Promo image for the 1983 film "Never Say Never Again," courtesy The Nostalgia Factory 

When we saw the news this morning that Criterion Games' much-debated-then-much-praised Burnout Paradise would be coming to PC, we were more than a little surprised. That's because in the past, the studio's creative director Alex Ward has made some playfully disparaging comments about gaming on PCs. So as we were Googling for one of his previous statements on the matter to throw into this morning's High Score post, we came across a statement that he had made previously to...us. Here's the exchange we had on the subject back in the fall of 2006:

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.

To see the rest of what Ward told us back in Fall 2006, along with some screenshots and the full text of the press release, click on the link below.

At Nintendo's media event in San Francisco a few weeks ago, we made the acquaintance of The Game Factory publicist Damien Sarrazin. He was there to show off the first of an intriguing series of relaxation games for Nintendo's DS handheld. But as we chatted, Sarrazin casually mentioned another title that had yet to be revealed, this one involving the Rubik's Cube license. The combination of a mainstream brand and an unannounced title was too intoxicating for the Level Up staff to resist, so like Activision and Aerosmith, we locked up this announcement exclusively. We've also scored an interview with the game's developer (Two Tribes) and the owners of the Rubik's Cube intellectual property (Seven Towns), which you can peruse by clicking here.

To read the Game Factory press release that will be crossing the wires tomorrow, click on the link below.

 Bing Gordon (far right) pictured with Jeff Bezos, Will Wright and Robin Williams,  courtesy valleywag.com 

The renowned venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers has just announced something that we learned late last week. Electronic Arts chief creative officer William 'Bing' Gordon will join Kleiner Perkins as a partner in June, serving alongside such luminaries as John Doerr, Bill Joy and Al Gore. According to Gordon, with whom we spoke by phone on Sunday evening, the first week of June will be his last at EA before starting at Kleiner Perkins on June 9th. "Being on campus with young people in videogame classes; seeing what they're interested in; seeing what's going on with the Internet turning into new kinds of platforms, from iPhone to Facebook and Amazon Web Services--I've gotten fired up about an all-new ride," Gordon told us when we asked why he was moving on from the company that he helped build into a global power.

That's not all the generally outspoken Gordon had to say. To read our Just the FAQs post with chunks of our conversation, click here. To read Kleiner Perkins' press release announcing his joining the firm, click on the link below.

 

Whether it's the Knicks and the Lakers, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the L.A. Dodgers or Biggie and Tupac, there's always been a rivalry between New York and California. But when it comes to videogames, NY might as well be bringing a knife to a gunfight. Sure, we've got Take-Two, or as we like to call it, The House That Rockstar Built. There's Vicarious Visions, those masters of handheld development. Kaos Studios, which worked on Battlefield for EA and just did Frontlines: Fuel of War for THQ, is also located in our fair state, as are smaller developers like Gamelab, which brought us Diner Dash.

But compared to Northern California (Electronic Arts, Lucasarts, Sega and Namco's U.S. HQs, etc.), which even stole 2K Games from us, and Southern California (Activision, THQ, Warner Bros Interactive, Disney Interactive, Brash Entertainment and more) and, well, it's clear where NYC's interactive inferiority complex comes from. So when we got wind that a brand new publisher was debuting not only in our adoptive state, but a mere subway ride away from Level Up's midtown HQ, we pulled out all the stops to bring you this news--and an exclusive interview with the company's CEO--first.

The publisher in question is GreenScreen Interactive. "It was initially founded by Ryan Brant, Mark Seremet and Susan Cummings," CEO Ron Chaimowitz told us yesterday during an exclusive interview at his SoHo offices. "Mark and Ryan were founders of take-Two Interactive, and Susan was at Take-Two and actually worked with Ryan to build the 2K label very successfully from zero to $400 million over four years." Chaimowitz is himself no slouch, having co-founded GT Interactive Software in 1993 and published such well-known titles as Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and Unreal.

To read the rest of our post on GreenScreen Interactive as well as the full text of the company's press release, click on the link below.

 Monopoly, developed by Bright Light and published by EA Casual 

Last week at a media event in New York City, Electronic Arts unveiled its take on Hasbro's enduring Monopoly. It's currently in development for Wii, 360 and PlayStation 2, with the Wii serving as the lead platform. The game will be released this fall by the EA Casual division, at the same time as the relaunch of Hasbro's board game Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition, so named because Hasbro is retiring such famous spots as "Boardwalk" and "Park Place" with the names of cities from around, um, the world. We played it at the event, where EA's reps were focused on showing off The Richest, a new spin on Monopoly that blends mini-games with a sped-up version of the classic gameplay for a clever, highly entertaining version of Monopoly whose playtime is measured in minutes, not hours. See below for the press release, and be sure to check back for the newest installment of our Just the FAQs interview series, in which we speak with the title's U.K. developers.

To read EA's press release, click on the link below.

