Patrick Stewart to narrate War of the Worlds for XBLA/PSN

With further proof it's a great era to be a geek comes word Other Ocean Interactive has nabbed Patrick Stewart (Star Trek's Captain Jean Luc Picard, X-Men's Charles Xavier, Bambi II's The Great Prince) as the narrator for its forthcoming game adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds.

“As a young boy, I remember watching the The War of the Worlds so many times I was quoting the lines,” noted Stewart in today's announcement, recalling, “The alien invasion both terrified and fascinated me and the movie has stuck with me since then. Now, being part of this project will provide a new way for gamers around the world to experience a fresh new take on a classic.”

Revealed in June, War of the Worlds is a 2D action platformer inspired by the classic 1953 sci-fi movie, which wasbased on the super-classic 1938 Halloween radio broadcast, which was itself born from the extra-super-classic 1898 novel. It will, according Other Ocean's press release, “Follow the exploits of an unknown everyman struggling to escape the Martian invasion of London and rescue his family”, as well as pay homage to other sci-fi side scrollers like Flashback and Out of the World.

ForOther Ocean Interactive- astudio best known for handling downloadable parody games (Duty Calls, Dark Void Zero), XBLA Ports (Castlevania: Symphony of Night) and licensed DStitles (CSI: Deadly Intent) - tackling one of the geekdom's most hallowed texts seems a tad ambitious. But then, judging by these new screenshots, the developers appear to have a goodhandle on their subject matter:

War of the Worlds will set down for PSN and XBLA later this year.

Jun 14, 2011