Wow. I found this out while listening to the Giant Bomb podcast this morning: Oakland’s own Raphael Saadiq (Tony! Toni! Toné!, Lucy Pearl) has a video game company called Illfonic! This kind of blows my mind. And they have a game coming out shortly as part of Microsoft’s Xbox Live “Arcade House Party” promotion.
The game is called Nexuiz and drops February 29th for about $10. It’s a first person shooter powered by Unreal Engine 3 and it doesn’t look bad at all. Check a screenshot below:
Looks kinda dope, right? It’ll also be released on PC via Steam and on the the PlayStation 3 Network (PSN) at a later date.
I’m a huge fan Saadiq so this odd pairing of homeboy and games caught me off guard. But apparently he’s a huge gamer. Speaking with TheBoomBox.com, Saadiq had this to say:
“We all play video games all the time, and a friend of mine works for Russell Simmons and she works on a video game and she was coming to town to do voice overs for Snoop and I told her I wanted to be in the game, but just playing. She said, ‘Well, we don’t let R&B singers in the game.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m going to make my own game and I’m going to call it ‘Ghetto Golf.” I was just joking and laughing with her, but when she left, Chuck [Brundgardt, my recoding engineer said], ‘Hey, you serious? You really want to do that?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we should,’ and he [said], ‘You know I went to school for that.”
Saadiq and Chuck created Illfonic in 2007 and have been hitting up indie game shows and conventions such as PAX every year to spread the word about their fledging studio and publishing arm. “IllFonic is committed to delivering AAA games digitally to consoles and PC at an affordable price,” reads the website.
I don’t know. I’m still kinda buggin. Check out the links for more info. And congrats Saadiq, Chuck & Illfonic. An independent videogame company may be a first in the world of R&B/hiphop.
Additional links:
– Illfonic Website
– Interview with Saadiq at TheBoomBox.com
– Nexuiz at Xbox.com