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.

 

To get some more information on tomorrow's announcement of the Rubik's World title for Wii and DS, which will be published in the fall by The Game Factory, we conducted two separate interviews. We spoke first with the game's Dutch developers: Two Tribes managing director Martijn Reuvers, and the company's creative director Collin van Ginkel, who also serves as lead designer on Rubik's World. We also spoke with with David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, which owns the Rubik's Cube IP. Here's what they had to say:

Whose idea was it to make a Rubik's Cube game?

David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, credits The Game Factory with the original vision for this licensed videogame. "Game Factory approached us," he says. "They were obviously aware that there's a whole new craze going on about Rubik, which has been building over the last four or five years, reaching a critical mass last year in 2007 and carrying on this year as well. It's a great time to get involved with a brand and an iconic image that's appealing to a whole new young generation."

I want to know more about the game, but this Rubik's Cube revival is interesting. Did Seven Towns drive that, or did it happen more organically?

"It was fairly organic, to be honest," says Hedley-Jones, citing the slew of programs at the turn of the century that looked back at significant pop culture events, many of which devoted time to the Rubik's Cube. He also points to the independent World Cube Association, which bills itself as an organization which "governs competitions for all puzzles labeled as Rubik puzzles, and all other puzzles that are played by twisting the sides, so-called 'twisty puzzles'." He adds: "It's also been featured a lot in movies and advertising in particular over the last five or six years, which obviously creates a great brand awareness."

Advertising? You mean like that Playstation 3 launch commercial?

Absolutely. "They came to us and asked us if they could use the Cube in their advert," says Hedley-Jones. And in a wonderfully recursive example of life imitating art imitating life, Game Factory publicist Damien Sarrazin told us that when his company and developer Two Tribes went to pitch the Rubik's World concept to Seven Towns, one of the pieces of video they showed was that very same PS3 ad. "The commercial with the PS3, where you see actually the Cube being deconstructed, is the ancillary idea of our game concept," Sarrazin says.

I'd like to hear from the developers now, thank you very much. Are they Rubik's Cube experts?

To read today's installment of Just the FAQs in its entirety, 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.

It's a warm Tuesday night at the Olde Fort Pub in Ft. Thomas, Ky., just across the river from Cincinnati, and the regulars are rolling in with the early spring breeze. The Reds game is on the big screen, but no one is watching. Kid Rock wails from the jukebox, but no one is listening. The pool table is lit, but no one is playing. Instead, the crowd is cheering on Casey Niehues, 23, as she rips off a blazing guitar solo on Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle." But Niehues isn't really playing guitar; she's playing Guitar Hero, the wildly popular videogame.

As a virtual GNR plays on the flat screen behind the bar, the petite blonde supplants Slash by pounding colored buttons on the fretboard and strumming the plastic "string" on her ax, a game controller more akin to Fisher-Price than Les Paul. But don't try telling these revved-up rockers they're playing a game. "It's just totally different," insists Clem Fennell. Barmaid Rachel Wallingford hollers over the din: "It makes you feel like a rock star."

But as the band Boston (a Guitar Hero act) might say, it's more than a feeling. It's a cultural high-tech phenomenon that is changing the way we interact with music. Listening and watching aren't enough anymore. Now we want to play along. Millions of us are doing it, including gray-haired gaming newbies who still think Grand Theft Auto is a felony. Since Guitar Hero debuted in late 2005, nearly 15 million copies have rolled out retailers' doors, according to market researcher NPD Group. An additional 1.83 million copies of Rock Band, a new game involving guitar, bass, drums and vocals, have sold since it launched last Thanksgiving. In each game, you play along by pressing color-coded buttons on your instrument in time to colored dots coming at you on the screen. The more dots you hit, the better the song sounds and the more points you earn to get deeper into the 58-song set list. Together, the two multiplatinum hits represent a $2 billion market, analysts say.

Behind this rock-and-roll fantasy is Harmonix, a Cambridge, Mass., game developer staffed by rock-star wanna-bes and game geeks. The creator of Guitar Hero, and now Rock Band, was founded in 1995 by two quirky artists, who turned their musings as MIT Media Lab partners into a booming business. Today, these old college chums, Alex Rigopulos, 38, and Eran Egozy, 36, oversee a staff of more than 200 in the former offices of Harvard's Russian Studies department, where spike-haired and tattooed employees zip around on Razors among the detritus of musical instruments, both real and simulated. "It looks like we're having band practice," says online community manager Sean Baptiste as he strolls past a giant gong used to call staff meetings to order.

