Spore Hands-On Preview

cardjoe writes "The release date for Spore has just been announced and what better way to celebrate than to check out the latest build of the game? That's just what bit-tech.net did, spending hours with the full version of the game. The article covers all the different editors and stages in the game as well as providing a brief on the pollinated content and how it may well introduce an entire new genre to PC gaming — that of the Massively Online Singleplayer. The article is in-depth and has a whole load of brand new screenshots too, showing the various stages that the player will go through as they play the game and move their creature from single cells to galaxy-hopping space freaks."

It's hard for me to contain my excitement

[kentrel]

I have never looked forward to a computer game before in my life. Their Cross pollination implementation sounds absolutely revolutionary in not just gaming, but computing in general.

Only a game that gives you that much control over life can satisfy my ego.

High Hopes

[ectal]

Everything I read about this game makes it seem like this is either going to be the greatest game ever released or the most disappointing.

The thing that fascinates me the most is that the progression through the game's stages seems in some ways to mirror the evolution of video games themselves, from simple Atari games to the modern day. Or to look at it another way, the idea of having an arc throughout the game in both the objectives and the style of gameplay itself sounds amazing.

Hang on- I think I played this before!

[VValdo]

Wasn't this game around more than twenty-five years ago? I mean, I remember clearly that you'd--

Oh, wait... I guess there were some minor differences [youtube.com].

Whoops.

W

Re:High Hopes

[jollyreaper]

Everything I read about this game makes it seem like this is either going to be the greatest game ever released or the most disappointing.

Remember how cool the concept was for Black & White and how shit the reality was? I'm officially anti-hyping myself by anticipating another Daikatana. I will be pleasantly surprised if I hear otherwise. The concept is so cool, I just know I'll be disappointed if I start looking forward to it.

Spinoffs & Mods Galore!

[pabrown85]

How long after the release date do you think it will take for people to make an exact duplicate of the Mos Eisley Cantina? 3 hrs?

With creatures like these...

[RichPowers]

The social networking elements in Spore do look truly stunning and already there's a wealth of content available from the testers and developers - everything from flying toilets to animals that look like letters

Stop right there pal, you had me sold on "flying toilet"!

I look forward to exploring new worlds and encountering other players' utterly ridiculous creatures. Of course, I'll be disappointed if someone doesn't create creatures/civilizations based on every internet meme ever (oh how I'll enjoy destroying the LOLcats with my spaceship's death ray).

Oh yeah, Spore's Wikipedia article mentions how the galaxy will feature active planetary nebulas, black holes, rotating spiral arms, etc. After acquiring a spaceship, I fully plan on plotting a course to the black hole's event horizon. I wonder how the game will model that experience...

Design vs. evolution

[Per Abrahamsen]

It seems like a large part of the design process for the game consisted of of trying a lot of ideas, and selecting the one that worked as a base of future experiments. And that description could be extended to previous generations of games, each generation consisting of thousands of games, most fails in the marketplace, and those that survives form the basis for the next generation of games.

That is may main irritation as a professional designer of the whole "intelligent design" pseudo debate. Any intelligent designer is aware that evolution is the most important design tool, especially for complex systems.

Re:High Hopes

[Captain Splendid]

While I'm a big fan of being anti-hype as well, it's a little disingenuous to make that comparison. I mean, just look at Romero's credits before Daikatana, and Will Wright's before Spore. Not quite the same thing, is it?

Also, I've yet to see an ad that says "This Christmas, WILL WRIGHT will make you his SIMBITCH."

Re:So...

[The PS3 Will Fail]

"Personally I bet that within a month of the release there are already at least 6 races designed to look like genitalia due primarily to the greater internet fuckwad theory."

An entire month and only 6 races? That's not much of a bet. For a lot of people, that's going to be the first goal they hit when designing a species.

Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..

[misleb]

Game Devs don't have/need to give us their work for free, IMO, but if they'd make it to where *anyone* could use the games they write, they'd sell more, and I for one would sure appreciate it.

When I used Linux I used to wish more games were released for LInux but then I realized that it isn't that big of a deal to boot into Windows to pay the types of games that I tend to enjoy. Really, what's a 3 minute reboot (or whatever it is) to play a fullscreen game for a few hours? Once you're in, the OS it happens to be running on is pretty much irrelevant.

That said, I sure am glad EVE Online came out with a client for Linux and Mac because it means I don't have to reboot just to login and update my skill training. Though I suppose just providing that functionality through the web site would be enough.

-matthew

Re:I care only about one thing:

[nschubach]

Well, I don't know how it all ties together, but Hitler was bent on world domination and oppressed an entire religion (no comment), Russia was Communist (one OS for everyone), I'm thinking MS fits into Apartheid because it has to do with changing the rules and sectioning the computer industry so they have control, and you can pretty much change Rockefeller's name to Gates and have the same problem. You did however forget Carnegie and the work housing problems, but even I might have a hard time trying to relate taking away your desktop if you stopped working for MS (or you change your hardware and don't buy a new Operating System) is considered the same. ;)

But sure, we all have our priorities in life. Spore happens to let you control that since we seem to have lost control in real life.