 DVD cover for the 1995 film "The Usual Suspects," courtesy MGM

Over the Christmas break, we took some time to reflect on what changes or additions we could make to improve the blog. One of those concepts was Page 110, which debuted today. Another, which has also been some time in coming, was to add monthly columnists. We've always done our best to incorporate other voices into the mix here at Level Up, whether it's people who work in the videogame industry in some capacity in Outsourced, or interested outside observers in P2P. But in those cases where our blog opened up conversations among ourselves and a handful of gifted, thoughtful writers, we felt compelled to expose those voices to our modest but influential audience--you.

Our first official column, titled The Law and the Short of It, is penned by someone who should be no stranger to close readers of Level Up: Justin Blankenship, former Federal Trade Commission lawyer and current stay-at-home father. From Fall 2001 until early 2004, Blankenship worked in the FTC's Mergers 2 division in Washington, D.C., which reviewed mergers in the chemical, technology, and entertainment fields for potential violations of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, in search of potential anti-competitive concerns that would hurt consumers. So as part of his division's jurisdiction, he examined similar mergers while at the FTC. Blankenship sent us an email expressing his opinion that the FTC would take a hard look at the EA Sports/2K Sports part of this deal for antitrust reasons; we requested that he expand his thoughtful email into a full post, and based on his superlative work, we asked him to join our first wave of monthly columnists. Click here to read Blankenship's debut column, and be sure to check back later today for the premiere of our second opinionator.

 The 1957 classic "The Sweet Smell of Success," courtesy of Film Forum 

For a while now, we've been meaning to find a proper home for some of the on-scene reportage that characterized Level Up's carefree infancy, when we would belly up to the VIP bar with Kaz Hirai and Sir Howard Stringer inside the Sony Style store on New York's Madison Avenue. Or firing a pump-action shotgun (the Serbu Super Shorty, if you must know) with Crytek founder Cevat Yerli at The Gun Store in Las Vegas. Or consuming steak and wine at the Morton's Steakhouse in downtown Los Angeles with Microsoft's own James "J" Allard, culminating in our infamous wager. Or playing Madden NFL 07 against Miss May 1998 Deanna Brooks--and losing--at the South Seas Hotel in Miami's South Beach during the runup to last year's Super Bowl. You know, the lighter side of being a videogame journalist.

So today, we're taking the wraps off of Page 110, our sometimes wry, sometimes breathless, but always observant occasional feature on the people, places and things we get to see as part of our job. The title has a double meaning; it's both an in-joke for the truly geeky and a reference to the pop cultural gap between the prominence of boldfaced names who appear on Page Six and those who can't get arrested there despite their stature in the world of videogames. The US Weeklys and the Gawkers of the world may not care about this stuff, but we do, and hopefully you will as well. Enjoy.

 The cover for Judas Priest's 1982 album "Screaming For Vengeance" 

Harmonix and MTV Games have just announced that the first complete album for their popular rhythm game Rock Band will be released next week. Even though last year Harmonix cited The Who's 1971 record "Who's Next" when it first revealed that entire albums would be made available through its online store, its inaugural full-length release will be Judas Priest's 1982 hit "Screaming For Vengeance," boasting such classic songs as "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" (already featured in Guitar Hero and SingStar Amped, according to MTV News' own Rhythm Track Finder) and "Electric Eye" (already featured in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s).

Each of the ten tracks on "Screaming For Vengeance" can be purchased individually for the standard price of $1.99 per track (160 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360), while the entire album can be bought for $14.99 (1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360).

For the full text of Harmonix and MTV Games' press release, click on the link below.

 A mock-up of the Kaplan SAT Prep DS, under development by Aspyr Media

Oh, Brain Age: what have you wrought?

Later today, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (a division of Kaplan, which is in turn owned by Newsweek's own parent company, The Washington Post Company) will announce that it is partnering with Aspyr Media to develop an as-yet-untitled SAT test prep game for the Nintendo DS. Versions for Windows-based PCs and Macs are also in development. According to Aspyr co-founder Ted Staloch, Aspyr reached out to Kaplan Test Prep last summer to see if the two companies might be able to work together on a game that would hit the sweet spot of Brain Age fans and students studying for the SAT. "This is not a study break," Staloch told us last week during a phone interview. "This is a way to prepare for the test."

Staloch and Kaplan's director of pre-college programs Kristen Campbell were reticent to share many details, as the game is still early in development. Campbell did say that part of the appeal to Kaplan was the ability to reach young people through videogames, just as it has done via iTunes and manga. "The reality is that for a lot of students, the way they study has changed," says Campbell. "This is a great way to supplement our tutoring or classroom programs."

As the caption says, the image above is a mockup of what the game's menu will look like, as well as its main character. We asked Aspyr for more detail about the main character; here's what the publicist told us via email:

At last year's Consumer Electronics Show, one of the more unusual gadgets that we saw was the Falcon game controller from Novint Technologies, which allows users to feel objects and interactions in a 3-D manner. We were intrigued by the device's potential--its unique approach to force feedback (explained here) let us experience the sensation of touching different surfaces and materials--but expressed a good deal of skepticism about it's chances in the marketplace. Why? Because while there had been a number of recent runaway successes in the alternative input category--SingStar's microphone, Buzz!'s buzzers, Guitar Hero's guitar and the Wii remote--the first three were built around what proved to be killer exclusive software, and the fourth additionally benefited from being included with each and every Wii sold. By contrast, the Falcon was essentially an after-market, would-be mouse replacement peripheral with no exclusive software; and as such, we had a difficult time imagining it breaking through.

