In Part I of our interview with Alex Ward, director of design for Criterion Games, he discussed the next iteration of his hit racing series Burnout and the lengths to which he was willing to go to procure a PS3 ahead of its March 2007 launch in the U.K. In the second and final part of our interview, he explains why he doesn't have anything on tap for Wii and PC gamers, shares his withering critique of Lego Star Wars II, and answers the question that we've been waiting five months to ask: Is Ward eidetic?

You've worked on Xbox Live with Burnout 360, got a little YouTube thing going there with the Save and Share replay mode--

Hooray. Somebody noticed.

How are you feeling right now with what you know about PS3's online. Do you think it's going to deliver the features you're looking for, to match what 360's doing?

Yeah. Completely. Live Revenge on Xbox 360 was an experiment for us in some of the stuff that we wanted to do. We're glad that we did that experiment. And the online stuff for us is going according to track.

What about Wii? You've got Nintendo fans--what can you offer them?

At the moment, we're only working on Playstation 3 and 360. We're into the Wii. It's not like we're not. We used to get all the hate mail from people saying, "Why aren't you doing this?" I'd love to do something on that system. We'd like to think about exactly about what it would be. And we'd have to build something bespoke. I've met with the Nintendo guys. They've shown me their stuff. It's cool. I think we'd have to look at very bespoke experiences.

So you don't want to just do a port.

No way. We just don't do ports at Criterion. We never have. When we did Burnout 1 on Xbox, it was like, "What else can we do?" We were the first game on Xbox to do Live scoreboards. Burnout Revenge on 360, it was a three-month job, but we were big on Save and Share. We were big on Live Revenge. We knew that Live was going to be where it was at, so we put all our time into Live features. When we get a look at the hardware, we just think, "What's the best game we can do on that?"

If we were to do a DS game--and we haven't done a DS game yet; the last Burnout for DS wasn't done by us--we've got some ideas we think that would be very bespoke. Using the stylus. Using the microphone. Using everything you can to make that system fun. And hypothetically, Burnout on Wii--maybe you wouldn't do any driving in it at all. Let's do something totally different with it. The Burnout team, we want to do it, but at the moment. we're just focused on doing the PS3 and Xbox 360 Burnout 5. Who knows what we'll do after that. We'll probably be dead.

Let's talk about your first-person shooter Black. What kind of feedback did you take from the reviews, the forums and the message boards? What's going on with the next Black?

The feedback we take is that we give up on reading the Internet, basically. What did we take from it? I think a lot of people got it. But I don't think we did a great job of explaining what we were about early on, and some people were disappointed. You're going to get that with any game. Going forward, people are going to know what we're about. It was our first one. We were really proud of what we did. Tough project to do, but we really liked it. Going forward? Expect something special.

Multiplayer?

[Silence.]

He sat quietly with his mouth closed and would not say a word.

Expect something special.

Hey, I thought the first one was special.

I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm playing it through again. It's the first time I've gone back to it. I started again last week on 360, backwards compatible. My dad's playing through it at the moment, so he's always asking me questions about it. It still looks like nothing else in the category. There's going to be some top shooters coming out. Some people think we just made this Rambo game. I don't think they thought about some of the emotional depth we were trying to put into it. I don't mind that. I'll take that. If you thought it was Crisis Zone, okay. But yeah, wait and see. Wait and see.

We're down to two more questions.

Why can't they be as organized as you in England? [Laughs.] We like this.

What about PC gamers? You've been critical of the PC in the past. What would you say to someone who's finished F.E.A.R., they've finished Half-Life 2, they've finished Quake IV. They've seen their little brother rocking out with Black on the console, and they want to know, "When is Alex Ward going to show me some love?"

Never. I'm just being totally honest. I could lie, right, and say "Maybe you'll see a PC game from us in the future." No. I'm just not a PC gamer. The mouse, the keyboard, I know how they're used, it's just not for me. I'm a console gamer, through and through--there's no Gran Turismo on the PC, there's no Ridge Racer on the PC. It's not a system I grew up with. After what I said about PC gaming on the 1UP Show, I'm a marked man. I'll get my head kicked in if I ever go to QuakeCon, won't I? But I just don't get it. I can't do it. I'm a useless PC gamer.

Some genres, I'll admit, I just don't get. Real-time strategy? Just don't get it. Role-playing games? Just don't get it. Oblivion? I really tried. And it's a great game--a lot of people think it's a great game. Not for me. Just can't get on with it. PC shooters, I don't know. I've always played pretty well with a controller. But you get the really hard-core religious guys going, "You've got to use a mouse and keyboard. It's better because you can do this, this and this."

Last question. I've heard from at least two sources that you are eidetic. Is there any truth to this?

I am what?

Eidetic.

What's that mean?

It means that you have a photographic memory. Is that true?

God, I thought you said emetic, which means it makes you vomit. [Laughs.]

No, I said eidetic.

That just comes from--I've been reading about videogames for a long time, so when people talk to me about some videogame, I can kind of remember what issue of Edge it was in, or who did what, or what Level Four was called. So I'm a bit stupid like that.

But if I threw some toothpicks on the ground, you wouldn't be able to quickly count them all, would you?

No, no. I'm not like that guy from "Rain Man." But I am like the kid from "The Sixth Sense," actually--I see bad games. I walk around E3 and think, "I see bad games."

Any games you want to call out on the record, or would you rather pass?

[Long pause.] No. All right, controversially then, the game I don't get at the moment is Lego Star Wars II.

Interesting. A lot of people love it.

A lot of people love it. Big success. Bought it. took it home. First half an hour? Far too hard. And I'm all about the first hour, but the first half an hour was far too hard. I was struggling to work out what to do. I think people were very excited because it was Star Wars, but take that out of it. The first hour's got to hook to hook me in. Just like a TV show. A TV show starts a new season, you've got to show me the characters, you've got to hook me back into it. Lego Star Wars, didn't get it. Found it very hard, very fiddly, moving cranes, all that. Very tough first half hour.

Okay, this is absolutely, positively the last question. Lego Burnout--when can we look for it?

Lego Burnout. [Laughs] You can look for that in 1988, and it's coming on Sega CD. We're using something new in the game, and it's called Full Motion Video. And you'll here more about that at next year's CES. Check it out.

All right, Alex. Thanks very much for your time.

No worries. Always good to talk to you.

To see Part I, click here.