charles writes: I watched their little video game presentation today and it was surprisingly good. Games based on films are as a rule, almost always terrifyingly awful. (and films based on games follow this trend too, not surprisingly)

Well when you enter their little theatre, the guy says that it's "TOP SECRET" and he actually means it too. I've seen a few of these video game presentations before over the years and never has it been this strict. The guy actually suggests(in a friendly way) that if you have a digital camera or camcorder, to place it on the floor. And to keep your hands in your lap, no fidgeting around at eye level- he was joking about this... I think. There are also about 5 or 6 guys on the side monitoring the audience. I imagine all of this secrecy has something to do with the appearance of the big ape himself. Not even in the plethora of images released in the press kits have shown Kong at all. Here we see him, quite a bit of him.

As the video starts, it goes through a bit of a background on the game, with Peter himself talking about the collaboration with the game makers and how King Kong absolutely inspired him to be a filmmaker- that had it not existed he would've ended up being a banker I think is what he said . Then someone demonstrates by actually playing 3 or 4 sections of the game(projected on the big screen). Very impressed, I was not expecting much, and the fact that the game is very polished even at this stage is encouraging. Seeing as how PETER JACKSON's name is almost as big as the words KING KONG in the logo, it's good news for all involved that the game won't be a hack job! I don't want to play the "everything PJ touches is gold" angle but I'm sure his big involvement in the development has really paid off- although he's not the first to be involved in such a synergistic film/game venture. That title belongs to the Wachowski's and "Enter the Matrix", which was memorably bad.

Well, I guess I finally know what Kong himself is going to look like from the action shown(you play AS Kong in portions of the game), and I can only assume that the videogame model is pretty faithful to what will appear on film. The voice dubs were already in- unless those are some really good impersonators, that's Jack Black and Naomi Watts sounding off. Now I just want to see the film! With PJ approaching this with more passion than perhaps even LOTR, it should really be something.