Boom Blox

SAN FRANCISCO--Today, Nintendo kicked off its media summit at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco, and thus far the event has proven to be a font of information. Earlier today, the publisher took the wraps off of Mario Super Sluggers, a Wii reimagining of Mario Superstar Baseball for the GameCube. In a press conference, the publisher also dished on the upcoming Wii Fit as well as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Explorers of Space for the Nintendo DS.

One other game shown during Nintendo's opening remarks was Boom Blox, an action puzzle game for the Wii developed by EALA and creatively inspired by Hollywood auteur Steven Spielberg. While EA had previously given Boom Blox a broad May release window, the publisher said today during its demonstration of the game that Boom Blox will stack up on Nintendo's console beginning May 6.

As noted in GameSpot's previous coverage, Boom Blox plays on the joy of building up an impressive structure and then wantonly smashing it to pieces. EA has created nearly 400 block-filled levels for the game's single-player mode, and an additional 200 for Boom Blox's adversarial and co-op modes, in addition to a fully featured level editor for custom scenario creation. More than a simple building-block game, Boom Blox plays heavy to physics simulation, and players will be afforded a wide variety of often-volatile ways to implode structures.

The game also features the kind of charming humor that has become a hallmark of family-friendly games appearing on the Wii. More than 30 specially created characters will appear in the game, and each will impact gameplay in their own ways.