Field Studies 4: Vu To A Thorough Game Demonstration

 



Sporepedia
has now passed the 2 million creatures mark – which must mean more than a million that aren’t snowmen, elephants, landsharks or lolwut pears – and E3 brought with it a torrent of new footage.

They’ve finally put together a trailer that explains the game, lightly blows the mind and is friendly to people who don’t yet know why they should care.

Will Wright also gave a typically smart, funny talk about what people have done with the Creature Creator so far, measuring their creativity in God Units with sacrilicious results.

Then Gamasutra interviewed Civ IV designer Soren Johnson, on his role trying to ensure Spore will satisfy the hardcore gamers. At length. It’s like one of my interviews before I have to cut 90% of it.

But most excitingly to those of us who already know everything it’s possible to know about the game, is a bunch of stuff we didn’t know about the game. Producer Thomas Vu falteringly reveals that Spore has eighteen different editors, including one for music.

The game footage is fantastic too. On his way to befriend a village of dinosaurs, he passes a tribe of big ugly black critters being terrorised by a single enormous Cthulhu in the background. Then the dinosaurs give him a ten! When Spore’s art style took a turn for the cutesy (a shift which Soren talks about in the Gamasutra interview), I don’t think my fears took into account the possibility that I might actually find it cute.

I’m now counting the days till I can play this properly, which happily, even the Grumblegut (above) could do on the fingers of one foot.

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Lack_26: Wow, thanks for the links. Also, it is interesting that since God built us in his image (well, the Bible says he did anyway) we have now managed to surpass him (but there are quite a few of us using the spore creator and 1 (or more) God(s).)

Still, Mega-hyped for spore.

Jason L: Heh, he was genuinely suprised during that presentation which I suppose speaks volumes. 'Oh it's a tribe of...uh...dinosaurs', 'and I'm socialising with, um, these dinosaur guys'... Don'tsayYoshidon'tsayYoshi, I'll get you for this Bob...

sQUAKYfOAMpEANUT: I laughed when he referred to the chemistry sets being "nerfed".

J-man: So... many... lol wuts....

Crane: "Aha! Over in the background, we see a baby Elder God, terrorising the local fauna, and in this village here we have a tribe of... Uh... Non-copyright-infringing Miyamotosaurs...?"

LaZodiac: And to be honest Crane, isn't that what Spore is all about? Robots conversing with walking lawsuits while spiked dinosaurs get destroyed be an Elder God. I assume that this will be so commenplace that no one will bat an eyelash when two Godzilla monsters start fighting.
 
 

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