The RTS portion really looks quite simple. I don't know, maybe I need to see more, or try it for myself.

SpiralJacobs

So wait. I thought this was meant to appeal to everyone out there, women, children, casuals, etcetera. I thought this was going to be the next Sims.

I can promise you a game with an RTS stage in it will not be popular. I can stone cold guarantee it. RTS do not sell by the bucketload (unless it's Starcraft and you're in Korea). Nothing will change that. Unless there's an auto-play button for that stage, this will be a problem.

Cultivar

If I understand this correctly,the galaxy map shows all the worlds of people that have created their own civilizations online and you can go and explore or fight or whatever? Is that correct?
Cause I will buy this day one if so..

enewtabie(wants a job at Insomniac Games in NC)

@everybest: even if it was just like any other RTS, there will be a great sense of satisfaction having your own little creations carrying out the dirty work.

aka your own penile monsters

willz0rz

@everybest: "I feel like the people who post "I don't get it" on the LBP posts."

You mean, redundant and unnecessary? ;)

I'm just kidding; you set yourself up for that one. Seriously, though, if you don't like the game, that's fine. Maybe you could point out in the video exactly how Spore looks like other games, though, since I don't really see it. Every game I can compare a certain aspect of it to falls far short of being anything like Spore.

I have a negative reaction to hype as well, though. Hopefully they'll keep it at a video-per-week level and not deluge us with soft drink endorsements.

tsathoggua

Can't...w-wait...any longer...

gaijira

I really loving the concept of this game.

Solidus

I feel like the people who post "I don't get it" on the LBP posts. Like Candlejack, I've got no hype for this game, nor do I really understand the hype. Aside from the creature creator, it seems just like any other RTS. Guess we'll find out when it's released.

everybest

As mattias said in the new mercs 2 video. I yern for a nation that goes Boom, Boom and Boom. Or someting like taht.

solosith

*does the happy dance* I can't wait for my little alien creations to start utilizing atomic weaponry. Say hello to Mister Unlicensed Nuclear Accelerator.

Salen

We get it- You're creating an orgasm of a game. Stop teasing us, and stay completely silent until the release, so we don't explode.

Ad-hominem

@modren44: Yeah most games that had a diplomacy option usually punished you for not having a wicked huge army to conquer with. Im just going to assume my civilization of sasquatch/alligators needs to eradicate all other species off the planet.

snakepliskin

If you're a Religious Civ, you send your creatures door to door spreading the good word.

Zenanon

The prospect of winning the civilization phase through diplomacy sounds very interesting, though every RTS style game that I've played always makes it impossible.

Your enemies always focus on military, and if you don't they'll crush you before any real type of parley becomes available.

modren44

Great, 'cept for the world map which seems very small. I'm still buying it. Not hyped at all though.

Candlejack

The amount of spore news is inversely proportional to my enthusiasm for the game.

ezcheezbandit

Looks awesome! i cant wait

Recusor

@robinhood_0:
But spore has 18 different creators, so I think you'll be creating a lot more then just cities creatures and spaceships.

DTownsu

Spore is somewhat of a curiosity for me but I can't see it lasting long on my hard drive.

Every since more details have come out about LittleBiGPlanet all my attention has shifted to that title in regard to my creative outpouring.

Spore allows me to customize and build creatures/cities/spaceships while LBP allows for the creation of levels/stories/contraptions/traps/physics minigames etc.

While I'm not knocking the achievements Spore obviously has...um...achieved, the game still doesn't feel like it's going to be all that entertaining or satisfying compared to something like LBP.

This is of course only my opinions about the two games and as I've seen in previous comments there are people who are very excited about this game. Maybe if I didn't own a PS3 then I'd be more excited about it too.

robinhood_0

@everybest:
Yeah I don't think there actually is an online vs mode.

Personally I like that there is five different games in one that changes every play through. Kind of like a single player game where all the enemies, buildings, tools, vehicles and even music is constantly changing. I guess in a way the LBP comparison makes sense with this game.

DTownsu

@Turambar: Yeah, thanks. I'm stupid and didn't realize that unless after I posted. I posted a correction after; mean Kotaku won't let me edit my posts.

everybest

@everybest: That would be because the game isn't an RTS. The civilization phase is only one of many portions of the game, each give you a somewhat different style of gameplay.

Turambar

@everybest: *"Spore creature creator" = "Spore creature creator" posts

everybest

@everybest: Wright calls the game a "massively single-player online game," and describes it also as "Asynchronous Sharing."

