Review: Spore.

Few games have seen more hype than Spore this year. It’s designed by Will Wright, the brain behind titles like SimCity and The Sims. I played the first The Sims game for a while when it was released, and I’ve spent hours and hours as a virtual mayor in different SimCity games. I never really got the hang of it, and most games ended in a devastating earthquake unleashed by your truly. Still it was great fun.

A few days before Spore was released, Wright gave an interview where he said that he was afraid all the hype was bad for the game because people’s expectations would be too high. He might have been right, but with the previous hugely successful titles, it’s no wonder his releases are anticipated.

Spore tries to be a lot of things at the same time. Wright had originally wanted to call the game SimEverything, but changed it because he wanted to release something without “Sim” in the title for once. The main theme of the game is evolution, and I find it strange that it’s not being sold with a warning sticker in some parts of the U.S. since the theory of Evolution is just the ramblings of a mad man and all that. Continue reading "Review: Spore."

Spore.

If you have been keeping at least half an eye on the gaming industry over the last year, you probably know that Spore is being released today. Hell, it’s even making headlines on non-gaming sites. Why? Because the game is designed by Will Wright, the brain behind some of the most successful games ever made, like SimCity and The Sims. A new game designed by this genius should probably be interesting enough, but published EA Games has really turned on the hype machine for this release.

The problem with over-hyped games is that they sometimes fail to live up to the hype that has been created. One obvious exception that is Grand Theft Auto IV, a game that was very anticipated and did great, even though it didn’t really bring anything new to the table. It’s basically like any of the other games in the series but with updated graphics. Spore has not received the rave reviews that EA had hoped for, perhaps because it’s not that good a game, perhaps because the hype surrounding the game was too high.

It’s time for me to find out first hand. Spore comes in two editions, a normal plastic hard case, one game DVD edition and an extraordinary Spore Galactic Edition. I’m a sucker for special edition, so that’s the edition I bought. There’s a lot of goodies in the over sized package:

• Spore Game DVD (PC/Mac compatible)
• “The Making of Spore” DVD. A behind the scenes documentary on the making of Spore.
• “How to Build a Better Being” DVD. A 50-minute evolution documentary by the National Geographic
• Channel featuring Will Wright and Spore.
• “The Art of Spore.” A 128 page hardback book featuring Spore artwork and stories from Maxis’ artists.
• Exclusive 100-page Galactic Handbook
• Exclusive Spore poster

Hours and hours of excellent entertainment! So far it looks like the general mood of the interweb is that the game is too shallow, that it doesn’t live up to the hype (there I said it again) and that the game just a series of mini games that by themselves is not really that entertaining.

Well, we’ll see. My biggest problem right now is to find space to install the game, my hard drive is full. Blast!

Contributing.

I know that this is not even remotely interesting for most of you, but here goes anyway:

Not only have I started playing EVE Online again, this time I’m even contributing. I’m a member of a corporation, and the corporation is a member of an alliance. Being a member of an alliance means that you have to participate in fleet and mining operations. Since I really don’t know how to blow up stuff in the game, I can’t really attend any of the fleet operations unless they need bait or canon fodder. So my way of contributing is through mining operations and this weekend I joined one for the first time.

It’s interesting to see the way the operation is organized. The mining barges and exhumers used by the miners are sitting ducks in the asteroid belts and they need protection from rats and enemy ships. The fleet commander also needs to make sure the gates to the solar system are secure and haulers are needed to transport the mined ore from the belt to alliance storage facilities. All in all quite a complex logistical operation. I think I counted about 60 players in the fleet when it was at its largest.

Personally, I think I’ll mine a little on my own right now.

Back in Space.

Since Grand Theft Auto IV kept me busy during my designated gaming time for a while, I didn’t play EVE Online much. Except for logging in to start training a new skill whenever my character finished one, I didn’t play at all. But now I’ve finished the GTA IV story line missions and since I’m not much of a multi player person, I’ve left the streets of Liberty City and returned to the vast EVE Online universe.

And what remarkable timing it was. Just a day before I finished GTA IV, my Icelandic heroes at CCP released another free EVE Online expansion, Empyrean Age. To be honest, I’m not too up to date on the story line behind the expansion, but it introduces the concept of Fractional Warfare - great stuff if you like to blow things up, but not so interesting if you’re a care bear, like myself. You should go ahead and download the official trailer to have a look.

Liberty City.

I shot the last bad guy today. From point blank range with an AK-47. Right between the eyes. Still the progress meter only shows about 67%! What gives!?

Of course I’m talking about a game here, and not just any game. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto IV and it has been an entertaining experience. Great graphics, excellent story line, incredible details everywhere and of course you got to love a sandbox game. Tired of following the story line? What about creating a car pileup and dropping a hand grenade in the middle? Great fun. Did it make me want to throw hand grenades in public in real life? Not really, no.

I don’t think will ever go for a 100% game completion, hunting down every single pigeon in the city, completing every stunt jump. Perhaps I’ll go back to playing EVE Online again. Lately I’ve only logged whenever a skill training has completed to start a new one.

Checking the EVE Online site just now, I realized that a new expansion, “Empyrean Age” has just been released. Interesting…