New (E3 2006) Spore Video

I haven't seen the whole thing yet (slow dial-up connection), but so far, it looks absolutely amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHaulHxmO4A

Here's another video:

WMV 320x180 - Streaming
mms://zdmedia.wmod.llnwd.net/a111/o1/1UP/1upshow_pree306_special_320x180.wmv

QT 320x180 - Download 296MB http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/1UP/1upshow_pree306_special_320x180.zip

WMV 640x360 - Download 502MB http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/1UP/1upshow_pree306_special_640x360.zip

QT 640x360 - Download 650MB http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/1UP/1upshow_pree306_special_quick.zip


(Although I haven't seen this one; it's too big for dial-up)

Watched the first one. Technically brilliant, but as a game I find it incredibly tedious to watch and I'd imagine it plays in a similar manner - even in the video, the player never seems to be doing much.

Don't know what the second one is. A load of Americans talking about Mario Bros - I'm guessing theres a bit of Spore coverage in there later but I can't be bothered to look through all 36 minutes of it.

Well, Black and White was supposed to be so amazingly brilliant and everything good that could be good, etc, etc - I found it boring to play and never bothered to get past the first level.

What I find most amazing is the player's ability to completely build their creatures/vehicles/cities. Eventually you can slowly conquer your world, and eventually the galaxy (or you can make friends with aliens and trade/communicate, rather than fight). When you reach the top level of the game, you have access to the advanced editors, which let you do genetic engineering to design plants, create alien hybrids.

Probably one of the best things about the game is the fact that you will NEVER run out of variety. With literally millions if planets, and new animals/vehicles/buildings/etc. being downloaded from other players.

Personally, I think the gameplay in Spore seems to be better than anything I've ever known before (although, you'd probably have to know about more of Spore's details (which are not shown in this video) to know what I mean)

> With literally millions if planets, and new animals/vehicles/buildings/etc. being downloaded from other players.


the game looks interesting, but unless the AI can be modified for these new creatures and races it will still just boil down to fight/negotiate/run away.

I'm already sold on Spore.

The first time I saw spore it was "wow!" Now it looks like its a really long and boring game (if it can be called a game)

Whatever it is, it appears to be one of the biggest sandbox games out there.

If you're the type that only likes games with a specific "ending", then Spore obviously is not for you. Spore is really a giant sandbox game, designed for just one thing; to be fun. I'm sure there will be many who don't like such mind-bogglingly open-ended gameplay, but I know that I (and many others) do.

The possibilities with Spore are almost endless; you can take missions from galactic federations (which you can join or create if you like), you can make war with planets, you can help alien civilizations, you can play tricks on alien races by dropping foreign creatures on their planet, you can build secret cities under the water of a populated alien planet, you can try to impress primitive tribes with your UFO and fireworks tool, and the list just goes on.

But who knows, maybe Spore will be a complete failure, and turn out to be a total bore. But I doubt it, IMHO.

Playing spore won't be unlike designing a game.

I think it will be a tedious game too. A technical masterpiece demo maybe. But like most games, you will soon get bored. Unless your into super repetitive pretty mindless gameplay anyway.

I really like the idea of Spore but I'm concerned that it is too ambitious a concept. In some ways it reminds me of Sim Earth in that it is an appealing concept but, perhaps, too complex to be fun.

It's certainly ambitious, and it'll be either utterly engrossing or terribly tedious, but I'll reserve judgement until I get the chance to play it.

I loved sim earth.... to me... the supe non-complex recent sim games blew... Sim Life, and later...

What, you mean the kids series? =]

That's a very strange comment to make considering you haven't even played it. Additionally, the game is predominatly focused on letting players be creative in much the same way that developers create content for games now. Your comments on Spore are comparable to calling the art of 3D modeling mindless.

from what I saw of the game creating stuff is still pretty simplistic and not like modeling at all.

Reminded me of those character builders in games like fight night, oblivion etc or the simple procedural character generators like creature creator you get for 3D apps that no one uses with it's selectable nodes you can attach apendages too, and scale them in real time etc. Might be fun for a few minutes but not much more.

All the videos I have seen just seem really gameplay limited to me. It might appeal to the sims crowd in which case it will probably do well. Doesn't make it a good game, but definately an interesting project.

The Sim's is 'pointless' and open-ended at well, but did manage to sell a bazillion copies & expansion packs.

This game looks fantastic, these two video clips are boring as hell... but they aren't E3 clips. Pre-E3 perhaps... E3 hasn't started yet, so the real fun begins in a couple of days.

And frankly, if you didn't like the Sims, then I guess you really have no place saying this game looks boring. If you don't get it, you just don't get it.

People who believe that this is going to be a cruddy, boring game are getting it wrong: The sandbox bit of this is the game; it's like a model train... or a fish tank. The concept is not to conquer the universe, but to create something that conquers the universe.

Still looks like a brilliant leap away from everything else, as usual :)

In my mind the sandbox bit is exactly what makes it boring in the first place.

Looking at the videos. It's like they took all the things that make molyneuxs good ideas come out bad in practice. They then multiply the worst aspects of those things, giving you a limitles ammount of slow paced drudgery to sift through. And no real goals or incentives that anyones going to care about once they experiments with a couple of places.

Looks like the kind of game that should have been a screensaver that you tweak every now and then and come back a week later to see if anything happened whilst you were away.

Been watching Spore since--forever.

I guess we'll all see how it turns out. I can't see how it would be boring to create your own lifeform and eventually work your way up to universal domination. I have to admit ... the Sims in single player wasn't that fun for me. Multiplayer on PS2 was an ok time. However, Sim City on the SNES was a great fun game. Unfortunately, I think Miyamoto helped Will Wright out with that one. None of the other Sim City games seemed as fun to me.

I was very disappointed with black and white too, the idea showed a lot of promise but it just wasn't fun.

Same with B&W 2. What I really wanted in B&W 2 was something more like Rome total war: barbarian invasion, with the trainable titan and resource gathering of B&W.

The way that B&W2 turned out was complete pants!

That's true. Maybe the reason it seems to appeal to me is that I enjoy making games and being creative.


I agree.

I think this is one of those things which you mess with on and off for ages, rather than sit down for huge gaming sessions.

I think the content sharing may give it a real interesting angle. No idea how flexible it will be, but the idea of it downloading other peoples creations to populate the planets could make it very interesting.

Certainly something I'll be sure to get when it's released, just for tinker value.