Ooops, figured this was an online RTS. To further elaborate on my Spore ignorance, other than the weeks and weeks of the "Spore creature creator" I don't know much about this game. I had assumed the entire game would be the creator and what was in this video but I see there are different types of games for different stages which sounds interesting.

So I should probably do some research next time. My views about RTS's still stand though ^^

everybest

The Civilization phase looks actually more complex than I was expecting..

My only fear here is that all those phases will end up too soon and you'll spend 90% of the game in the space one :/

CockroachMan

I kind of get what everybest is getting at. In that, personally, I am so confused as to what Spore is now that I just don't know if it "my kind of game" any more.

Sure, looks nice, and intriguing, but I have no clue what it's all about. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested... just a bit confused now.

Ungruntled

Wow I want this game!

CrashOverride777

@tsathoggua: Yeah, my fault for not elaborating, but thinking about it now, I think I can generalize my previous comment to all of RTS's...

I've played Age of Empires, AoE2, AoK, AoM, Warcraft 3, etc. and all very very causally and always online (never single player except tutorials). I guess from my experience, the games are all similar to me except with different weapon types, different terms for similar features and sometimes additional features, but those don't seem to be what make the game.

In my twisted point of view, to fully judge the game, I'd have to play through a full multiplayer match to experience the environment and interaction in the game before I can say that this is going to be better than another game, because that's what seems to be the core; weapons, features, ages all seem to be topping on the cake. To me, it's all about how well the game flows, how easy it is to manage my units, and other little things like interaction with team members which are hard to know without owning it. I could care less if there are 5 more unit types, and 10 more ways to transport units than the last version.

Having said that, how can you tell this game is going to be better than one of the 50 other RTS's already out without playing it? Where is the hype coming from?

everybest

Does anyone feel as if Spore as lost its luster? I mean, the game looks great, and I cant wait to get my grubby mitts on it, but it seems to me that EA jumped the gun when it comes to announcing the game to the world.

snakeeyes072

Civ doesn't seem that deep, I mean once you went Sid Meiers Civ it might be hard to go back Will Wright civ, if you catch my drift...

Ragarnok

Is that the actual Spore sound track? 'cause thats Sim City 4 music, straight up.

mikevanpwn

oh, and just watching this and reading this thread makes me want to play Rome: Total War

no idea why

xxxxrandoxxxx

i love how they used the simcity 4 music at the end of the video

xxxxrandoxxxx

@everybest:
This video is pretty much where all of the hype for spore came from. it's pretty old, but the game itself was basically done at that point (aside from a lot of polish.) and a few things were dropped (The only thing I can think of actually, is swimming creatures. I'd assume you can expect Spore: Swimming Stuff next year. Damn you EA!)

+ Watch video

Beran

Everyones excited for it now.. But I doubt people will think back and remember it being a amazing incredible unique experience since I like others think the phases don't appear to last long enough and your shot into space after what seems like one long RTS battle.. Meh thats one game vs brutals on CnC for me.

flukielukie

OH NOES! I gotzta choose between this and:
The Force Unleashed
COD:WAW
Farcry 2

What am I gonna do?

@CockroachMan: Well there are like 4 billion planets+ (go to the Spore Wikipedia page) so you may not run out of planets too quick. To tell the truth, that is more planets than you can visit in your lifetime. Which raises the question... how does Bill Gates count his money that fast?

Utmu

I kinda wish this game were more than a war RTS after you create your civilization. That would get old after awhile..

DavidFU

MUST HAVE

swamptrunk

Finally, a smart AI.. meaning one that acts like its human and simply doesn't forget what you did on the "next turn." I'm looking forward to this game, big time. It looks amazing and deep.

For those of you comparing it to LBP, it was never meant to be similar to it. This is a sim game where LBP is a ground-up creation game. Honestly, I don't know if I will have the patience to create a ton of content for LBP as opposed to Spore. I get the feeling the Spore will also be a ton of more fun. But then again, I could totally be wrong.

Cagny

I'm really looking forward to this game.
My bloodthirsty horned penguins are getting antsy for a little universal domination.

quick question on the release date though, everything I'm seeing says the game is released on Septemper 7th,
correct me if I'm wrong but that's a Sunday which is just an odd day to release a game.

Even if that's just the shipping date most independant shipping services don't run on Sundays.

