For those you don't know, Spore is the next game (or perhaps "game") by Will Wright (and team), maker of TheSims (and SimCity... and SimAnts... man, I loved SimAnts). It has gotten video game geeks and the industry at large all atwitter with anticipation.
Like TheSims in is a "sandbox" game, in that there aren't really goals. It gives you a bunch of tools and such to play with. In Spore you start with a single celled creature, swimming in the muck. Then you evolve. As you evolve, you (the player) get to craft your creature into whatever you want. Forming your creature like Playdoh, attaching parts and coloring it. You want to have a creature with three legs and claws? Fine. How about arms that come of its ass? Will do. Something with a head twice the size of the rest of its body? Yep. Nigh infinite possibilities. And all full animated. How does a seven legged, three armed, spiked butted creature walk? Fight? Love?
It doesn't stop there. From creature it evolves into a society. Tribes to civilization. Develop a society, create technologies, go to war. Eventually travel to space... and explore the universe. So everything from a single sell to the universe. Compelling, yes?
(PapaSix pointed out that for a game about evolution, it teaches a pro-intelligent design message. I'm looking forward to that debate.)
Now, a lot of folks are saying this will be bigger than TheSims. I doubt that. The people who say that are people who follow computer gaming blogs and read gaming magazines. Geeks, nerds, what have you. Me. TheSims is so successful because it basically is playing with dolls. Dress them up, give them furniture, play house. Spore, on the other hand, appeals to people who's school notebooks were filled with drawings of space creatures and space ships and the like. You know, the people who now read gaming blogs.
Both games to appeal to people who like to pull the wings off flies. Or build bathrooms with out doors. Or beings without anuses. So theres that.
Anywhozits, in a marketing genius move, EA is selling just the creature building portion part of the game, cleverly named Spore Creature Creator. Yeah, it's $10 demo. To create some buzz, they're holding a celebrity creature building contest. Celebrities will build a creature, they'll but them up on the web and the unwashed masses (people who read gaming blog) will vote. A lot of the names of on the list are gaming bloggers and the like (celebrity is a flexible concept). But some...
- Stan Lee
- Richard Branson
- David Lynch
- Ellijah Wood
- Kevin Rose
- Mark Cuban
- Curt Schilling
- Kent Nichols
- Robert Scoble
- Veronica Belmont
- Carlos Santana
- Bijou Phillips
- Brian Crecente
- Flight of the Conchords
(via Kotaku)
