Don't Scared To Talk

Boom Blox, a collaborative creation by Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts, is part of a three-game deal between Spielberg and EA. According to Amir Rahimi, senior producer, "Steven came up with the idea for the game after playing Wii Sports with Shigeru Miyamoto. He then came to EA with a very simple and universal idea to build a game that leverages the Wii Remote and allows players to stack up blocks and knock them over. It was also very important to him to create a game that he could play with his family."

That's the easiest way to understand what Boom Blox is all about, even though the game is huge with 300 levels, several different types of game modes, and a cast of 30 wacky block characters. Not only that but you can construct your own levels with an editor that enables you to create your own games, too.

Rahimi says that between film projects, Spielberg would visit the EA offices every week to review progress on the game, provide feedback, and pitch ideas. "Steven would take early versions home," he recalls, "to play with his family."

One of the fascinating things about Boom Blox is that while it appears to be simple to play every puzzle challenges you to come up with unique strategic solutions. This is a Wii Remote-only game with a primary gameplay mechanic that's literally a snap to learn. In most levels you're confronted by some structure that's composed of stacks of blocks of different shapes and sizes. Just like the ones you might have constructed as a kid, every block building looks like it might topple over at any minute. Boom Blox, however, is about you tossing something into it to knock it all down.

To do that, you need to zero in on a block you'd like to hit. Just point the Remote like a flashlight and you can rotate the camera all around the structure see every nook and cranny.

When you find a potential target, you aim a cursor somewhere on a block, press and hold A to lock it onto the spot. Draw the Remote back like a fly swatter, and then flick it forward while simultaneously releasing A to toss a projectile. And there's a ton of stuff to throw. Baseballs, bowling balls, Eight balls, footballs, other blocks, all kinds of items become potential weapons of mass Blox destruction. The impressively robust Boom Blox physics engine endows each one with the appropriate mass and velocity, too.

Once your shot connects, Blox puts on a spectacular show of chaos and collision. And if you hit just the right spot, you might knock the entire thing over with just one shot. Some structures have exploding blox in place. Hit one of those and the debris really flies!

Other Blox challenges require you to grab and pull with the Remote. Similar to Jenga, you pull out certain pieces except that you're trying to make others fall.

In all the puzzles, you're under some sort of time limit and sometimes you're tasked to knock something down to advance a brief story line. In adventure mode you travel through four differently themed worlds--a medieval world, a wild west world, a haunted world, and a tiki island. Each world is a self-contained little story that casts you in good versus evil battles starring Blox creatures.

Boom Blox also looks like a cool party game, too. Multiplayer mode consists of competitive and cooperative games. There are 70-plus levels where two people join forces to figure out the puzzles. In competitive mode up to four players can play against each other in 11 different game modes.

If you prefer to blast apart your own constructions, create mode enables you to remix any level in the game with blocks, props, and even characters or you can just design your own. Additionally, you can engineer massive block "machines" that operate not unlike those domino designs where tipping one domino over makes all the others fall in sequence.