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SPORE

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SPORE

...from the mind of Will Wright.

from GalCiv2 Forums
Out of curiosity, has anyone else out there been waiting years for this title to release? If so... fear not, for September 7th 2008 is upon us. Finally. But, all we can do is hold our breath. Those who know, this game's release date has been pushed back year after year. Month after month. However this time, we have a specific day. Not just a quarterly prediction, or a general month.. a month, day, and a year.


http://www.spore.com

The best way to describe SPORE is to call it a "evolution simulation". You start off with a microscopic organism.. and you simply eat other smaller ones. And once you've earned enough points, you can evolve your creature via the "creature creator". Now.. how you evolve it is totally up to you. Defense? Offense? It's all very basic... or so we thought.



Eventually, your organism becomes a full fledged creature. Your creature emerges from the tidal pool, and sets foot/feet/paws/flippers/whatever-you-want on land. Boom, Hello World! But becareful... other creatures have evolved too. Some may have evolved into herbevorous dwellers.. or multi-toothed vicious carnivores. In any case... life must go on.

This leads you to the Tribal Phase, Civilization Phase (i.e, take over your planet), and furthermore... the Space Phase.

The following are direct quotes from Spore.com commenting on each phase of the game.

Tide Pool Phase
Fight with other creatures and consume them to adjust the form and abilities of your creature. It's survival of the fittest at the most microscopic level.

Creature Phase
Venture onto land and help your creature learn and evolve with forays away from your nest. The only way to grow is by taking chances!

Tribal Phase
Instead of controlling an individual creature, you are now caring for an entire tribe. Give them tools and guide their interactions as you upgrade their state of existence.

Civilization Phase
Once your city is established, your creatures begin seeking out and interacting with other cultures. Make contact with an olive branch or a war cry. The goal for your creatures is to conquer the planet.

Space Phase
The time has come to move on to other worlds in your solar system. Make contact, colonize, or terraform, then venture further to find other solar systems. A 'mission' structure provides new goals in your quest for galactic dominance.



Sound neat right? It is. Imagine the GC2 Ship Builder... but for creatures. And for ships. And buildings. And cities. Yes, that's right. Not only can you totally customize your creature...but you can customize their building style, vehicle style, etc. Awesome.

But.. how crazy can you get with the creature editor? I'll show you.

The following are different fan concepts submitted to the SPORE team. They put the crew to the test, just to see if the editor can actually give you as much control as you want. So let's take a look...


Fan Submitted Graphic


Creature created in the SPORE Creature Creator

Wow.


Fan Submitted Graphic (looks like maybe an attempted 3D render)


Creature Creator

Amazing... And.. just to be real crazy...


I'm sure this fan thought he stumped them...


And he was wrong.

(There are more at the official website for everything SPORE, http://www.spore.com )

But.... that's not all. The game not only lets you builder whatever you want, but it recognizes the creatures structure, and it customized how the character would move. Bipedal? Walks. Lots of little feet...they all work together, like a centipede.

It also recognized the offensive/defensive abilities of your creature. It will use what is on it's body to attack. For instance, if you have a claw hanging off of the top of your creatures head, it uses that to attack.

This has been displayed numerous times in videos of SPORE, whichare all displayed on the SPORE website.

Here is a quick glimpse of the creature creator...






Are your creative juices pumping out yet? Already itching to try your hand at this?

Well... coming on June 17th, 2008 you can download a 25% enabled demo of the creature creator, or..for $10 (yes, EA are a bunch of moneygrubbing ..ehrm.. yeah. ) you can purchase the full Creature Creator. It lets you do everything fully to create your creature, and offers you a small little area to see your creature in action. And of course, these are importable to the retail version coming in September.




Now... on one final note. They have categorized Spore as a Multi-Single Player experience. Or some kind of catch phrase like that. What this means that, if you have an internet connection, your game will actually pull down other peoples creatures and use them in YOUR game to populate the planets in your game. This is done via the Sporepedia. Basically, all of your creatures are uploaded to it, and will populate other people's games. And vice versa. This ensures you will never run into the same creatures over and over again. There will always be something new.


Anyhow... this is my little spill about the game. It's gonna be good. There are tons of screenshots, team created creatures, and videos all at the official website at http://www.spore.com



258,600 views 116 replies
Reply #101 from Stardock Forums Top

Its out in the States today, yay , I guess...

 

I heard there are tons of bugs, the space stage is very IMBA, and they cut cool stuff out like underwater cities...

 

<X3

Reply #102 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, I got my answer as to why the geforce fx 5200 wasn't supported by EA for Spore.  It's an economy card and while it seems to fit the specs, it lacks some other things that construct it's ability to preform well.  So my choice to save $50 5 years ago is making the price tag for Spore going up by another AGP video card.  Something tells me that I won't be shelling out the $$$.

BTW, this answer was found by some web searching...not EA.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #103 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well, even without the accused DRM problem, it's looking like Spore is almost as big a post-hype letdown as MoO3 was. Maybe in 5 years the Total Discount Bundle will come without SecuROM, and with the depth that sounded so great in the buzz from two years ago.

