Spore BlackFin360 - Innovation To Reality

I recently took a trip to London for business to discuss social media strategy with members of the Eidos Interactive team as well as our friends at Electronic Arts (Europe) at their new offices in Guildford. Aside from getting a sneak peek at some of the great upcoming titles one in particular was very interesting!

I have mentioned Spore before but as the launch of the game gets closer more is revealed. To recap the games premise, you nurture and guide your creature through five stages of evolution: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. One of the most amazing elements of the game is the creature creator which allows for endless customization options that can then be uploaded into the game.

While onsite at EA this was the tool that we were able to spend some time with. You have 228 drag-and-drop components to choose from that allow for a variety of unique creations. You have the ability to customize their look and feel from skeletal structure through eyes, legs, tails, colors etc… Then you can take them to the edit area to control the background, add babies, rotate them 360 degrees, preview animations and movements and take pictures of your creations.You manage a majority of your creations through the Sporepedia and have the option to upload your characters for others to see (My Spore User Name is TheBlackFin).

Now the creature creator has been released I highly recommend either playing with the trial or purchasing the creature creator to get a feel for the game. Also your creations can then be uploaded into the game upon release. From everything that I have seen so far this looks like it is going to be a great game. I am not a big PC gamer but Spore will definitely be on my list to pick up when it is released later this year.

Here is one of my original creations from our visit:

Here is one of my first creature creations from the trial:

There are some great games on the horizon in 2008. There are two in particular that I am very interested in. The first being Electronic Arts Spore which will have it’s own post in the near future. It was recently announced that Spore will be released on September 7th.

The other title I am looking forward to playing in the summer of 2008 is the latest LucasArts title… Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Take a look at the trailer.

The story occurs between episodes III & IV and is being guided by George Lucas himself and will revolve around your Jedi being a “secret apprentice” to Darth Vader himself. Your mission is to hunt down Jedi that survived the initial purge.

Being an avid Star Wars fanboy I am very excited about what is possible on the 360 when it comes to putting your Jedi to the test. The game blends the Havoc Physics Engine With the Euphoria AI engine providing the basis for character/force interaction you can already get a feel from the trailer of what we can expect. Look at how the Storm Troopers flail about as they fly through the air and try to grab objects as well as how the environment can just crumble at the seams. Also, who doesn’t want to be able to bring down a TIE fighter with your Jedi powers. And was that a Rancor in the trailer??? It looked like you won’t need a giant door or bone this time around. If the gameplay is half as good as it appears in the trailer then this is a definite pickup.

From a marketing perspective this title is going to receive a very large marketing push including in true Lucas fashion a full line of toys as well as publishing by Dark Horse. So be expecting to see and hear a lot about this title in upcoming months.

Tag: Spore

Star Wars The Force Unleashed