Harmonix's history is the classic "Behind the Music" story of the 10-year "overnight" sensation, complete with career setbacks and band breakups. In fact, Harmonix lost the Guitar Hero franchise when game giant Activision bought it, along with the game's plastic guitar maker, two years ago. So Guitar Hero III, the latest version, is now playing for a different company. But Rigopulos and Egozy hooked up with MTV, which acquired Harmonix in November 2006 for $175 million and bankrolled Rock Band. MTV, part of media giant Viacom, gave Rock Band the star treatment, with promotions at the Video Music Awards and even its own "Behind the Music" episode.

Having created a monster market in musical pantomime, the challenge for the gaming glimmer twins is topping themselves. But Rigopulos and Egozy don't seem daunted. Lounging on couches inside the "Star Chamber," a soundproof room where Rock Band plays on a continuous loop on a massive TV, CEO Rigopulos (a rock drummer) looks goth in his black hoodie, while chief technical officer Egozy (a classical clarinetist) looks preppy in his chinos and button-down shirt.

Read the Full Story Here

 Electronic Arts' famed "Can A Computer Make You Cry?" print ad, which departing exec Bing Gordon helped create 

Once we got wind last week of William 'Bing' Gordon's impending departure from Electronic Arts, we quickly sought a pre-briefing, to which the PR teams at both Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers graciously assented. We spoke by phone yesterday evening with Gordon, whose laconic California drawl belies one of the industry's most colorful and outspoken characters. Last night's chat, however, found him in a more contemplative mood, as he looked back at his tenure at EA--where he's credited with everything from creating the EA Sports brand to founding EA's studio system--and forward at the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as he enters the dizzying world of venture capital. To give you a sample of our conversation as quickly as possible, we've given Gordon the Just the FAQs treatment, but we plan to publish a more complete Q&A from our wide-ranging conversation in the days to come.

Why did Gordon decide to leave Electronic Arts for Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers?

Three reasons. First, he's comfortable with the partners at Kleiner Perkins. "I've known the leading partners at Kleiner since John Doerr and Brook Byers made a founding investment in Electronic Arts in '82," Gordon told us. "Then Brook went on the board, and Brook was kind of the cool guy on the board; deeply believes in entertainment and entrepreneurial possibilities. So he shaped my thinking about what a board member can be."

Over the last decade, Gordon has stopped by Kleiner Perkins from time to time to see what they've been up to. This, he says, resulted in him being invited to join the boards of such Kleiner Perkins investments as Amazon and Audible. "I kind of have 25 years with them. Like 'em; get my best reading list from them. So that's kind of the first thing: long experience and love for the Kleiner way of doing things."

What's the second reason?

With an empty nest looming as his daughters go off to college, he's been wondering about the second act in his American life. "I've got 15 more years to do something—might be cool to do something else" says Gordon of his thought process. "The first thing that popped into my head was Kleiner. Just unbidden, popped into my mind."

And the third?

To read the rest of today's installment of Just the FAQs, click on the link below.

 The Hospital Fees mini-game from Bright Light and EA's Monopoly

After we spent a good 20 minutes playing Electronic Arts' Hasbro, we were intrigued enough by it to set up an interview with the developers at EA's Bright Light studio in the U.K. On Friday, we spoke by phone with creative director Matt Birch and producer Darren Potter. We'll try to bring you the entire interview at a later date, but for now, here's a sample of what we discussed in another installment of Just the FAQs.

Monopoly has been around forever. What's different about this?

The highlight of EA's Monopoly is a mode that they're calling The Richest. "The idea with The Richest was to take advantage of the speed of computing to make a game that a modern family could sit down and play in 20 or 30 minutes," says Matt Birch, the game's creative director. Think of it as the speed chess version of the game you know and love.

Interesting, but vague. How does it work?

For The Richest, your goal is still to amass the most wealth, but here, you keep score with assets. The more properties you own, the richer you are. When you land on a property that no-one owns, it's yours. But when you land on a property that someone else owns, you have to give them one of your properties as rent--and vice-versa.

I get that. But what's with the speed chess analogy?

To read the rest of this installment of Just the FAQs, 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.

