Gamasutra got their hands on the NPD numbers for the title, which represent U.S. retail sales between May 19th and May 30th. To put things in perspective, Terminator Salvation, also developed by Sweden's Grin studio, sold 43,000 units in the same length of time. The contrast between sales of the two titles really says a great deal about how recognizable properties tend to blind consumers to game reviews. Bionic Commander garnered a Metacritic average of 70, while Terminator scored a measly 45 percent, yet the latter outsold the former by a good 16,000 copies.

Perhaps the low sales for Bionic Commando are simply a result of another month of declining video game sales, as the low numbers certainly aren't limited to Grin-developed titles. Another game released on May 19th, Ea's Boom Blox Bash Party for the Wii, only sold 23,000 units during the same period, though of course that title was a console exclusive and Bionic Commando appeared on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

While no information was available as to how the consoles split those 27,000 copies, sources tell us that the Xbox 360 demo, as dismal as it may have been, did manage to boost sales on Microsoft's console significantly.

Slow sales can't possibly be good for Grin of course, already the subject of rumored layoffs late last month. Despite the rumors and poor performance, I ran into a couple of Grin folks at E3 earlier this month who seemed completely upbeat, and when I asked "Aren't you guys supposed to be fired?" they simply laughed and handed me a pair of Grin-embroidered socks. I suppose that could mean something in Sweden.

Killzone Leads Infamous For Biggest 2009 PS3 Original: The PlayStation 3 push for original first-party games gave the world Killzone 2 in February, which managed 323,000 units sold in its first two days of sales. Infamous, the next big PS3 original, which was on sale for four days during the latest sales reporting period, sold 176,000.

UFC Pummels Punch-Out: Great reviews and an aggressive web marketing campaign from Nintendo didn't help the Wii edition of Punch-Out compete in the same league with THQ's PS3/Xbox 360 UFC: Undisputed. The cartoony boxing game managed about 150k in sales, while UFC cracked a million, despite the games being released within a day of each other.

A Rare Wii Third-Party Fast-Starter: Usually, third-party games on the Wii don't start strong. There are exceptions. For example, launched in 2006, Red Steel reached a million units sold on the Wii in about six months. Guitar Hero III sold more than 200,000 on the Wii in its first month of sales in late 2007. But most third-party Wii games have crept softly out of the gate while the likes of Wii Fit and Wii Play garnered more glory. Not this month! Enter EA Sports Active, making one of the best debuts of a third-party game on the Wii with about 346,000 units sold.

Notable new releases that failed to make the overall software top 10 (selling under 109,000 units in the U.S.): Battlestations Pacific (May 12), Bionic Commando (May 19), Boom Blox Bash Party (May 19), Terminator Salvation (May 19), Personal Trainer Walking (May 25)

May 2009 U.S. Video Game Hardware Sales - NPD-PD version
Daily averages based on the May NPD date range: 5/3/09-5/30/09

Nintendo DS - 22,625 units/day (down 15,894)
Wii - 10,339 units/day (down 2,254)
Xbox 360 - 6,250 units/day (down 231)
PS3 - 4,679 units/day (up 25)
PS2 - 4,179 units/day (down 2,191)
PSP - 3,586 units/day (down 710)

(Find out more about the Kotaku-patented NPD-PD stat)

Crystalline II - A level made by EA's Boom Blox team. A gold medal if it can be toppled with three slingshot shots.
World Domination - This is a competitive level also made by EA's developers. The map starts all in brown, but players throw paintballs to claim terrain.
Mission Space - Of course we searched for user-made levels built from Mario or Sonic or other "properties." We found none, but did find this Star Wars-looking ship.
Independence Day - One baseball throw at the purple block above the White House detonates the structure, just like in the movie.
IGN 4Ever - User Matty Boy made this level, which comes with the instructions: "Blow up IGN." Casamassina, is that you?
Destroy the Wii! - This one's user-made. The description says: "Get points for throwing baseballs at your Wii! Just like in real life!"
Unfortunately, if you leave the level alone, the Wii begins to collapse on its own...
... and is left in rubble. The downloadable levels are free and there already seem to be plenty of them, a significant feature upgrade from the original Boom Blox. Who's making a Kotaku level?

Normally a job reserved for Japanese idols, voice actors and bikini models, EA has tapped Mr. Spielberg to hold aloft his latest Wii creation, showing expert product placement with a hint of a smile that shows just how pleasing a game of Boom Blox Bash Party can be.

Kudos go out to Spielberg's stylist, who downplays the Steven with a tasteful, homogeneously brown blend of merino wool, suede and corduroy, so as not to distract from the zany Boom Blox Bash Party box art.

Full-on Spielberg modeling after the break!

The idea to create an accessible Electronic Arts database of player-created levels came to the team after perusing the extensive list of videos on YouTube showing interesting player created levels, said Amir Rahimi, senior producer on the game.