Reply #104 from Stardock Forums Top

I can easily see 4-5 expansion packs for sPORE @ 19.99 each... :erk:

 

 

Reply #105 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting lordkosc, reply 4
I can easily see 4-5 expansion packs for sPORE @ 19.99 each...

 

 

 

Try 29.99 each... or more...

Reply #106 from Sins Forums Top

Guys, please take my word for it:  I got Spore as a gift this week, and even though I was not "waiting for it" like so many people have, and even though I did not spend my own money on it, I am shocked how bad it is (I have not been this shocked since MOO3).

It has incredible graphics and animations, and the creature creater itself is a marvel.  But the "game" itself is very simplistic (and we are talking for little kids simplistic), repetative, and short (about 3-5 hours to reach the space age).  For one example, the Civilization stage had 1 resourse, 3 different types of units, and 3 buildings total.  There is also no research.  You'll finish it and move on in about an hour, and 90% percent of what you do in that stage (or any stage) has no effect on the following stages.

It had great potential, but until "Spore 2" I'd "Buy at yor own risk".  . . . .

 

 

Reply #107 from Demigod Forums Top

The creature editor is great.. but the GAME is horrible

It's like 5 BAD minigames put together.

Reply #108 from Sins Forums Top

5 Years of concentrated fail. It's not a game, it's not complete. It's a freaking creature editor. They're not interested in releasing a "demo of the actual game" because the creature creater is in essence the actual game. This game has been completely misrepresented through it's entire development phase by both EA and Maxis. Im sure they'll all riding high on the inevitable sales that Spore will rake, but Will Wright et al should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. This is the defining reason that the bottom will fall out of Video Gaming [once again] in the near future. The biggest joke is, EA knew the game was crap internally; the writing is on the wall for people who like to see it:

1: Mac/PC  simultaneous release. While this isn't necessarly a note in and of its own, this is EA we're dealing with. The only reason they released it at the same time was to reap maximum sales from crappy software.... before word got out.

2: No demo, just a creature creator. If you released a "demo of the game" along with the "creature creater" you'd essentially have "The entire freaking game".

3: In development for like 5 years... Who develops a game for 5 years and releases this? It's a joke... any other studio on earth would have abandoned development of it. EA simply had too much invested to walk away with zero.

FACT OF THE MATTER: If any other studio had released this, there would be about zero sales and the majority of reviewers would balk at it, and give it truthful scores in the neighborhood of 3-5/10... and so would you.

 

/rant

Reply #109 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Although the gameplay does let it down somewhat my main niggle is the controls.  Specifically, if I'm going to be doing the same things over and over again I do not want my hands to be aching from all the holding down of keys.  Whenever I fight other UFOs I feel like I have one hand tied behind my back and my allied ships do most of the firing.  Bad enough that I command the only ship in my empire's fleet but can't I at least have some weapons officer shoot at the target when I press the fire button?  Would a starship captain really be doing finger ballet while the rest of the crew stand around like morons?

 

Reply #111 from PolMach Forums Top

Quoting TheDarkKnight2008, reply 10
Reduced 66%Original 904 x 644

Um, you do know that this low rating is because of the mass of "protest-reviewers" logging on at Amazon and giving Spore a low score solely on the basis of the DRM?

 

See this link at wired: http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/09/drm-opponents-a.html

 

Reply #112 from Sins Forums Top

The rating is low for that reason as well as the fact that the game does not play anything like it was promoted. There is nothing in the game as far as I can tell that is remotely related to evolution. Then there are the issues with the different phases having almost nothing in common.

Reply #113 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, that was severely disappointing news.  I was really looking forwards to growing a species with procedurally driven combat and movement styles that mattered, and carried from one stage to the next.  Hearing that it was a joke that didn't make any difference in capabilities after creature phase anyway was blegh...

 

With the DRM, I'm not buying it regardless, but based on the reviews I'd be waiting for bargain bin pricing even if free of it.

Reply #114 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well the creature combat is a little disappointing, but any abilities that they have do get carried over to the tribal phase.  For example, creatures that can fly will continue to do so.

Reply #115 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting warreni, reply 11

Quoting TheDarkKnight2008, reply 10Reduced 66%Original 904 x 644
Um, you do know that this low rating is because of the mass of "protest-reviewers" logging on at Amazon and giving Spore a low score solely on the basis of the DRM?

 

See this link at wired: http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/09/drm-opponents-a.html

 

even if thats true DRM aside the game is very bad it deserves lower then 9th place it being in the top 10 must be becuase of a glitch in the system

Reply #116 from Sins Forums Top

Well, i played it, it seems very kiddish, nothing like it was showed in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

That looks like the sort of game i would buy.

I was mainly disappointed by news of the DRM, how they managed to work out "Well, if we restrict it, it will stop pirating" is beyond me, i thought they had whole teams of people to come up with ways to make it more rewarding for the CONSUMER not the company.

If the old spore was actually released i think i could tolerate the 3 usage limit, as i wouldn't uninstall it anyway.

And i am betting it will work exactly like The Sims, 9 or more expansions and so forth. All these points have probably been made but this is my end of the stick

 

Also: http://www.petitiononline.com/restorsp/petition.html

My friend made this, i think it is a bit more formal than the other one.