Diddy_Mao

I think I understand the idea behind this game... and it sounds spectacular. Like, transcending all previous games. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but it would be really cool to raise your little guy from single-cell organism to quadri/biped to eventual civilization. The only thing missing would be an overarching plot, but it wouldn't even be necessary with that kind of growth...

Wow.

vid3oman64

@vid3oman64:

"The only thing missing would be an overarching plot..."

I would like to see some interchangable plot points thrown into the game just to give it a more personal feeling allowing you to make morality based decisions at key points in the game.

The fishy-wishies have sent an ambassador to your gates, will you...

A: Welcome him into your city.
B: Send him away.
C: Kill him, send his carcass back to the offending tribes and wage all out war, slaughter them all and salt the earth!

It's not that I can't or won't play the game as a diplomat at some point, but my desire to see my race of cute and cuddly barbarians wage bloody war is just too great.

Diddy_Mao

@denki: I forgot- wasn't the point of this about building alien civilizations and stuff? Then why does it seem to me that the only way to win is to use the human method, kill everything different?

denki

We just had a lengthy discussion about how Westerners destroy, Japanese create, and for all the valid points made on that board how it's pretty even, these two guys- without knowing it- firmly display for all to see the "Westerners destroy" idea.

Quotes (with reaction): Remember, Civ is about building a civilization

"My favorite part is playing with the cities and the citizens inside the cities (hey, cool...I wonder what you can do?), I really enjoy sending my vehicles over (neat? where is he going with this?) and maybe attacking their cities... (hand grasps face in sign of disappointment)"

"My favorite portion of civ is (something neat, right?) probably using the super-weapons...(bangs head on wall)"

In the words of Charlie Brown, ARRRRRRRRG! Earlier when I was watching things about Spore, years ago, it seemed a more autonomous, evolving game form, and less "lets go blow those guys up." When I play this I'll probably enjoy the first stages a lot more than the civ stage, as I've never really been into civ games that just end up in war regardlesss.

denki

@Cultivar: The difficulty will scale depending on how you're playing... the devs have stated that they want the game to be winnable for anyone. That doesn't mean it will be incredibly easy, but it will be very dynamic depending on the player.
I doubt very much that Maxis, knowing what is at stake, would make the RTS stage as difficult as a full-on RTS. More likely, it will just be familiar for RTS fans, and easily accessible for everyone else.

Strychnine

My PurpleMonkeyDishwashers will finally get a nuke!

jerkstor

oh yea I forgot about spore :O
man I'm running out of room on my computer T_T I mean the sims 2, half life 2, tf2, portal, and a bunch of old crappy games (my little pony FTW!) I am going to have to make some room for spore.... oh well... so long viva pinata :D

hrabbit

Ya, I was kind of very disappointed by this trailer too. They sounded like elementary school kids in an interview.

"and, um my favorite part is where I send my vehicles over and I blow them up"

I hope theres more to the economic side of things. maybe a creator that actually lets to customize trade products/routes.

Mmfok

I'm so looking forward to test all the game mechanics and creaters, but EA's marketing is starting to run it into the ground. So much hype, and already visible plans for a gazillion expansions for this like the Sims franchise. Oh, the humanity!

Will! there is still some good in you, come back from the dark side!!

SansSanity

Something seems off... The world looks smaller, cant you visit other planets in the galaxy any longer? Cant you make your own tanks anymore?

Rexter

@Rexter: Still there. Those are later phases.

i.roboto

w

TheFlamingChicken

Why do so many wankers on here bifurcate? I mean why in the hell does it have to be LBP OR Spore, 360 OR PS3, etc.? I love games, period, and if I had the money and time I'd play most of them.

I'd be as excited about LBP as I am about Spore if I had a PS3 (anyone else anxiously awaiting the next price drop?). Seeing as I have a computer that should run it, my attention's on Spore. That said both look innovative, interesting and a whole heck of a lot of fun.

TheFlamingChicken

Whoa, from the responses in this thread, EA has really buggered up their marketing for Spore. O_o I dunno how, I've known what Spore's about for years now... but they really need to get their shit together and tell people, because if folks on Kotaku, and thus folks who are into and follow gaming news, think it's just an RTS... oy vey.

Mister Adequate

Yes September 5th can't come any sooner!

JAGJEET

@robinhood_0: How in god's name can you compare Spore with Little Big Planet? Why not Eternal Darkness and Crackdown? Both are third person! How about we compare Twisted Metal with Gran Turismo? Both feature vehicles!