Players can quickly hop onto the server and browse through the levels with a number of different sorts, including how often a level was played, how high its rating is and when it was created, he said. And every game mode in Bash Party has a download option.

When you drop into the option you can click on any of the levels to play them without having to worry about saving them to your Wii. If you do like a level, you can then choose to download it to the console.

Rahimi said that the console could store hundreds of the levels in its memory with each level only a few K. He said the game won't support saving levels to SD cards because that feature came along too late for the developers to use.

The development team also plans to support the serves by creating and uploading their own levels after the game launches. The developer designed levels will be free, but he wasn't sure yet if they would be released individually or as packs.

This time around, the developers appear to have focused most of their efforts on beefing up the multiplayer and making it a faster, more engaging experience.

What It Is
The next iteration of Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox increases the focus on group play, highlighting the ability for gamers to play together or against one another in a series of challenges and mini games.

Boom Blox Bash Party has about twice as much multiplayer as the original title and a bit more single player, with close to 450 levels shipping with the game. The game also has four new worlds with different environmental affects on the blox and supports the ability to create and share levels without the need of friend codes.

What We Saw
I played several games with three others using a variety of new tools like the virus ball, canon and slingshot.

How Far Along Is it?
The game is beta with the team concentrating on fixing bugs. The Wii game is do out in spring, likely May.

What Needs Improvement?

Box Art: Wow, that's some ugly box art. The attention diverting yellow band is augmented by a single sentence pitch in the middle of the box. Let's sex it up, maybe get Spielberg to whip something up for you.

What Needs to Stay the Same?
The New Modes: My chief complaint with the last game was that there weren't enough ways for me to play it with my son. In fact, the multiplayer modes felt so lacking that we ended up charging through the single player levels by passing the remote. With more than twice as many ways to play together and tons of new modes, I can't see that being a problem this time around.

Interactive Characters: The characters are stackable, and when stacked their frozen like blocks, but once freed some of them get up to mischief. The monkey, for instance, will start whipping things at other characters in the game as you play.

Environments: The introduction of setting in space and underwater add a whole new facet to the game. When playing in space you have to knock floating blocks out of a transparent grid. While playing underwater you have to knock your blocks to the awaiting pirate ship on the surface.

New Blox and Balls: The virus ball infects the blocks it touches, which explode and infect other nearby boxes causing a chain reation. The cannon can blow apart walls of blox and the slingshot turns anything, including characters into a projectile.

Boom Bux: With the addition of collectible Boom Bux hidden on every level, players can now unlock the game in any order they'd like. Just spend the cash to go and play how you want.

Final Thoughts
The developers seem to have concentrated on trying to maintain everything that was good with the original game, while beefing up the areas that were dinged the first time around.

While I love that they've doubled the multiplayer, something that makes this a must buy for me, I'm still doubtful that the single player experience will deliver the story and action that so many felt was lacking the first time around.

While Boom Blox's success can be argued—EA CEO John Riccitiello would probably call it a hit—the brand doesn't get much cover love in the sequel. In fact, your rods and cones are probably feeling unloved too, as the the cover art for the forthcoming "high-energy action-puzzle game for everyone" is total chaos. Maybe not as headache-inducing as Germany's revamped budget box art for Metal Gear Solid 4, but visually numbing nonetheless.

That bright yellow band to the left there might imply that EA has designs on labeling its Wii games like so—or at least for future Boom Blox sequels. We're pretty sure it wants more of those Wii party dollars to itself.

I sorta enjoyed the first game, but I'm not sure it was enough to make me want to play the second.

Early this morning Electronic Arts announced that they are working on a sequel to Wii ball-tosser Boom Blox. Boom Blox Bash Party comes with 400 new levels and some interesting settings, including under water and in zero gravity.

"In BOOM BLOX Bash Party we are taking the game elements to the extreme,” said Amir Rahimi, Senior Producer. “In the original BOOM BLOX, we really focused on perfecting the game’s physics so now we can push the boundaries of physics, offering exciting new challenges and completely new ways to play.”

The game also includes new characters that you can build with and throw, new tools and block types like the virus and conveyor blox and new blox shapes.

Boom Blox Bash Party also has Internet support, allowing gamers to download new levels from both EA and other gamers.

Coming so soon after the first game, Bash Party's focus is on polishing the experience and offering new features, such as new blocks, new tools, new actions, new multiplayer modes and new characters.

Most inspiring of the additions, however, is the introduction of user-generated DLC, with players promised the ability to download and rate new levels from both EA and other users.

Steven Spielberg is excited:

Boom Blox Bash Party is a wild social gaming experience. We know families and friends really enjoyed playing the original Boom Blox together, so we designed more explosive multiplayer experiences with Boom Blox Bash Party.

He's excited, we're (kinda) excited too.

Spielberg, EA play "Boom Blox" sequel [Reuters]