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Its been a long time coming, but we finally have some actual details about the first game to emerge from thepartnership between Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts.

Known asBoom Blox, the game, which will be available in May only on theWii, is from EAs casual games unit.

It will have more than 300 levels, a cast of over thirty wacky characters and seems to be built around letting players take on Blox-laying chickens cartoon grim reaper tattoosor…baseball-throwing monkeys or cartoonlike grim reapers in tiki, medieval, frontier, or haunted themed settings.

Boom Blox is the first game to emerge from the collaboration between Electronic Arts and Steven Spielberg.

EA has never said a lot about the Spielberg partnership beyond the ct that the director would be spending occasional time at the companys Los Angeles studio. Its also never been entirely clear exactly how involved Spielberg has been in the creation of the games, or how much involvement hell have going forward. EA has said there would be at least three games under the terms of a deal first made public in 2005.

Last summer,Newsweekpublished a story describing the game that is now known asBoom Bloxas blending the creativity of the building-blocks game Jenga with the charm of a Saturday-morning cartoon.

Based on what EA said Wednesday, that seems about right.

Newsweekalso wrote at the time that thesecond gamein the EA/Spielberg partnership was code-named LMNO and would be released for theXbox 360andPlayStation 3consoles. The magazine said at the time the game would beNorth by NorthwestmeetsE.T.–if E.T. were female, grown up and, um, hot.

Nothing is yet known about the third game planned for the partnership.

One thing that hasnt been discussed is how EA will market these games. For instance, will their retail boxes mention Spielberg directly, and if so, how prominently?

It does seem like putting the first game out for the Wii is a good idea, what with the runaway success of that console and EAs need for big new hits.

Another smart move is switching consoles for the second game, because Spielberg brings unparalleled name recognition and even ifBoom Bloxflops, the audience for the second game will likely be quite different and unaffected by what happens with the first.

But ifBoom Bloxis a hit, it can only help everyone involved.

Still, because little is known about how much influence Spielberg has had on these games, its very hard to know if hes a full partner in the initiative or if hes just lending his name to the titles. It is hard to imagine the latter, since Spielberg probably isnt in dire need of the money hes likely to get out of the deal. More likely, he felt like he had some story-telling expertise to lend EA and a love of video games, a medium that he hasnt dabbled much in before.

Update: It does occur to me, however, that everyone involved in the Spielberg/EA project, let alone anyone who cares about Spielbergs legacy, would probably like to seeBoom Bloxand its successors do a whole lot better than one video game project he was–at least tangentially–involved in previously.

For those that dont remember, the 1982 Atari 2600 game,E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, based, obviously on Spielbergs smash-hit film of the same name, didnt quite do as well as the movie.

In ct,according to Wikipedia, the game was a flop of universal proportions, known by many as one of the biggest commercial ilures in video game history.

Of course, this was a very different situation. For one, theE.T.game was based on an existing franchise. For two, it seems as though Spielberg wasnt hands-on with the 1982 game in the way he is with the EA titles.

Still, its something to think about. And lets hope history doesnt repeat itself.

Daniel TerdimanDaniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between.

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Daniel Terdiman, uniquely positioned to take you into the middle of another side of technology, chronicles his explorations of the fun beat, from cultural phenomena such as Burning Man to cutting-edge aircraft to game conventions.

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