Spielberg's Wii and PS3/360 Projects Detailed

In 2005, Electronic Arts announced that acclaimed film director Steven Spielberg (1941, The Sugarland Express, Always) would be overseeing three new video games to be developed by internal studio EALA. Now, Newsweek has published details on two of the three titles, one for Wii and one for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, respectively codenamed PQRS and LMNO. PQRS, in development for Wii, is a physics-based action puzzle game that has players using the Wii remote to spatially manipulate building blocks within the game world. Gameplay details are slim at this time, but Newsweek reports that Spielberg is confident the game will have a broad appeal. "It just seemed like a great thing for the entire family to play together over Christmas," he said. "Although you don't need the excuse of a holiday to enjoy it." LMNO, heading to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, sounds more in line with Spielberg's silver screen productions. The action game's player character is a former secret agent partnered with a female NPC whose in-game abilities are influenced by her interactions with the player. According to story author N'Gai Croal's impressions of the game, the AI character sports impressively realistic human traits. As far back as 2004, Spielberg (pictured above right) expressed interest in the emotive power of video games, a topic frequently condensed into the question of whether video games are capable of eliciting tears from their players. At the time, the director claimed that "video games are getting closer to a storytelling art form--but are not quite there yet." EALA general manager Neil Young (pictured above left) had similar opinions. No release date information was given for the upcoming titles. Electronic Arts is likely to release more information during its upcoming E3 press conference, scheduled for 2:00pm PDT on Wednesday, July 11. Shacknews plans to feature live reporting from the proceedings. Further inquiries have been sent to Electronic Arts regarding today's reports, but a response had not been received at the time this story was published.