Simulation

By now we know that Electronic Arts is going to be pushing hard to hype up the release of the long awaited life simulation game Spore but we didn't know exactly how they would do it. CNet's News.com reports that EA has already been putting up large posters for the game on the side of buildings in San Francisco.

EA wants to make this game a huge mainstream success like The Sims but this time they are really making sure people know about this game beforehand. The CNet author speculates about more possible promotions for the game. Will there be TV ads? Yep. Will there be magazine ads? They are already out there. But then he adds speculation about a Spore ARG (alternate reality game) to which we have to say, "Huh?" Isn't Spore a kind of ARG already? That seems kind of pointless.

One of the biggest attractions of the upcoming game Spore is the ability to design and evolve your own alien creatures. People who have used the already released Spore Creature Creator have gone nuts with their own creative monsters and some have had some . . . interesting appendanges. In a new chat about the game for the Associated Press (and posted on Yahoo) Spore's creator Will Wright says he doesn't mind the more adult creations that have been made for his game.

Wright states, "Some of it's really good for what they were shooting for. It's amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren't messing up the experience for others." Spore will indeed have filtering software to keep people who download new user creator content for the game away from such creations if they so wish. Spore itself is still due for release on September 7.

Patches update both the full retail and trial versions of the Spore Creature Creator to v1.01. Patches are for the PC version only. Please download the appropriate one for your version you have installed.

Download the Spore Creature Creator 1.01 patch for full retail release (86 MB)
Download the Spore Creature Creator 1.01 patch for trial version (86 MB)

Spore Creature Creator v1.01 Patch Notes:

Patch Fixes

* Improved thumbnail resolutions for saved creatures.
* Added five new animations, recorded when creating animated GIFs in Test Drive Mode.
* Fixed a randomly occurring system hang.
* Fixed a crash associated with EADM.
* Creatures no longer disappear from the Sporepedia when the save flow is interrupted.
* Corrected the Audio buzzing found on systems with nForce2 integrated audio.
* Updated Spanish and Polish readme files.
* Updated the EULA found in the installer.
* Integrated the newest save creature PNG.

NOTE: This allows creatures PNGs made with Spore to be drag-and-dropped into the Spore Creature Creator. Spore Creature Creator players who do not patch will not be able to drag-and-drop PNGs created in patched versions of the Spore Creature Creator or Spore.

* Improves overall stability.

Cyberlore's fantasy-sim game Majesty became a cult hit among PC gamers when it was released in 2000. The developer had plans for a full fledged sequel but the company was forced to lay off the majority of its staff in 2005 (it now makes so called "serious games" under the name Minerva Software). So many were happy to hear several months ago that Paradox Interactive had bought the game's rights and would publish Majesty 2.

For Games Convention this week, Paradox released some new screenshots of the game showing ome apparent action sequenes of men battling skeleton creatures. Developed by 1C:Ino-Co, Paradox states that the game should have the same kind of humor and charm the original game did. Majesty 2 is due for release in 2009.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Following in the theme of last week's Battle for Wesnoth, this week I have another game which can be considered an absolute must-play. It's the spiritual successor to the classic Hack and Rogue, and it's one of the deepest, most engaging RPGs of all time. Best of all, it can be played anywhere as long as the computer you are on has a telnet connection. The game in question in Nethack, and if you haven't played it, you are depriving yourself of one of the best experiences in gamings.

It's comforting to know that amid trailers for fantasy-themed games like Wrath of the Lich King or Warhammer Online, that there's still room for Jumpgate Evolution, a sci-fi MMO focused on space exploration, trade and ship combat. So, if you're not interested in swords and sorcery, maybe hopping through a jumpgate may be more your style.

Download the Jumpgate Evolution HD Trailer (82 MB)

Get ready for the first in a long, long line of Sims 3 games from Electronic Arts. The publisher just announced that you can expect the next generation of people sim game to ship to stores on February 20, 2009. The new game will allow the Sims to explore their surrounding neighborhood instead of being stuck inside their home as well as lots of customization features for each Sims.

Along with a release date, EA just announced a Collector's Edition of the game which will include "additional collectible The Sims merchandise and a bonus in-game Italian-Style Sports Car unavailable elsewhere." People who pre-order the Collector's Edition will get access to yet another in-game vintage car and a poster that showed off the Sims 3 neighborhood.

During a recent interview with Eurogamer, Spore executive producer Lucy Bradshaw discussed the game's Digital Rights Management (DRM) and how it will affect players eager to legally obtain Spore when it releases early next month.

Bradshaw said that, sadly, copy protection "is a necessary part of our biz," but the development team has gone to great lengths to ensure that legal buyers will not be encumbered. Upon initial installation, Spore must be authenticated. The game can be installed on up to three computers total, and registration is required for access to online features.

