knockknock.biz luggage tags. Photo courtesy of justinph.

I guess it's finally time for me to level up.

It was the summer of '99 when I convinced my then editor to send me on a tour of the U.S. videogame industry. When I finally returned three weeks later, my head was still spinning. I felt as though I'd seen the future of entertainment. It was then that I made it my mission to put NEWSWEEK's coverage of this growing medium on the map. I did that in print, with cover stories on the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 and the spread of online gaming. I did it online, with the debut of the blog N'Gai Croal's Level Up. I did it on television, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. You all watched me push, prod, praise, scold, discuss and debate videogames across multiple media, both mainstream and enthusiast. That's because my editors were prescient enough to let me apply my talents and establish my reach beyond the magazine, from co-blogging with MTV News to writing a monthly column for Edge and more. For this, I say to them all, thank you.

Having achieved all of this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've accomplished what I set out to do ten years ago. And now it's time for me to take that decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge and do something else with it. After Friday March 6th, my passions will take me beyond the world of journalism. I’ll be wearing many hats on this new journey: videogame design consultant, media strategist, consumer technology reporter, columnist, blogger and, as always, provocateur. You’ll be able to keep track of my various adventures at ngaicroal.com, and feel free to reach out to me via email at ncroalbiz@gmail.com. It’s been a pleasure conversing with all of you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years to come.

Cheers,

 Madden NFL 09, developed by EA Tiburon and published by EA Sports

After the results of the Game Critics Awardswere announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. In the Best Sports Game category, Madden NFL 09 took home the trophy. We emailed some questions to Steve Chiang, co-founder and chief of EA Tiburon. Here are his responses:

Four of the five nominees for Best Sports were EA studios. How competitive are the various teams within EA? How soon after the awards announcement did you send taunting emails to the folks working on NBA Live 09, Skate It and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09?

Having four of the five nominations is a great testament to the quality of game teams we have within EA. Sports is competitive by nature, and our teams are constantly driving to be the best. That said, also within sports is the concept of team, and within EA Sports we have been and are building a culture of cross-team collaboration, team work and quality. We have amazing people behind each of these titles and we are constantly focused on innovating and re-inventing the genre. When our teams see features like video uploads, GamerNet, Be a Pro or Online Team Play, the first reaction is "cool", the second is "how can I get it in my game."

Madden has no direct competition by virtue of EA's exclusivity agreement with the NFL. What motivates you to improve the game?

To read the rest of our Q&A with Steve Chiang, click on the link below.

 LittleBigPlanet, developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony Computer Entertainment

After the results of the Game Critics Awardswere announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet triumphed in two categories: Best Console Game and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game. We emailed some questions to Mark Healey, creative director at Media Molecule. Here's what he wrote back:

Last year, LittleBigPlanet won Best Original Game. This year, it won Best Console Game. Do you feel as though you've graduated with this year's win? Were you surprised that LBP beat Rock Band 2 and Guitar hero World Tour for best Social/Casual/Puzzle game?

It's always nice to win things--and these two awards are especially cool--but the fact the these are awarded to an unfinished game is quite scary--it shows that there is a lot of expectation for LBP--but luckily we're all really proud of what we've created here at MM, and I'm sure we'll more than meet people's expectations. Once it's out there, and it starts evolving, that's when the fun really begins...

How have you gone about recruiting other developers inside and outside of Sony to create levels in LittleBigPlanet?

Well, internally, everyone here is constantly dabbling with the creative tools--it's hard to get any work done sometimes, as it really is a lot of fun--there was a whole day when everyone was trying to outdo each others ‘tanks' - the final winning beast was an incredible feat of engineering. As for people outside making stuff pre-launch, there's lots of exciting things happening, Sony have been great at organizing this stuff--I can't spill the beans right now, but there are some pretty prestigious people getting involved!

Journalists and developers alike have been excited for LittleBigPlanet since its inception. What do you need to do to build similar excitement among traditional gamers?

To read the rest of our Q&A with Mark Healey, click on the link below.

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. In the Best Strategy Game category, Tom Clancy's EndWar beat out several established franchises and studios. We emailed some questions to Michael De Plater, creative director at Ubisoft Shanghai. Here are his responses:

EndWar was up against some pretty formidable competition for Best Strategy Game, including Ensemble and EALA. Are you surprised that you won?

