[ « Previous Page | 1 | 2 ]
Spore won't end unless you want it to, and embark on the game's ultimate quest.That's quite a lot to digest, isn't it? Spore's clearly not lacking ambition, or scope. But simply saying Spore is a God-game that brings together a number of different game genres is like saying Frank Lampard is a midfielder who only scores goals (keep quiet, Tom!). There's so much more to it than that. And that's all tied in with the user creation side of things, which will allow players to create their own creatures, buildings and vehicles, amongst other things, share them with other players and integrate them into their game.
EA calls this Pollination - the ability to integrate content created by other players into your own version of Spore. Because of this, EA describes the game as a massively single player game, and as a result sans the griefing. You get to filter the type of content that will appear in your game - you can report and ban users if you take offence to what they're doing. You can even subscribe to Sporecasts - an in-game feed which will automatically incorporate content generated by other users that you like. This could take the form of anything - from a sci-fi theme to a set of creatures shaped like the alphabet - the O monster a particular highlight from our time with the game.
AdvertisementWhile Spore gets progressively hardcore as you work through its phases, it still has an overall casual feel which EA hopes will lend the game to every type of gamer out there. It has already divided up Spore's audience into three types - creators, gamers and explorers. Creators will spend most of their time using the tools the game supplies to conjure up fantastic creatures, buildings and vehicles, upload them to Sporepedia, a kind of central database, available offline too, of all user-generated content and track how other Spore players use their stuff. So, for example, a creator might spend a few hours making a really cool UFO, upload it to Sporepedia and take pleasure in knowing that loads of other users have added it to their game, come across it on their travels and perhaps even been killed by it. In Spore you won't be playing against other players, you'll be playing against their creations.
Spore's creature creation tool really is impressive, and it's because it's so easy to use and simple. You start with a base and add limbs, eyes, mouths and other appendages, stretching, warping and moulding like clay with simple mouse clicks and drags, then use the paint system to give your creation a unique colour. The possibilities really are endless. Give it one leg and it will instantly start hopping around. Give it four and it will know how to run. Being able to realistically animate the millions of creature variants that Spore makes possible on the fly is something EA Maxis is particularly proud of. Indeed, there's a weird pleasure to be had from going nuts with Spore's creature creation - and we anticipate some less than politically correct creatures to spill into Sporepedia soon after the game's release in September.
The second user type, Gamers, will play Spore like a traditional game - from the Cell phase right through to Space (you can jump right in at any phase if you wish). For them, creation will be less of a draw. It's more about playing and completing the game, as well as the ultimate game-ending quest. EA has included an incentive that should please those interested in playing the game this way - there will be an achievement system for playing through from Cell to Space. Your accomplishments will then be made available through the game's RSS feed.
And finally, Explorers will be those types of people who simply enjoy running around and seeing what the game has to offer. They might enjoy a touch of creation, but that won't be the main focus of their attention.
We're looking forward to creating stuff and sharing it with the internetWhile Spore is very much a video game, it aspires to be so much more. It's a platform for people to create life, mould it and share it with millions of other people. It's a social networking site, a virtual world and a creation tool all rolled into one. Spore will even allow you to create video clips of your creations and upload them to file-sharing websites like YouTube. The Spore Store will allow you to buy T-Shirts and mugs with prints of your creatures, and even order sculptures of your tribes. It's like nothing we've ever seen - how often can we say that and truly mean it in video game land?
While we're very excited about what Spore could be, we're not without concerns. It may end up suffering from its own ambition - being so wide in scope is great, but it may prove to be a tad confusing to a lot of gamers. It might also suffer from being "genre-light", in that each of the phases won't be as in depth as a game designed specifically for that genre. There won't be any live chat support either, which we think is a crying shame, since social networking is one of Spore's strong points (you can leave comments next to creations in Sporepedia). And currently EA Maxis has no plans to support mods, which we think might be a missed opportunity.
Despite our reservations, EA has high hopes for Spore. It sees it as an all-encompassing franchise which will come to dominate on every platform capable of hosting some playable version of the game. EA wants to follow an expansion pack model but in a different way to The Sims. This will come in the form of more tools, enabling players to make more things, rather than off the shelf expansions. Could Spore overtake Will Wright's all-conquering PC game The Sims? Where there's life, there's hope.
For more juicy Spore info, check out our interview with gameplay producer Thomas Vu.
Spore is set for release on PC and DS in the UK on September 5, 2008, with PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 versions to follow.
[ « Previous Page | 1 | 2 ]
