3!...Best. Of. Show. Period.
5. CAM...The evil genius that is Nintendo
6. BHG...Lifestyles of the rich and famous
7. EGO...trip: mo' podcast, mo' mentions
8. PAX...Penny Arcade, twice rebutted
9. DUB...ious Quality embraces The Darkness
10. RND...Drink deeply of this haterade

Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli at the Gun Store in Las Vegas during the January 2007 Consumer Electronics Show

Longtime readers of Level Up may remember that during the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we hit the Gun Store with several Electronic Arts and Crytek employees; among them, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli, to squeeze off a few rounds on the shooting range. But it wasn't all shotgun blasts and loud whoops; we also got some quality time with Yerli himself, in the Microsoft booth, to discuss his company's first-person shooter for Windows, Crysis.

Crytek made its bones with the massively scaled, go-anywhere, lush island setting of Far Cry, which was published by Ubisoft. Amidst rumblings of a tense relationship between the two, Crytek and Ubisoft parted ways, allowing EA to swoop and pick up ze Germans' stunningly gorgeous forthcoming first-person shooter, Crysis. (At this rate, True Cryme is all but inevitable.) We've been salivating over Crysis ever since we saw it last summer, and we can only hope that EA's recent media tour means that the game's ship date isn't far away. Back in January, however, we discussed how Crytek is balancing Crysis around the reconfigurable super-powered suit that your character wears; the influence of classic platformers on the game's level design; and why Yerli believes that Crysis will become a favorite of the pro gaming scene. Read on.

Looking at Crysis here, what kind of system is it running on: Vista, DX10, what?

It's a high-end gamer rig--with essentially the only difference being it runs on a G80, GeForce 8800, and running on Vista right now. So full DX10 specifications. And the demo that we're seeing here, from the gameplay content, essentially is that we're showing our core gameplay: the suit play, where you can change the speed, strength and armor, which allows you a wider range of opportunities to outsmart any AI challenge in a more variety. For example, speed allows quicker sprinting and longer jumps. With strength you can jump higher and also pick up enemies. We can see here on the energy bar, it's being consumed all the time, and that's sort of your suit power, suit energy. And when you change between speed-strength-armor, you have to be careful that your energy bar is still available, so you can actually gain the benefit of it. And in armor mode, you essentially become a walking tank, so it's like you can absorb more damage and you heal faster because it's putting in a healing mode.

In terms of the suit, what determines your ability to switch among the three abilities? Is it energy?

You have an energy bar, as a bar which you--which consumes while it charges. And anytime, for example, you can just use it and if it depletes the energy bar, then the suit does malfunction for a couple of seconds so that the suit charges again. So it's actually just an energy bar and you can change it at any moment and any given situation. And that's the nice thing about it; it's not like an RPG where you have a one-way street to increase your strength or speed or armor. In this case it's more like a crossroad. I can change my abilities whenever I want, for any given situation, to adapt to survive the challenge.

With the player having that kind of flexibility, how do you design the levels and the encounters to challenge them?

1. EGO...trip: panel, blog, video, forum
2. WoW...Aussie woman jailed over teen boy toy
3. HA!...E-rated Manhunt 2: a parody
4. HMM...Moqtada Al-Sadr: FPS or RTS?
5. BYE...Dark_Alex says adios to PSP hacking
6. BUN...gie lifts the veil higher on Halo 3
7. OY!...Wii outselling PS3 6:1 in Japan
8. YAY...Xbox marks Canada Day with themes. Nice, eh?
9. $$$...Achievement Unlocked: EA Stuffs Pocket
10. REG...Time for a new read-my-lips pledge?
11. PS3...and Nielsen team up for audience tracking
12. RND...Pirates of the Cupertino?

The second trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV

The first trailer for David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises," starring Viggo Mortensen

Last week, within roughly 24 hours of one another, Yahoo! posted new trailers for two separate works about crime. First up was "Eastern Promises," David Cronenberg's first film since his acclaimed "A History of Violence." The second was for Grand Theft Auto IV, the eagerly awaited next generation debut of the Rockstar Games hit franchise. We couldn't help but notice a few similarities between the two trailers, most notably the similarly named protagonists Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV) and Nikolai Luzhin ("Eastern Promises"); their shared Russian origins; and the two immigrants' shared penchant for violence in their adopted metropolises of Liberty City and London, respectively. The two trailers even have a similar visual tic, saturating the screen with light at key moments. Follow the links below, take a look at the two trailers and see. And if the Housers should ever hire Cronenberg to direct the inevitable Grand Theft Auto movie, we hope they'll consider throwing a finder's fee our way.

For the Grand Theft Auto IV trailer, click here.

For the "Eastern Promises" trailer, click here.

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and MTV News' Stephen Totilo at Rockstar Games' offices in New York City on June 22, 2007

Note: This email exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo ran on N'Gai Croal's Level Up and MTV's Multiplayer blog, in three separate installments, from June 25th-27th 2007. We now present it here in its entirety, under a single permalink, for easier printing, emailing and archival purposes.

1. EGO...trip: "Punks pay dues/Not me, I pay attention"
2. WAK...Football games: 60 fps on 360, 30 fps on PS3
   
3. YOU...better work: fanboys play dress-up
   
4. OY!...Battlefield: Vietnam pops up in murder case
5. HMM...Blog ratings: Joystiq (G), Level Up (PG), Game|Life (PG-13), Dubious Quality (R), Jaffe's Game Design (NC-17)
   
6. RND...Old school to new: class is in session