We were very proud to be in such impressive company. In particular I am a massive fan of the Warhammer 40K universe and of Relic. In fact every one of those teams has been making great strategy games for years and the game they each took to E3 this year looked like one of the most polished and fun titles they had ever built. On the other hand I definitely thought we had a good chance of winning if people got some hands on time with EndWar because I think it's a fun game and everyone is waiting for the genre to break through on console. Also Ubisoft put together a really great team with a lot of depth of experience. Todd Owens, our lead level designer had worked on Command & Conquer Generals and Battle for Middle Earth and I'd worked on Rome Total War, while the rest of the team had experience on top quality tactical and military games like Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and Brothers In Arms.

As a team that is new to building strategy games, what are the biggest challenges that you faced?

That's a good question and it's hard to be precise about what the biggest challenges were, because there were a lot. From the obvious one of making a successful strategy game on console through to the one you highlighted above of going head to head with competitors with a decade or more of experience at making 90 percent games. I think ultimately all we could do was to turn the challenges to opportunities. The fact that we hadn't made a strategy game before freed us from a lot of baggage associated with PC RTS games which helped us focus on genuinely making a game from the ground up for console. Plus fact that lots of guys on the team didn't have strategy game experience allowed us to bring elements of the design, production values and attention to detail of other Clancy games like Ghost Recon. When you zoom in and look at our units, the infantry especially, they are approaching the quality of detail and behavior of an FPS.

In my Edge column, I wrote that "[EndWar's] voice-driven command-and-control system demonstrates that it might do for real-time strategy games what Halo did for shooters: create an experience that's so compelling that the genre itself tips irrevocably in the console's direction." Did I oversell EndWar's potential?

To read the rest of our Q&A with Michael De Plater, click on the link below.

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. In the portable category, Resistance: Retribution won the award for Best Handheld Game. We emailed some questions to John Garvin, director of development at Sony Bend. Here's what he wrote back:

Resistance: Retribution was up against some distinguished franchises in Castlevania, Chrono Trigger and Puzzle Quest, not to mention a cult favorite in Rhythm Heaven. Did you expect to win?

I did expect to win, actually, mostly because our two previous Syphon PSP games had won so many awards, and we had not shown a game at E3 since The Omega Strain. All those DS franchises are great, but we're pretty unique, I think, in that what we attempt to do, against all odds, and maybe against common sense even, is to create a full-blown AAA console "character action" experience on a handheld. To me, the console experience is all about production values, variety of gameplay, length of game, and just the depth of the experience. It means spending the money on detail, using full, SAG acted voice, high quality rendered sequences; it means having a full size team of engineers working on a large variety of gameplay features so the designers can mix it up each level; it means a schedule with enough time in it to polish everything. Other handhelds tend to go for a more "mini game" experience that can be done with smaller teams, less time, less money.

What do you make of the fact that all of your fellow nominees were on DS, and none on PSP?

I attribute our ability to build this kind of game to Sony's dedication and support for the PSP. As a first party developer, our goal is to showcase what the PSP can do. Sony also makes "handheld style" games like Patapon and Loco Roco, but our studio's job is to push [PlayStation founder Ken] Kutaragi's original vision for the platform: creating games for a console in your hand. Resistance: Retribution could not be done on the DS, just like Dark Mirror and Logan's Shadow could not have been done on the DS. So to get back to your question, I think critics respond to Resistance: Retribution because it is a unique experience on the handheld, something that can't be done on the others--and our game shows a commitment to quality with high production values and polished gameplay.

Describe the aiming/camera system for Resistance: Retribution, and explain the process by which you arrived at it.

To read the rest of John Garvin's responses, click on the link below.

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. Despite some tough competition against established brands, newcomer Dead Space took home the award for Best Action/Adventure Game. We emailed some questions to Glenn Schofield, executive producer at Electronic Arts Redwood Shores. Here are his responses:

What was your reaction to winning Best Action/Adventure Game? The original Resident Evil is one of the progenitors of the survival-horror genre--are you surprised you beat Resident Evil 5?

The whole team and I were excited, honored and humbled by winning. To even be included in that list was fantastic, but to win was amazing. I'm proud of this game and the team. The passion, talent and effort that went into making Dead Space are being recognized and we are very appreciative of that.

When I first saw the vertical slice of Dead Space running two years ago on the original Xbox, it was not only the best-looking Xbox game I'd seen, it also had all of the major systems in place: dismemberment, zero-G, integrated menus, etc. What are you doing on Xbox 360 and PS3 that you couldn't have done on the Xbox?

Wow, that's right--you were one of the very few to see the original slice. As you can imagine every system was pushed to its limit. Dismemberment at that time didn't have realistic physics and there were just a few dismemberment points. We've tripled or quadrupled all the dismemberment pieces at the very least. We added a brand new lighting tech that gives Dead Space its distinctive look, mood and feel.

