2008 Woodie Awards
Spore release spawns more than awards-finally
Christopher Vicari
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Features
The heavily anticipated title from the mind of Will Wright, the designer behind the critically acclaimed SimCity and The Sims series, has finally been slated for a holiday release. In a recent interview with Gamespot, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello talks about Spore's release, "We will tell you it's going to be before the holidays. This is one of the titles we pay enormous attention to for all of the obvious reasons, and we're very, very bullish."
If you are unfamiliar with Spore, it is a multi-platform god game developed by Maxis and published by EA where the player can create their very own species from scratch. You start your race at the cellular level and eventually end at the space phase, giving players the opportunity to invade other worlds or co-exist peacefully with them. You can even take your race online and battle it out with other players to see if your race deserves to rule the galaxy.
Thanks to Spore's unique creature editor, there are unlimited possibilities when giving your race a physical appearance and not a single one will be the same. The editor is so intuitive that it will mathematically calculate how a creature with four legs or even 18 will walk and how it will fight if it has claws, teeth or 50 arms. Once your creature is created, you let it loose and see how it fares against the other computer-generated races on the planet.
Depending on how well your creature does initially, it will begin to enter different phases. In the tribal phase, you lose control of the single creature but now control an entire gang of them. The player also gets to design how the buildings of the tribe will look resulting in even funkier creations. Once the tribe reaches a population of 20, it will enter the civilization phase. This phase is just as it sounds; the player will control entire cities and the objective here is to gain control of the entire planet either through diplomacy or all-out war. In this phase, players can construct many varieties of vehicles such as cars, planes, boats and tanks.
If you are unfamiliar with Spore, it is a multi-platform god game developed by Maxis and published by EA where the player can create their very own species from scratch. You start your race at the cellular level and eventually end at the space phase, giving players the opportunity to invade other worlds or co-exist peacefully with them. You can even take your race online and battle it out with other players to see if your race deserves to rule the galaxy.
Thanks to Spore's unique creature editor, there are unlimited possibilities when giving your race a physical appearance and not a single one will be the same. The editor is so intuitive that it will mathematically calculate how a creature with four legs or even 18 will walk and how it will fight if it has claws, teeth or 50 arms. Once your creature is created, you let it loose and see how it fares against the other computer-generated races on the planet.
Depending on how well your creature does initially, it will begin to enter different phases. In the tribal phase, you lose control of the single creature but now control an entire gang of them. The player also gets to design how the buildings of the tribe will look resulting in even funkier creations. Once the tribe reaches a population of 20, it will enter the civilization phase. This phase is just as it sounds; the player will control entire cities and the objective here is to gain control of the entire planet either through diplomacy or all-out war. In this phase, players can construct many varieties of vehicles such as cars, planes, boats and tanks.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
Nico Finello
posted 2/07/08 @ 9:26 PM EST
To Mr. Vicari,
Be reminded that next time, be sure to reword your article. While it is somewhat true that you can go against other people's species, it is not true you can go online and battle it out with others. (Continued…)
Xspore says...
posted 2/08/08 @ 1:02 AM EST
They never said it would come out around the holidays. They simply said it would be out before the holidays. That means any time between now and the holidays. (Continued…)
Chris Vicari
posted 2/13/08 @ 11:48 PM EST
To Nico, yes you are correct. I must have misread how online was going to be handled. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
To Xspore, I could have swore I reworded the initial paragraph to show that it is slated sometime before the holidays not during, I must have missed it. (Continued…)
Nico Finello
posted 4/22/08 @ 9:54 PM EST
Not a problem whatsoever. I know I will read more of your articles and I hope you do a follow up as we approach the date for Spore to come out.
Sincerely,
Nico Finello
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