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.

Back in October, it was announced that director Steven Spielberg signed on with Electronic Arts for three games. Well, how's the creative process going? Electronic Arts LA's Neil Young sat down with Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield and dished on working with the famous filmmaker.

Basically, it's Steven, Doug Church who's producing his first game, me, a couple of the designers, Ryan Church [no relation to Doug], who did the walkers for War of the Worlds, so he's worked with Steven before. So we sit in a room, and we've been going through the story of the first product, and what we really want to center on. And then we take the game features, and try to tie all those things together.

Young also says the moviemaker comes into the office every week, is "pretty conversant in the medium" and "he plays a lot of games." Sounds like Spielberg is bringing more to the project than simply name recognition. Good on 'im. —Brian Ashcraft

Full Interview [Gamasutra] via Slashdot

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The head of Electronic Arts LA studio, Neil Young, was kind enough to take the time to sit down with me at E3 this year to talk about the future of EA and the industry. Forgive my voice, I had pretty much lost it at this point in the show. We uploaded our video interview in three parts. Part one deals with Electronic Arts take on the Wii's unique controller and if it will effect the way they develop games, EA's approach to movie to game adaptation and the developer's work with Steven Spielberg. I'll be posting parts two and three a bit later tonight. —Brian Crecente

Games Industry is reporting that movie mogul Steven Spielberg inked a deal to work with EA on creating three new franchises. Maybe with Spielberg on board EA can generate some original intellectual property and we'll get ever-closer to the one-console, EA-run future.

Spielberg to Collaborate with EA on Three New Titles [Games Industry]