Special effects, audio, textures, polys and all the content are at the very edge of what the hardware can handle. Thousands and thousands of animations and, of course, an AI system that is extremely complex because of the many variations a dismembered character can have. We added the video logs which is a very cool feature to the game and one of the ways we tell the story. Once you see how dense with detail and enemies these decks are you'll know this could never have been pulled off on the last gen. Not even close.

One of the dangers of putting together a compelling vertical slice is that the finished product merely photocopies that slice of gameplay over and over again. What can you say to assure us that this won't be the case with Dead Space?

To read our Q&A with Glen Schofield in its entirety, click on the link below.

 Fallout 3, developed and published by Bethesda Softworks 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced two weeks ago, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The big winner was Fallout 3 from Bethesda, which won two awards: Best of Show and Best Role-Playing Game. We emailed some questions to Todd Howard, executive producer at Bethesda. Here's what he wrote back:

What was your reaction to winning both Best of Show and Best Role-Playing Game for Fallout 3?

Honestly? Total shock. I didn't think we were going to win. I was elated to be even put in the top 5 of so many great games at E3, I think the quality of what people were showing this year was really high, some really great games out there this year. I think it could have easily gone to another game, it's almost like a "what's your favorite color?" test when you get to that level. Still, we're extremely excited here, the whole team has put a lot into this game, and to be acknowledged like this is pretty awesome.

VATS [Vaul-Tec Assisted Targeting System] has gotten a lot of praise. Do you expect this more deliberate and tactical mechanic to open up Fallout 3 to a wider audience than your previous games?

I don't think VATS equates to a wider audience, probably the opposite, but it just felt like something we wanted to do. It started as trying to find a new way for your character on-screen to be a total badass, even though you, the gamer, are not one--not you N'Gai, I mean the hypothetical non-badass-gamer. The struggle for us was finding ways to make it fast enough and simple enough that someone new to the genre would "get it" quickly. So, I think we're happy with how it plays.

Also, the camera angles in VATS, while dramatic, are sometimes odd and confusing. What needs to be done to fix this by launch?

To read the rest of our Q&A with Todd Howard, click on the link below.

The respected Game Critics Association--of which the Level Up staff is a part--has just announced its nominations for the best games for the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit which recently took place in Los Angeles. Last year's front-runner was Rock Band (from the three-headed hydra of Harmonix Music Systems, MTV Games and Electronic Arts) with a five nominations. This year? It's Media Molecule and Sony Computer Entertainment's roll-your-own Playstation 3 platformer, with a similar industry-leading total of five nominations. Our obsession with the game has been well-documented here on Level Up; after today's announcement, it would appear that our fellow scribes share our enthusiasm.

Just behind LittleBigPlanet with four nominations each were Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead, both console-exclusive to Xbox 360. They were in turn followed by four games that each received three nominations: Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, Resistance 2 and Spore. The winners will be announced next week; you can see the entire list after the jump. While the Level Up staff has yet to convene to determine which games will make its final ballot--theough we will confess to having a soft spot for Best Original Game nominee Flower--we encourage you to drop us a note in the comments section and let us know which games you think we should vote for, and why.

To see the entire list of nominees, click on the link below.

 Xbox 360 group product manager Aaron Greenberg and reggaeton producer Nely

All work and no play makes the Level Up staff very dull boys indeed. So when we got word that our favorite Xbox kingpin Aaron "B.I.G. VIP" Greenberg was rolling through NYC, we agreed to jump in for a Friday night of debauchery good-natured fun. We kicked things off at an after work cocktail party at the offices of Kinetix Integrated Communications, a lifestyle marketing company that both Microsoft's Zune and Xbox divisions are employing to reach out to urban and Latino communities. According to Greenberg, the group product manager for Xbox 360's Live and lifestyle programs, a number of key influencers and media in the urban and Latino markets are still playing videogames on their PlayStation 2s. To remedy that situation, he spent the latter half of last week being driven from meeting to meeting in an SUV, taking Xbox 360 Elites out of the back of the vehicle and dropping them off with late-adopting gamers like a big city Santa Claus.

