Ok. I have been playing Spore a lot this weekend, I mean a lot. This is a quick blog to say that I am probably going to review it when I feel that I have played enough. If anyone wants to add me to their Spore network my ID is TomasBa.
Yes a pointless blog, but stay tuned for the review. I'm going to play more Spore.
So at 1am last night I found out that Will Wright was doing a signing in London as well as a press event. Didn't want to miss the opportunity so, at 6:30 in the morning, we set off to Oxford street to meet the genius himself.
This post is going to be less fan reaction and more what I found out about the impending game, but lets get the avid Will fan out the way first. As you all know he is a really friendly, interesting guy and it was great to actually see him in the flesh and get information first hand. I got the chance to have a word with Will twice, which was good as the first time I saw him all I could think of was 'I'm a big fan', so getting to see him in an environment that wasn't an awkward signing afterwords was great.
The information comes from the Press event. No photos I'm afraid but here are some extra tidbits about the game that I got to see during the presentation.
- Vehicular creation is much like the creature creator, it allows you to create something incredibly complex looking in a matter of minutes by dragging shapes over to the main body and editing size and dimension with cursor drags etc. It looked very rigid, there were more colour options with the ships than what we have known from the creature creator so far allowing for a further customizability.
- Planets can range from ice planets to dry planets, though it doesn't seem like you need to adapt to live in different environments.
- A small thing was, during the space stage you could re-con back to base with an animation of one of your creatures talking to you, this was a cool little variation on a menu system.
- A menu system tracks your progress with a timeline, depicting your actions and placing those actions in different categories. Will showed how he had been aggressive in the tribal stage so that affected his status in the civilization stage. This timeline tracks throughout your entire game. In this case, actions have repercussions.
It was a short demo but an interesting one nonetheless. When I got to talk to Will I asked him about where in development the line was drawn between what the user wanted aesthetically compared to what was needed for functionality with the game. He replied that it was fairly half and half, with the creative side being diverse, yet always allowing the gameplay to take place without anything being compensated on either end. I'm sorry about the rather slapdash blog, but I am incredibly tired right now with one hours sleep keeping me going.
So in response to Nintendo stating in Edge about how their new core games are about two to three years away I have one question, where are the ones you started work on two to three years ago?!
Its obvious that Nintendo don't want to lose their core gamer market but it's like up until E3 this year they were oblivious that the core market wasn't interested in the Wii fit's and other casual related products. The way that their press conference was structured this year felt like they actually expected us to cheer Wii Music or at least be satisfied with Animal Crossing. Don't get me wrong, I love Animal Crossing and I'm not one of those people who, straight after the conference spammed message boards with 'I hate Nintendo' and 'I'm selling my Wii'.
No, I did not do that. Instead I stayed up into the early hours refreshing a live blog on Nintendo's second conference to find an announcement of Pikmin, which felt very tacked on. Though, telling us that there will be another Mario, Zelda and Pikmin title this year can't be all bad can it?
At least from this Nintendo will see that its core market that they were gloating about so much last year with all those fan videos they showed, is not happy, and wants games. I'm going to remember watching those awful mario cartoons as a kid because I couldnt get the games at the time, really wanting that SNES, getting my game boy. That's Nintendo, and it's still there, trust me.
A couple of weeks back I invented a new PSN ID. The reason behind this was because I was fed up of my previous online name and wanted a new one, as well as the nitpicky side of my that wasn't happy that I had entered my DOB wrong in my original account and hadn't realized. All that aside I started worrying about the most stupid things such as, what if in five years time Sony hands out a special icon to those who were original members and I don't get one? What if people can see that my account was created in 2008? What then? Typing it out it appears pathetic, however I bet you can connect with me on some level here. it was then that it occurred to me just how much a username can mean to a gamer, how much his(or her) information about sign up date, or point count really reflects how this person plays games and their love for them.
Of course it hasn't always been this way, in fact you would have to be pretty young, or not have been gaming for very long to know what it was like to just play games and chat about them. Even the original Xbox LIVE didn't have profiling. But the kind of thing that we have now has grown from sites like this. For years I have been visiting game sites and for a few less I have been a member of them, I have stayed up at ungodly hours to watch press conferences all in the name of saying that I've seen them live, and then freaking out when I don't get my profile emblem. I have voiced many opinions in forums, all under a certain identity that I live under when on the site. This identity is now spilling over onto the console games themselves, we all want to look good to our online friends and we all want an online identity that shows others just how much we are into gaming. Gone are the days when I can play a game and not bother about picking up hidden frogs or completing in an extreme difficulty, because now what i do is broadcast to others and as a gamer who is naturally competitive, I want to look good.
I was even down when I had to get rid of my Xbox LIVE Gamertag after a couple of years when I knew that I wasn't going to be buying a 360 for a while (which I still haven't). Even then it was apparent that a gamer ID was more than just a necessary field to fill in to play games online. Before then I had my Blizzard Battlenet name which today I can't even remember, but at the time was my crusading identity that meant everything when playing Warcraft 3. PC games and Game sites are where it started and now we can see it in every aspect of gaming. So how many people agree on the personal importance of a username? How many have the same name on everything they sign up to? is it important? Most importantly, how critical do you believe your Gamerscore or Trophy Count is to showing how much of a gamer you are? To me that is still questionable.
On a side note, before posting this blog I put up a PSN gamer card of my new account. Those who wish to add me and see my brilliant level 2 glory are welcome!
So I've been looking for a place to vent my gaming thoughts opinions, interesting discussion points on the games industry and after signing up today I have decided that this is the place. I'm really hoping to tap into this community which will hopefully echo and actually beat the old days at GS, some may remember me as 'the_red_sage', most will not. All that aside I think you will join me in commending the Giant Bomb team for creating such a superb site which I intend to spend many hours on in the future.
I'm writing this blog today with the intention of telling those of you who end up reading it that I intend to keep up a reasonably frequent blog, and whilst I have little to really say today apart from an endless list of complements that I could pen about this site, In future I will... honest. So my user name is Otacon because Tom was quite obviously one of the first to go and I'm a general MGS fan, but that is my real name in the real world that exists somewhere out there.
so there's my short introduction for the few that will read it, I'm looking forward to being part of this community that will hopefully boom like the object that it is named after.
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