 Dilbert's Punchline mashups on the recently-relaunched Dilbert.com Web site

This morning, Scott Adams and United Media officially announced the upgrade relaunch of Dilbert.com., the companion Web site to Adams' long-running comic strip. With the relaunch of the original site via a soft launch last week, Dilbert has officially moved into the 21st century, with features ranging from Dilbert's Punchline (which lets you test your wit against Adams' by rewriting the punchline to that day's strip) to animated shorts. Adams was kind enough to spare some time for an email interview; here's what he had to say about Dilbert 2.0--and whether or not the nation's cubicle drone-in-chief has more of a future in videogames. Read on.

How long has Dilbert 2.0 been in the works?

The planning started a year ago. Obviously the technical work has been concentrated in the past several months.

What inspired it?

Dilbert is an early adopter, like most of my readers. I was the first syndicated cartoonist to include an email address in the strip and incorporate reader suggestions (1993), and the first syndicated comic to be offered on the Internet (1995). More recently we were the first to offer a widget for the strip. As the technology evolves, we look for ways to make Dilbert more participatory.

Many of the changes on the new site are a natural evolution, such as the color strips and the improved archive search. But the mashups are the exciting part. People like to talk more than they like to listen, and this makes Dilbert more of a conversation than a lecture. (More social, if I can use that buzzword.) You can see from the early volume of responses that the mashups are going to be huge.

How are the Cartoon Mashups going to work on your new site?

 The cover for the Pixies' 1989 album "Doolittle"

During our phone briefing yesterday with Harmonix CEO and co-founder Alex Rigopulos and Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president of Electronic Games & Music, we uncovered a slew of tidbits about their philosophy regarding future releases of albums, tracks and the overall Rock Band "platform," as term Rigopulos used on more than one occasion during our chat. We'll serve up the full text of this interview at a later date, but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights, in the form of an FAQ:

When is the next album coming out?

Next month.

What is it?

"The Cars," by, um, The Cars.

Anything after that?

In June, they plan to release "Doolittle," by the Pixies. "This is the beginning of what will be a regular flow of full albums," says Harmonix's Rigopulos.

"Who Are You"? More like "Where Are You"? Why wasn't The Who's "Who's Next" the first album release, as previously expected?

Because Harmonix does not yet have everything it needs to create all of the tracks. "We do require specialized audio mixes in the form of stems," says MTV's DeGooyer. "And to be perfectly candid, [Judas Priest's "Screaming For Vengeance'] is the first one that was ready."

Can I play "Screaming For Vengeance" as Rob Halford or Glenn Tipton?

To read the rest of our FAQ on Rock Band's full-length albums, click on the link below.

 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.

 Zoonami CEO and founder Martin Hollis at the 2008 Game Developers Conference 2008 

One of the great things about the Game Developers Conference is that you never know who you'll run into. As we hung around the conference room following Dylan Cuthbert's illuminating talk about the methodology behind his PixelJunk series of games for Playstation Network, we spotted none other than Martin Hollis, director and producer of the classic Nintendo 64 shooter GoldenEye 007. Hollis, who after leaving Rare went on to found a new development studio named Zoonami, was kind enough to chat with us for a few moments. We asked him what he thought of the current state of videogames, and he replied that the last three-quarters of 2007 and early 2008 represented a Golden Age of gaming, led by BioShock and Portal. Prior to that, the pioneer of great console first-person shooters confessed that he'd been suffering from FPS burnout.

After that bit of small talk, we went in for the kill: what was Hollis himself up to next? Because while the smaller, more casual games that Zoonami has been developing are all well and good--Zendoku, Go! Puzzle and the as-yet-unreleased Funkydilla--what GoldenEye and Perfect Dark fans really want to know is if he'll ever swing for the fences again. Smiling, he said that 2007's bumper crop had reawakened his interest in making games that require big teams. But he added that we should not take that statement to mean that he was in fact working on a big team game. Nor could he tell us what he was working on. Could he, we wondered, tell us when he'd be able to tell us what he was working on? He thought about it for a second, then said that even if he knew when he could tell us what he was working on, he wouldn't be able to tell me that either. Faced with Hollis' unyielding secrecy, we gave up and said, "It seems as though you're going back to your 00 roots." At that, he laughed, and our entertaining but fruitless conversation came to a close.

 NCsoft executive producer Richard Garriott

When we got the report that Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax had passed away, we first shared our own reminiscences on The Pen-and-Paper Game That Started It All. Then we reached out to some of the top computer and videogame developers--those who either work in the role-playing game genre or whose titles are clearly inspired by RPGs--to find out how D&D influenced them both personally and professionally. Our next respondent is the legendary Richard "Lord British" Garriott, justly celebrated for his pioneering work on the Ultima series of role-playing games and the equally visionary massively multiplayer online game Ultima Online. His most recently released project is NCsoft's MMO Tabula Rasa. Here's what he told us.

