Celebrity Byte

Spielberg at a film oremiere

Did the concept of the animals and the themes that gave Boom Blox its personality, was that an early part of the idea or something later folded into the design?

It was an early idea I had, because I thought there needed to be a rooting section. I wanted a peanut gallery of these characters jumping up and down and applauding, with fireworks going off if you did well, and looking really sad if you failed. Part of the initial concept was that we weren't going to use the Wii characters, but we were going to make our own Noah's ark of characters.

Is Boom Blox something that still gets played at the Spielberg household?

We do. They play it a lot when they're not doing the other Wii game where they're exercising. We have a lot of Wii Fit at home right now.

What other kinds of games do you like to play with your kids?

We have the 360 and a PS3, but my younger kids are devotees of the Wii. We have a Wii version of Guitar Hero. We all enjoy playing that as a family, which we do more than I really want to admit. We play Rock Band. That's what we've been playing for the last year.

Filmmakers are learning things from videogames. Movies are starting to look more and more like videogames...

When you play Rock Band, what role do you assume?

One thing I can do is hit a drum. So that's what I do.

Do you play games on your own?

I play a lot of action games. I go into the store and find a game that looks compelling, or I get one that one of the folks at EA suggests I try, and I take it home and I play it. There have been a lot of games, including all the sequels for Medal of Honor, that I've really admired. I love the direction it's taken. I also like the competitive games. I'm currently playing Call of Duty 4. A lot of these first person shooters are very interesting.

You know the thing that doesn't work for me in these games are the little movies where they attempt to tell a story in between the playable levels. That's where there hasn't been a synergy between storytelling and gaming. They go to a lot of trouble to do these [motion-capture] movies that explain the characters. And then the second the game is returned to you and it's under your control, you forget everything the interstitials are trying to impact you with, and you just go back to shooting things. And that has not found its way into a universal narrative. And I think more has to be done in that arena.

Some games avoid those cutscenes altogether. Are you familiar with Half-Life?

Yeah, I've played Half-Life, of course. But some games will not let you quit out. I think Battlefield: Bad Company, which I played though, doesn't let you escape the interstitials. I do applaud them for trying the storytelling. It's important to try to invest in these characters you don't get to see when you're playing them. You only get to see them during the little movies. But you don't get to see the faces or recognize the foxhole buddies when you're just targeting the enemy. Yet I applaud them for at least attempting to tell a story.

Do you feel that filmmakers can learn anything from videogames? And if so, what?

I think filmmakers are learning things from videogames. Movies are starting to look more and more like videogames, like the digital introductory teasers videogames give you before they turn control over to the player. A lot of movies, like this movie with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy called Wanted. It had a lot of videogame savvy. The Bourne Ultimatum had a lot of videogame savvy in the quick cuts and the audacity of camera angle.

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