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Spore Hands-On Impressions
Spore is being kept locked down on the show floor, available for preview only to members of the "Best in Show" committee, but there is still some information available for the rest of us. The official Spore site is now available for your examination, including an option to sign up for a newsletter. For hands on impressions, we turn to Gamespot and Gamespy. From the Gamespy article: "The game opens within the primordial soup, which absolutely teemed with blobs and squiggles of prehistoric life. As your creature evolved into a 3D environment and swam around in the sea, the water swarmed with life: plants, bubbles, little microorganisms. That same detail carried out once your critter walked out onto the land, where tiny insects buzzed around. Outer space was cluttered with comets, meteorites, gas clouds, and all sorts of interstellar phenomenon. Visually the game is a treat, not from state-of-the-art graphics but simply from a standpoint of detail and variety." Update: 05/20 15:43 GMT by Z : Wired has an interview with Wright at the expo on the game and what it means for gaming in general.
I don't think it will take on the level of popularity with "non-gamers" like the Sims did. It seems a little more "geeky" than the Sims. I can't wait for this.
Not for sale in Kansas!
The concept for this game is just plain silly, there is not such thing as evolution!
For a second I thought they were making a star trek game based off that one episode...
or will it be. I'm not sure the game world needs another Sims(tm) game.
But perhaps this will be another Katomari like hit.
Either way, I'm sure it will be a blast.
that this game could really grow on people.
Wow. I'd swear that's Mark Mothersbaugh doing the music. Is it true? I'm still angry that I can't buy a Crash Bandicoot soundtrack-- say what you will about the series but the music was great.
Maybe I ought to ask the biggest DEVO fan in the universe-- he ought to know.
Is it just me, or is anyone else freaked out by the SimCity 4 or SimCity 3000 (can't tell which, since I listen to both soundtracks all the time) music playing in the background at http://spore.ea.com/ ?
:)
I know they're both EA companies (Maxis and these other people), but it's still disturbing
Everything I read about Spore causes me to lose sleep due to anticipation. Why must you make your games look so appealing so far in advance of their release, Will Wright?
...but is it art?
... since playing Black and White. This sounds like another possibly quite impressive tech demo which was conceived during a bout of "I am a better game designer than you" one-upmanship. And like six separate stages of the game with completely different revolutionary mechanics? Thats great... how many of these are going to be fun to play? I'm not the type who shells out $50 to look at an avant-garde piece of digital art which happens to have some interactivity in the simulation.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
This game sounds a hell of a lot like E.V.O:The quest for eden for the SNES (or something like that). Basically you start out as a fish, eat other fish to get evo points, then get evolutionary things like fins and teeth and stuff. The game got very loopy at the end, but it sounds like a VERY similar premise.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
The only reason I am even bothering to follow this one is that it's Will Wright. C'mon, anyone who can turn out good games on a track record like his deserves some anticipation.
Just don't let him know, or he'll get caught up in the hype himself (Ahem, ahem, Fable? The entire freaking lionhead team???)
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
I had the opportunity to see Will Wright personally demo Spore at the Living Worlds games conference a couple of months back at Georgia Tech...and it looked incredible. The whole reaction and scripting driven system just made everything look awesome, and funny little creatures with razor sharp teeth, and extra hands growing from their posterior make for good laughs. The whole content-compression ratio, or however he described it is what will make the multiplayer universal thing great here though...a few kb of "dna" and you've got thousands of creatures across thousands of player's game worlds.
Jaron _ at _ ElectricInkPen.com Penning the Web Electric
For those who just don't want to evolve out of the primordial slime, is it possible to just stay a microbe?
Of course to get the full benifit of the game, my microbe army will develop thriving civilisations, with advanced technology like all those other multi-cellular organisms that think they're better than us microbes.
They will feel the wrath of our doomsday device... or maybe just a runny nose - haven't decided yet.
Microbes and three-legged dinosaurs.
hrmpf
If this game is so open-ended, then how to I build my ownUnicron?
This game just looks too smooth...
As a Fable owner, I understand it was a disappointment compared to the hype. But, it still was a fun game with above-average graphics.
However, I don't see hype as such a bad thing. Sure, it gets everyone's hopes up and then crushes them like a fat chick in a vat of popcorn. The good thing it does, is encourage innovation. Even if the game itself can't live up to the innovation, the ideas it puts into the gaming industry can be very valuable, even if not realized for several years.
People just need to take hype with a grain of salt, and understand that what they see and hear may not be true. Its a skill that surpasses gaming and makes one a better critical thinker.
It looks pretty interesting. I would probably buy it too, if it turns out to be as cool as it looks. Except for one thing. It's being put out by EA Games. Remember them?
I do.
You probably shouldn't click this.
The Future of Content
...and why it's driven me to procedural methods.
...And what I now plan to do with them. o .html
What I learned about content from the Sims.
Will Wright
Game Developers Conference
3/11/2005
http://www.donhopkins.com/home/WillWrightSporeDem
"Advice: If you have a weird idea that's so outside of the box, don't forget it. You should go back and revisit your weird ideas later, because you can never know where they might lead to." -Will Wright
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
The Future of Content
...and why it's driven me to procedural methods.
...And what I now plan to do with them. o .html
What I learned about content from the Sims.
Will Wright
Game Developers Conference
3/11/2005
http://www.donhopkins.com/home/WillWrightSporeDem
"Advice: If you have a weird idea that's so outside of the box, don't forget it. You should go back and revisit your weird ideas later, because you can never know where they might lead to." -Will Wright
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com