Nobody cares if your interest in this particular title is waxing and waining based on your interest in a totally different type of title on a completely separate system. What a junk post.

michaelmacmanus

Fuck.

There goes $8200 of tuition down the drain for the year...

Harfold

It's bad enough I got horribly hooked on Civ Revo, and this phase of the game plays so similar to that. Sweet.

I still don't understand if other cities contain other species or if its all just your dominant species, because the implication seemed to be by the city stage only your species is intelligent. It seems like it would get kind of boring though...

MPSai

Excellent, 6 days till my release, since it is released on the 4th here in Australia. And even better thing, it might come early with the Pre-Order. SCORE!

antisniper

Spore Demo (Main Theater) - From PAX 2008

Live Blog:

one of the maxis guys (thats not will wright) is gushing about the convention. it being about gamers and not the game industry. we all agree.

he has the main menu up and it's showing the galaxy/universe moving around in circles. from this overview you can choose create and there are all the different creation tools. you can also choose share - and sharing opens the cyclopedia section. he's showing all the different creatures online that people have made (currently over 3 million). they are showing a red octopus creature and editing him. you can make your own creatures or edit existing ones. the octopus is now dancing.

someone made a puppeteer creature?! like 2 hands controlling a mini-monster. unbelievable. this ability to give creative powers to the masses is ground breaking actually. with Spore and Little Big Planet (and to a lesser extent XNA) we are moving into an exciting era for game creation. someone made a yoda creature. someone yells out to spawn off a yoda baby. he did it - and now they are both laughing and jumping around.

ok so a quick breakdown of the first 3 phases of the game (which he eluded to should take you only a few hours to get through).

1st phase

he chooses a carnivore single cell guy for the starting phase. game plays alike a water board of pacman. albeit a more involved version of underwater pacman. looks like you are watching your cell creature through a microscope at times. when you eat certain things you get DNA points you can later invest on your offspring.

hes chomping up little dudes. now he found a girl - they kiss and there is a design screen. new baby is evolved from the way you want to design him. I must say here that it is kinda weird that this design phase from a mating ritual wouldn't be a bit more realistic. i mean after your two similar creatures mate your offspring is allowed to switch from herbivore to carnivore (and vice versa). and the shape and look can change GREATLY. how is this still the offspring of the original 2 parents. I might be nitpicking but with a game so deeply detailed with specifics and governing rules and evolution process you might think this would be less 'dont look behind the curtain, just make yourself some crazy ass monster thing'.

the water and all the environments do look beautiful. there are also charts to show your evolutionary progress. taken as a whole it is all very mesmerizing. he just changed his 'dude' from a carnivore to a herbivore

he just said procedural bullshit. and that he doesn't get exactly what all these big words mean but knows he likes games.

2nd phase

his carnivore dude ate some fruit and threw up. it apparently doesn't sit well with his flesh eating warmonger creature's stomach. he needs more dead things to eat instead. the crowd just applauded after finding out that his 'dude' extincted a race of creature earlier. someone behind me sarcastically says "yeah!!! extinction is cool!" i'm starting to feel moments from the movie 'idiocracy' around me. and at a spore demo that's depressing.

we're being told the goal of the game is to get your creature in space in about 6 hours (of gameplay). cell phase takes 15 minutes and the creature phase (2nd phase) takes roughly an hour.

now they are applauding that his creature died after picking a fight with a stronger monster. I guess they just like things dying. a bit later a huge horned sea fish thing eats his dude after taking he took him for a swim. more applause.

3rd phase

the tribes phase. His creatures tribe has poisoned another race of beings with some poison fruit. now he's blasting some random nearby creatures using coconut bombs. some little creature tries to steal from his village, so he kills him good.

his dudes make dinner (literally - it showed food cut up on a plate) out of him. he's going to go kill more tribes. i'm getting tired of this mindless destruction. people are yelling out to kill the babies (leftover from a raid from his 'dudes').

i wish will wright was here.

now he brings up the civ charts and we can see his particular tribe is headed down a military type path, and supposedly there are neutral and a more positive (non-military) path to take ... but i'm a bit worried. i'm hoping that those paths reap as many (if not more) rewards for playing them. you would think with how will has talked about the need for more creation in games that this mindless destruction path wouldn't be so appealing an avenue for all to take.

i started out impressed and now i just feel dirty.

gamecandynerd