At Kinetix's Manhattan offices, we witnessed Greenberg dispensing post-holiday cheer to an influencer of particular note: reggaeton producer Nely "El Arma Secreta," the mastermind behind such hits as Wisin Y Yandel's "Rakata" and R. Kelly's "Burn It Up." The charming twentysomething studio wizard was pleased as punch to receive his Xbox 360 Elite. Why? All the better to put the hurt on opponents in his current favorite game, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur--tooling around the city after 11:30 PM trying to find a suitable restaurant for late night dining; Greenberg hollaticking with his Miami crew via cell phone; the de rigueur bottle service (Belvedere, of course) that accompanied the breaking of bread at Pop Burger in the Meatpacking district--but it was clear from our night on the town that Microsoft is sparing no expense in its broad-based pursuit of console dominance.

 The Tribe stage of Spore, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts

The wait is almost over. The end is nearly in sight. Electronic Arts has just announced a release date for its eagerly anticipated game Spore, in which players work their way up the evolutionary ladder from single-celled organisms to space travelling powerhouses. On September 7th, 2008, the game will ship on Windows PCs, Macintoshes, DS and various mobile phones. No word yet on a ship date for the Wii version, or whether Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 will be able to join on the fun.

We've also conducted a pair of exclusive interviews with Maxis chief designer Will Wright and Spore executive producer Lucy Bradshaw. Wright gives us some detailed insight into why Spore has taken so long to develop; why social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr are serving as guiding lights for the finished product; an whether he's got anything left in the tank after pouring his all into the game that some people have referred to as SimEverything. Bradshaw, for her part, explains what's been involved in creating the Mac edition of Spore, along with never-before revealed details about the versions for DS and mobile phones. You won't want to miss either one.

To read Part I of our two-part interview with Will Wright, click here. For Part II, click here. For our Q&A with Lucy Bradshaw, click here.

For the full press release, click on the link below.

To see a larger version of this image, click here.

To see a larger version of this image, click here.

The one year anniversary of Level Up took place on September 25th. We meant to celebrate the occasion, much as we did our 100th posting, but truth be told, we were too busy bringing you the latest and greatest to waste time sending up fireworks or making it rain. Now that Newsweek.com is relaunching, however, we'll take a modest bow (thank you, thank you) before letting you know what features have been added to our humble blog.

The first and most important feature is comments. We had them at launch; unfortunately, when we switched to a new publishing tool, we lost them. Now they're back like the ghosts in "Poltergeist II: The Other Side," they're here to stay, and they should go a long way towards energizing what we hope will become a vibrant Level Up community. We welcome your opinions, questions and concerns; consider the comments your space to share your thoughts on videogames with us and the world at large. You'll have to register to comment, but it's a quick and painless process, so please take a moment to do so.

Beneath our other picture in the upper left-hand corner, you'll find a link to our email address. If there's something you'd like to say directly to us, go right ahead and do so. We love hot tips on as-yet-unbroken news, but you don't have to come bearing scoops in order to drop us a note--we want to hear from you. Looking at individual posts, you may notice that the categories no longer appear on top. We'd been using tags as rubrics for our stories, but we've temporarily lost that feature, as tags now only appear at the bottom of a post after you've clicked on it. We're told that this feature will be restored in a future iteration.

In the right-most column, beneath the big square advertisement, you'll see "Featured Postings." Here you can quickly access the three most recent Level Up posts we believe you won't want to miss. Finally, if you click on a post and scroll to the bottom, you'll see several handy features. You can adjust a slider bar to increase or decrease the size of the fonts on our blog. Also, at the click of a button, you can email print our posts; email them to friends, family and colleagues; add them to your RSS newsreader; or recommend them to social networks like Facebook, Digg, Sphere, Newsvine and Del.ico.us. It's been a long time coming, but we'd like to thank the folks at Newsweek.com and their partners for all of their hard work on the relaunch. As for you, our dear readers, we thank you for your support over the past 12 months, and we heartily welcome you aboard for the next 12 months and more.

What was your reaction to winning Best Action/Adventure game?

We've always won a ton of E3 awards for BioShock from the press, but we never picked up a judges' award before. So it was really gratifying.

BioShock has already gone gold. How have you celebrated this milestone in the past, and how did you celebrate this milestone for BioShock?

We just had a team party in Boston, and then we have a event on the launch night on August 20th, which we’re inviting lots of people to, including members of the BioShock fan community. I'm actually looking forward to that, because launches are usually such abstract things. You wake up launch morning and it’s like, "Hey, our game has, umm, shipped to retail!"  It’s not exactly like headlining at Madison Square Garden.

With BioShock already getting great reviews, and Harmonix's Rock Band receiving early accolades, 2007 looks like a breakout year for the Boston game development scene. Is there anything that distinguishes game development in Boston from that in other cities, and how much is the departed Looking Glass Studios responsible for laying the foundation for what we see today.