N'Gai and the Art of the Interview

N'Gai Croal is, in my opinion, one of the best gaming journalists in the industry today. His questions are incredibly insightful, penetrating and give his subjects an opportunity to promote their work in deeper and more interesting ways then simply harping on their feature set for the thousandth time. If it isn't already, his blog, Level Up, certainly belongs on your roll. In the short period I've had it in my RSS feed it has quickly joined the ranks of Joystiq and Game|Life as absolute daily must-reads.

Anyone familiar with Croal knows that lately he has been on a huge God Of War II Kick lately. His latest is a series of interviews with members of the core creative team behind GoW2 under the catchy heading: "Team Assault". So far he has interviewed Corey Barlog (creative director), Shannon Studstill (Executive Producer), and Tim Moss (lead programmer and CTO). I recommend them all as examples of excellent questions, but also excellent responses. These people are professional, composed and yet clearly extremely passionate. There is just the right combination (for my tastes) of controlled corporate speak and passionate exuberance that makes for really interesting reads.

• Corey Part 1
• Corey Part 2
• Shannon Studstill
  
• Tim Moss Part 1
• Tim Moss Part 2

I already respect the team at SCEA a great deal for putting out ground-breaking games but the way they've been handling themselves (and handled, I guess) post GOW2 launch has given me a whole new level of admiration. They're making our industry look good.