The Spore coverage doesn’t stop for Team CG, no, sir. I’m trying to wrap my brain around this game, but I’m currently pre-occupied by Team Fortress 2 and Portal. What’s the big deal? It’s like The Sims with little creatures, right? Heh. → Read More
Whoo! With just about 2 weeks left before we’ll all be roaming the Spore universe as questionably shaped creatures of our own design, I’m finally letting myself get excited about this game. While we’ve known what Spore: Galactic Edition would include for some time now (Game/Art DVDs, 128 pg Art of Spore book, 100 pg manual, and a poster), no one has really seen much of the goods beyond the (incredibly unhelpful) official product shot. After the doors opened at NVISION08, an unboxed copy was left laying around at the Spore kiosk for all of a few minutes. I grabbed the shot above and a few shots of the Art of Spore book, and then went to make a quick lap of the hall. By the time I’d made it back around for some more shots, it was already boxed back up. → Read More
EA would love to be able to sell you Spore parts in the future. Heads, arms, planets, etc. This isn’t surprising given EA’s history, but it’s fodder enough for anti-EA zealots to freak out, to be sure. That’s provided the game sells well enough for EA to even have the opportunity to nickel and dime us later on. How is it, then, that Valve can keep releasing content for games like Team Fortress 2 for free? In other EA news, EA Sports will be back on the PC next year. PC gamers, were EA Sports games missed at all? Judging by the RPS commenters, no, no they were not. → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=35821 Do you want to see a video of Will Wright explaining Spore for the 80 billionth time? Yes you do. While I’m not about to ask Wright to pee on me, it’s hard not to look forward to the game’s release, especially when I’ve never played any of his games before. via Rock, Paper, Shotgun (my new favorite game site, btw) → Read More
Click To Play Has everyone tried the Spore Creature Creator yet? EA released it to the general public yesterday—apparently I had a preview password to play with it a little early—and I’ve already had a blast re-creating our very own editor John Biggs. I modeled him after this infamous photo. There’s a trial version, which I used, which gives you access to about 25 percent of the full content. The paid version, available for $10, unlocks the rest, but that’s Windows-only for now. Time to break out the Boot Camp’d MacBook… Your damn right productivity just nose dived right now. → Read More
We’re waiting on more info, but here’s what we have so far: The Spore shown at the SDK event was the result of two weeks of work by the EA team. EA is the first 3rd party game developer to use the SDK, so they’re in unknown territory. The development was done in-house at EA. Spore for the iPhone will be released at the same time as Spore for everything else (September-ish) It does use the tilt/orientation controls as well as the touch controls. We’ll have more for you soon. I’m expecting a phone call. → Read More
[photopress:sporecult.jpg,full,center] All the positive press that Spore is getting hasn’t phased the gentlemen over at Penny-Arcade, who are skeptical of the game’s quality. It “preview[s] well,” they argue. Apparently, the sum total of media coverage of the game is much too much, so, essentially, wake them when the game comes out. Fair enough. The Spore Cult [Penny-Arcade] → Read More
[photopress:spore.jpg,full,center]When it was first announced like 100 Internet years ago, Spore sounded exciting. A game with a revolutionary new form of AI that evolves as you play it looked to good to be true. And since it hasn’t ever made it to the buying public, many people have mentally relegated it to the vaporware bin. But now we have a launch date of September 7 to look forward to, and I for one am excited. It will launch for PC, Mac, DS, and mobile platforms, and there’s no reason why an iPhone-compatible version is out of the question as well. Spore finally evolves to retail Sept 7, 2008 [Joystiq] → Read More
It was all just a big misunderstanding, that’s all. Yesterday’s news suggesting that Will Wright’s Spore had been axed was the product of “misinformation.” An EA rep phoned Next Gen to dash the rumor, saying that the game is still currently scheduled to come out during the early part of the 2009 fiscal year, which starts in April 2008. So, Spring ’08 then. Why can’t companies use simple language? EA, hardly anybody likes you anymore. So it’d be foolish to kill off one of your only games—and a Will Wright one at that—that pretty much everyone wants to play. EA: Spore Delay “Misinformation” [Next Gen] → Read More
‘Tis a shame, but it’s nothing new in the software industry. Will Wright’s highly-anticipated Spore has now been postponed yet again and is looking like it’ll never be released to the awaiting world. Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, says that game has now gone from fiscal year ’08 to fiscal year ’09, essentially meaning that the game has no release date in sight. With no release date and continued speculation that the game will continued to be delayed, it’s starting to look like Spore will never see store shelves. This strikes me as odd, considering that a working version of the game exists (it was shown off at E3 a while back). Unless the team is working on console versions as well, I don’t really see us ever getting the chance to rock out as a spiked lizard in a spaceship. Spore Slip Sliding Away [Kotaku] → Read More
Since Blake is apparently taking a cat nap and watching COLT flicks at GDC, I’d like to bring something to your attention. They had a round of talks at GDC called “Burning Mad – A Game Publisher’s Rant.” Basically, a select number of publishers and developers got to scream about whatever they hate. When Chris Hecker of the Spore team got his turn, he went on a crazy tirade on how Nintendo sucks. Chris has declared that “The Wii is a piece of shit!” and that Nintendo should make a console that doesn’t “suck ass”. Why is Chris so frustrated? The craptastic Wii’s processing power isn’t sufficient enough to develop next-gen games on and Nintendo only wants to make “fun” games. And did you know Nintendo just doesn’t see video games as art? Terrible! Where do I sign up for the Chris Hecker fanclub? Spore developer lambastes Wii [Games Are Fun] → Read More
Wired this morning released its annual vaporware list. It features several new entries from the likes of SED TVs, Will Wright, Skype and more. But, of course, what would a vaporware list be without the most vaporized product of all? That’s right, Duke Nukem Forever, the reigning king of vapor, returns for a record five total years in first place. Wired managed this comment from Scott Miller, CEO of 3D Realms, “Thanks to the overwhelming success of Prey (our latest IP, and another game that took 10 years to release), we have been afforded another five relaxing years on the making of DNF.” Perhaps we’ll see it sometime before my social security kicks in. Anyway, go check out the full list of products you might never see. Vaporware ’06: Return of the King [wired] → Read More
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