What do you remember about your first experience with Dungeons & Dragons?

I remember it well. I was spending a summer in high school in 1977 at the University of Oklahoma. Some students who had arrived for the summer classes before me gave me the nickname British, as they thought the accent I picked up growing up next door to NASA was British. (Thus many of my early characters were named British, which became my eventual pen name.) I was simply amazed by this wondrous fantasy game. That same summer I set myself to writing fantasy games on the computers of the day.

How did your parents feel about you playing D&D?

My mother was the neighborhood den mother and helped host our Friday and Saturday evening games, which often included games going on in several rooms at once. She would often play with us, or make food for the all-night affairs.

Were you primarily a dungeon master or a player?

 EA Mythic general manager Mark Jacobs

When we got the report that Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax had passed away, we first shared our own reminiscences on The Pen-and-Paper Game That Started It All. Then we reached out to some of the top computer and videogame developers--those who either work in the role-playing game genre or whose titles are clearly inspired by RPGs--to find out how D&D influenced them both personally and professionally. Our next respondent is EA Mythic general manager Mark Jacobs, best known for his work on massively multiplayer online games like Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Here's what he told us.

What do you remember about your first experience with Dungeons & Dragons?

In 1977, I was in college at Syracuse University. One evening I was sitting in the basement of my girlfriend’s house, and I saw a magazine article about gifts for Christmas. The article singled out Dungeons & Dragons as a particularly incomprehensible game. Well, that was all I needed to hear, and the next day I went searching for the game. I found it at a local gaming store in Syracuse--I believe it was called Nebulous Books--and from the moment I bought the white-boxed set, I was hooked. 

How did your parents feel about you playing D&D?

They both hated it with a passion and thought that, quite frankly, I was wasting my time and losing track of reality by playing the game. Of course, they said the same thing about my desire to make computer games two years later in 1979, so you can see how well I listened to them.

Were you primarily a dungeon master or a player?

 Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack

When we got the report that Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax had passed away, we first shared our own reminiscences on The Pen-and-Paper Game That Started It All . Then we reached out to some of the top computer and videogame developers--those who either work in the role-playing game genre or whose titles are clearly inspired by RPGs--to find out how D&D influenced them both personally and professionally. Our next respondent is Silicon Knights president and Level Up guest contributor Denis Dyack, best known for his work on such titles as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, and the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive Too Human. Here's what he told us.

What do you remember about your first experience with Dungeons & Dragons?

I remember breaking open the Monster Compendium and spending time looking at the different types of dragons and marveling at the different complexities of their attacks and variations--everything from acid to poison. I really liked the systematic breakdown of the different creatures from mythologies to other folklore.

How did your parents feel about you playing D&D?

My parents were completely fine with it. In fact, they were fine with everything I did when delving into hobbies like D&D. If anything, they encouraged and taught me when I was young not to believe in many of the stereotypes and fear mongering that occurs in society. They also made sure, of course, that I not only played these types of games, but also participated in sports and kept up in school.

Were you primarily a dungeon master or a player?

 Bethesda Softworks executive producer Todd Howard 

When we got the report that Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax had passed away, we first shared our own reminiscences on The Pen-and-Paper Game That Started It All . Then we reached out to some of the top computer and videogame developers--those who either work in the role-playing game genre or whose titles are clearly inspired by RPGs--to find out how D&D influenced them both personally and professionally. Our next respondent is Bethesda Softworks executive producer Todd Howard, whose projects have included the 2006 hit Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the forthcoming Fallout 3. Here's what he had to say. 

What do you remember about your first experience with Dungeons & Dragons?

My earliest memory was going with my brother to a game store called Conflicts and my parents dropping us off on a Tuesday night to play this “D&D” game. The next three hours were a revelation. It was like a new gateway into awesomeness was opened for me. This was the summer of 1978, if I remember right, and I was eight. I can recall counting the days until each Tuesday. It’s one of my favorite memories, of real bonding time with my brother and others.

How did your parents feel about you playing D&D?

They encouraged it, maybe to get us out of the house. They didn’t seem scared of the whole “demons and hell” thing, despite that horrible Tom Hanks movie "Mazes and Monsters". They spent more time trying to stop me from listening to Kiss and asking for a “Kiss Army” shirt.

Were you primarily a dungeon master or a player?