Details emerge on Spielberg's EA video game initiative

Some of the very first details have emerged about Steven Spielberg's video game partnership with Electronic Arts.

According to Newsweek, the famed film director is working on a game code-named PQRS--note the sequential letters--that "neatly blends the creativity of the building-blocks game Jenga with the charm of a Saturday-morning cartoon."

Newsweek said the game, which will run on Nintendo's hit Wii console, has a physics engine designed to allow players to move blocks around with the Wii controller.

The second game, code-named LMNO--also sequential letters, hmmm--is for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 and the magazine pegged it as "North by Northwest meets E.T.--if E.T. were female, grown up and, um, hot."

The game is a secret agent game, and Spielberg told Newsweek, "The challenge is, can the game have an emotional impact on players while they are actively manipulating the world?"

There's also a third game in the works, but nothing is yet known about that one.

All three games are being created in EA's Los Angeles studio, and the titles could go a long way towards addressing a criticism that has been leveled at the company by some that it focuses too much on putting out franchise games and not enough on original titles. Whether that is fair is another question, but if the Spielberg games are a hit, it might be some time before anyone mentions that again.