In terms of expansion packs, Bradshaw considers those to be inevitable. Spore was designed with expansions and DLC in mind, "so yes, we'll add to the experience," she said.

The full transcript with Lucy Bradshaw is available on Eurogamer's site.

Once again, Tarn Adams dazzles with another update to Dwarf Fortress. This one, 39f, introduces a few new features as well as bugfixes. The biggest feature addition is that refugee groups now get their own spaces and movement instead of being relocated to a (possibly hostile) nearby civilization. Another added feature is a mention in the legends for scaling a mountain in Adventurer mode. There's also various bugfixes, ranging from making sure that erosion no longer causes mountains to raise up to making sure that bottomless pits don't have lava at the top. You can download the new version at the Bay 12 Games site. All saves from 32a onwards are compatible.

Bohemia Interactive Studio and Black Element Software have announced Carrier Command: Gaea, an RTS-simulation hybrid based on developer Realtime Games' 1988 release Carrier Command.

Responsible for ArmA: Armed Assault and Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, Bohemia Interactive considers Carrier Command: Gaea to be a natural addition to their growing library of realistic shooters. Bohemia CEO Marek Spanel testifies to the entire team's love of the original Carrier Command, a game that "was not only one of the most innovative games we had ever played but it is also one of the very few games that truly influenced our gaming tastes and motivated us in our own home grown game development."

Carrier Command: Gaea is expected in 2010 for PC and consoles. More details will be unveiled at this year's Leipzig Game Convention.

Folks have been waiting three and a half years for this announcement so now here it is: "Spore has gone gold!". Yes, the life simulation game from Sims creator Will Wright and his Maxis team at Electronic Arts is officially finished and is heading for disk duplication.

The game, which will ship to stores on September 7 for the PC and Mac, will come in two flavors; the regular edition and the Spore Galactic Edition with lots of behind-the-scenes content and other content. If you pre-order either version of the game, EA will give those folks a $10 coupon for use at the Zazzle.com Spore store which gives folks a chance to put their custom Spore creature on things like t-shirts, mugs and more.

We know that Electronic Arts has high hopes for their upcoming release of Spore but can the life simulation game from creator Will Wright move into other forms of entertainment? A new Reuters story indicates that EA would love to license the Spore property for a movie or TV series.

Speaking to Reuters during an Asian press junket for Spore, Wright was quoted as saying, "With Spore, we're looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc. We're basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game." One wonders exactly what kind of movie or TV show could handle such a concept or if indeed any other entertainment medium could convey what Spore is like.

What exactly are "militant atheists?" Are they people who want to make sure everyone knows that their opinion there is no God or any other kind of divine being? We don't really have an opinion on this topic either way but these folks do apparently have an opinion on how religion is handled in the long awaited EA Maxis game Spore.

In a chat with Eurogamer, Spore creator Will Wright stated that during development of the game they were afraid that certain religion groups would have issues with the game's handling of the subject, but he stated, " . . . what we had was a good, sizeable group of players that we might call militant atheists, and the rest of the players seemed very tolerant, including all of the religious players."Oddly enough Spore's basic premise is that alien spores seed planets so we don't really know what issues these "militant atheists" have for the game.

Most people might consider Spore, Maxis and EA's upcoming evolutionary simulator, a bit too ambitious for handheld consoles such as the Nintendo DS, let alone mobile phones. Beginning at the bottom of the evolutionary food chain, evolving into new shapes and sizes, starting a civilization and exploring the depths of space are actions that will no doubt require precise control and careful execution in many stages, something not often offered by the cell phone keypads.

Rather than overstep the capabilities of even the most powerful mobile phones by directly porting the game, EA Mobile has crafted Spore Origins, a custom version of Will Wright's anticipated simulator for the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod and regular mobile phones. During this year's QuakeCon, I had a chance to take the iPhone and traditional cell phone versions for a spin -- literally, in the iPhone's case.

September 7 is a huge day for Electronic Arts, its Maxis development studio and its head, legendary game designer Will Wright. That's when the long awaited life simulation Spore is scheduled to be released for the PC and other platforms. It's a game that many expect to be a huge critical and financial success . . . . and maybe that's the problem.

News.com takes a look at if Spore can ever live up to the massive expectations it has generated since it was first revealed by Wright at GDC in March 2005. While people clearly like using the stand alone Spore Creature Creator editor (perhaps because you can get a reduced version for free) the actual game is still something of a mystery. Few people outside Maxis have played the game from start to finish so it's unknown how the final product will turn out. And then there's the matter of the game's budget. EA has yet to reveal how much the game's development has cost but did say that 92 people are working on the game full time. Can it recoup its costs?

One thing the article fails to mention is that this isn't the first time a game developed by Wright has been hyped only to fail. A few years ago The Sims Online MMO was given tons of coverage beforehand (including a Newsweek cover) but the title failed to achieve a wide audience and was offiicially taken offline just a few days ago.