Newsweek has an exclusive article about two of the games that are being made by Electronic Arts in collaboration with Steven Spielberg. The second one, code-named LMNO, is executive-produced by Doug Church, who joined Electronic Arts about two years ago. It sounds intriguing:

The second game, code-named LMNO and made for Xbox 360 and PS3, can be described as "North by Northwest" meets "E.T." —if E.T. were female, grown up and, um, hot. You don't play as the girl, however. You're an ex-secret agent, and the bond that you forge while on the run with the computer-controlled woman—good, bad, indifferent—determines the nature of her special abilities and the ways in which she'll assist you. Says Spielberg: "The challenge is, can the game have an emotional impact on players while they are actively manipulating the world?" Based on the clever ways in which he and EA are extracting a genuine performance from their digital Eve—complete with eyes that widen, lips that curl and translucent skin that lights up in different colors to express her quicksilver moods—we think Spielberg's got yet another hit on his hands.

(PQRS and LMNO... I like project codenames. Too bad this scheme doesn't scale.)

Very smart to focus on making one character more believable. Knowing Doug I expect that the game will be heavy on AI, and that the AI will serve the player experience. Making the artificial character an alien is a good way of dealing with the uncanny valley, and working with Mr. Spielberg (especially with the 'E.T.' connection) makes that palatable. Try pitching it without that.

Even before I heard Mr. Spielberg was involved, I tried to somehow join that project - one of the few cold calls I made when looking for a new job last year. Obviously, it was an extreme long shot and didn't work out (and I rationalize wonder if I would have liked EA, and LA, and working on a project that has as big a name as Spielberg involved). Still, AI and storytelling, that's still pretty much my dream project.

We will see if it's fun. I admire many aspects of EA as a company, but after The Godfather I no longer underestimate their ability to turn promising ideas into something that is somehow less than exciting (which is why I haven't reported on their upcoming Simpsons game, even though what they're doing sounds cool). I wonder how much Doug has been able to influence that.

(Via roBin.)