Still, slow and steady wins the race. Last week, Novint and Electronic Arts exclusively revealed to us their agreement by which Novint will license several EA games, which Novint will then patch to support its Falcon peripheral.

 The cover for the first edition of Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October," from FirstEditionPoints.com

This just came across the transom: Ubisoft has purchased the intellectual property rights to best-selling author Tom Clancy's name and intellectual property, in perpetuity, free of all future royalty payments, for use in videogames, related books, movies and merchandise. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Ubisoft did state that it was an all-cash transaction that will reduce its expected net cash position to roughly 130 million Euros ($201 million U.S. dollars) by the end of its fiscal 2007-08, compared to a prior expectation of around 150 million Euros ($232 million U.S.), with additional payments to be made in in fiscal 2008-09 and fiscal 2009-10. Given the anemic state of the U.S. dollar, we wouldn't be surprised if Clancy opted to take his payment in Freedom Fries Euros as well. For the complete release, rclick on the link below.

 

At last month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Harmonix invited a handful of journalists to its suite at the W Hotel to check out its long-awaited in-game store for Rock Band. Until now, players have had to use the Xbox Live Marketplace and the Playstation Store to purchase new tracks and song packs for the hit game. No longer. Harmonix has officially announced an update that will offer you what we were shown: a music store that is fully integrated into the game itself. The Rock Band music store will let you listen to audio previews of each available track, which means no more searching YouTube to figure out if a song you've never heard is worth your hard-earned Microsoft Points dollars. You'll also be able to check out the album artwork that accompanies each track; see a ten-point scale difficulty rating for each part (guitar, drums, vocals, bass and overall); and sort songs by multiple categories, including genre.

We were suitably impressed by this much-needed improvement. (See below for screenshots of the interface.) With a current catalog of just over 125 songs both on the disc and available for download through the store, Harmonix's interface makes zipping through its song library a snap. That said, we're not convinced that it will suffice when the database hits 1,250 songs, 12,500 songs, or 125,000 songs. On a computer, text searches are an effective way to navigate large databases of content. The same could be said for consoles, but on-screen keyboards quickly become annoying after an extended period of use, and not everyone is going to buy a wireless keyboard or keypad attachment. That's why we've long believed that speaker-independent voice command will be required as the amount of content on consumer electronics devices like consoles and personal video recorders grows. And based on conversations we've had with folks at Harmonix, it wouldn't surprise us at all to discover that they're investigating the possibility of such a solution.

To see screenshots of the Rock Band music store on the Xbox 360, as well as information about additional announcements that Harmonix made this morning, click on the link below. For exclusive screenshots of the PS3 version of the Rock Band in-game music store, click here.

 

Sony Computer Entertainment International has just announced that its worldwide studios boss Phil Harrison is stepping down. Here's the release; we'll have more in the days to come.

*** 

TOKYO, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS), will resign from Sony Computer Entertainment Group as of February 29, 2008.  Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of SCEI, will immediately assume responsibilities as president of SCE WWS, in addition to his current duties.

Prior to the launch of the original PlayStation, Phil Harrison joined Sony Electronics Publishing, Ltd. in 1992, which later evolved into Sony computer Entertainment Europe, and since then, he has made a tremendous contribution to the company playing a strategic role in the launch of four PlayStation platforms, as well as building strong relationships with game developers and publishers throughout the world.  Since his appointment to the position of president, SCE WWS, Harrison applied his considerable skill, knowledge and expertise to lead SCE Group's first party game development as well as aggressively pursuing the development of new online entertainment experiences.

"As one of the founding members of SCE, Phil played a key role in the development and growth of the PlayStation business and our industry," said Kazuo Hirai.  "It is sad to see him departing from SCE, but I wish to express my gratitude for his many invaluable contributions and also wish Phil the very best of luck in his future endeavors."

"The past 15 years at Sony Computer Entertainment has been the defining journey of my life so far," said Phil Harrison.  "I am grateful to all the PlayStation family for their incredible support, guidance and friendship.  It has been a privilege to serve as part of the team and be inspired by them on a daily basis.  I am so proud of everything PlayStation has achieved and will continue to support its future in every way I can."

###

 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.

 The original book cover for "Ender's Game"

Science fiction fans who love videogames, start your rejoicing. Later today, award-winning author Orson Scott Card and Chair Entertainment--the creative team responsible for Advent Rising and Undertow--will officially announce plans to turn Card's beloved novel "Ender's Game" into a, well, game. But you can read the announcement here first. The interactive game won't tackle the entire book, however; instead, it will focus on the famed Battle Room. And in something of a twist, Ender's Game is being built from the ground up for digital distribution via services like Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network rather than DVD or Blu-Ray, immediately making it the highest profile download-only title to date. Click on the link below to read the press release that's going out later today. And click here to read our exclusive interview with Chair co-founders (and brothers) Donald and Geremy Mustard.