You make your way down the hallway in City 17, and push open the door into the bright sunlight reflected off of concrete. A Combine soldier stands before you, so you life your semiautomatic weapon, and as you pull the trigger and fire, the gun recoils in your hand. Another Combine stands across the viaduct, and when he fires at you, you feel the bullet strike you from the left, so you turn, and feel the gun jump in your hand again as you take him out.
That's the ideal experience with Novint's Falcon controller. The controller itself is about an eight inch orb that sits on your table, with a three-inch sphere sitting on the end of three arms coming off of it -- like a Soviet satellite sticking out of the globe. The idea is that you push the little sphere around to move your cursor, and the three arms provide resistance against whatever you bump up against. We got to use the controller at E3, and the verdict is that while it does provide a nice experience, the costs might be a little overwhelming for most players. More after the jump.
During our time at E3 last week, we were able to spend about an hour with a very patient Maxis Producer Thomas Vu, who guided us through a near-final build of Spore (the whole thing) and answered a barrage of questions. Here's what we gleaned from our play session, broken down into each phase:
We aren't ashamed to say that one of the only things that even remotely caught our eye in Atari's booth was What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver for the DS. The gameplay takes The Naked Chef's recipes and places the player in a more realistic Cooking Mama simulation. Actually, it's everything we ever wanted from Cooking Mama: Going through the process of making recipes on the DS and then actually making the same items in real life. Yes, the recipes in the game translate to the real world.
Atari was completely unprepared for our interest in the game, as we couldn't get specific details on how many recipes are in the title, but we were told that there were over 100. Furthermore, the way Atari presented the game was as if someone had never played Cooking Mama before, which was obviously the case with some worthless Nintendo of Europe execs we scared off, who were too busy appearing posh and asking inane questions. Once they were gone, we got some time to actually test out the game and some of its features.
Before E3, the last time we heard anything about flOw dev Thatgamecompany's newest project was November 2007. Cut to last week, when TGC Creative Director and co-founder Jenova Chen guided us through an early build of their upcoming PSN title flower (note the 'o' is now lowercase).
Like flOw, it's really hard for us to confidently form an opinion on the abstract idea (check out PS3 Fanboy for their praises). We hope Sony decides to release a demo with this game. Videos and previews will not do flower justice; it's a game worth trying for yourself.
Will Wright's Spore is aiming to set precedents in many ways, and it's also set to break a long-standing Maxis tradition: the game ends. Producer Thomas Vu told us that the space phase of the game is what he considers the RPG phase, with 15 to 20 hours of gameplay and -- prepare to be floored -- one ending. No matter how your species lives its existence, it always ends the same way as you make your way to the center of the universe.
Unsurprisingly, Vu said the game has a twist ending. Also unsurprisingly, he was mum on what that twist is. We'll have more from our exhaustive session with Spore later this week.
Update: Vu contacted us to clarify that the ending is optional and wanted to stress that, if anything, the space phase is sandbox like the rest of the game. The 15- to 20-hour statistic is an estimated minimum to reaching the end.
Fancy seeing a selection of the 1.589+ millionSpore creatures created so far? This batch of crazy critters was hand picked by Will Wright himself as an example of how crazy, imaginative and realistic Spore's creatures can be, if the players are creative enough. Click the image above to begin the tour, which includes the following:
The developers are considering mandating five-minute minimum play sessions for each phase of the game before you can unlock the next phase. It was unclear if this would be a first-time tutorial or if it would be required for each planet; we suspect the former, especially since Vu said you could use the creatures you've imported from Sporepedia during the tribal phase. Vu said they are also likely not to let you go back in time, e.g. once you hit Civilization Phase, for that planet/instance you won't be able to go back to cell/tribal.
Want to know how Electronic Arts can milk the Spore cow? The tabs in all the editor menus were planned for multiple pages. Maxis has reportedly also discussed the addition of robot creature parts, but there is "nothing to announce" at the moment.
If you need proof that numbers can be twisted to represent absolutely anything, then Will Wright has you covered. His basic argument goes like this: In the span of 18 days, Spore Creature Creator users were able to top 1,589,000 species in about 18 days, a feat that took God 7 days to accomplish. So, by his math, users of Spore at operating at 38 percent of God's capacity, or .38G. A closer look at his math is right after the break.
The blaspheme-o-rama continued as Wright said he suspected that by Spore's official launch users will be at 1,589,000 species a week or 1G. Which left us wondering ... just how long would it have taken God to make Spore?
While everyone was distracted by EA's ongoing press conference, EA went and uploaded a bunch or screenshots and some basic information about a bunch of games, including a new one called SimAnimals for the DS. According to EA's Web page, the game lets players "control more than 60 animals" with an "on-screen animated hand that allows you to reach out and touch, pick up and move everything in the game from foxes and bears to trees and flowers." Animals will grow to like or dislike this disembodied, manual overlord based on how it treats them. Remind you of any other popular simulation game? Look for SimAnimals in January of 2009, and more about the project as we hear it.
Update: An official press release includes a few more details and some enthusiastic quotes from EA execs. Fun!
The grand prize winner gets a Wacom Intuos3 6x11 drawing tablet and there's great prizes for second and third place as well. Voting closes July 14, so rally the troops and make sure the best freak of nature wins.
Portugal probably doesn't spring to mind as a hotbed of video game development, but the strangely named GameInvest is based in beautiful Lisbon and its first title, Sarah's Emergency Room, "revives the time management genre with fun, challenging levels and a frenetic pace with simulation management skills."
The game is being developed for the Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and PC platforms and allows you to assume the role of a graduate nursing student named Sarah as she moves from California to manage a busy emergency room in Arkansas. There "she discovers that managing an emergencyroom is a bit harder than she expected." Nothing like gender stereotyping with a female nurse who thinks life is hard. What's next, Sarah's Lunch Rush Hour where she runs coffee and waffles?
Ludwig's on vacation, but we're sure he'll check the site sooner or later and see that we have news to report on his most wanted game ever. Sony's lovely, yet elusive safari sim, Afrika, has surfaced again (albeit briefly) in a new behind-the-scenes clip of its soundtrack being recorded in Hollywood.
Afrika's score is the work of Wataru Hokoyama, who is new to games but not other media. In addition to film scores, Hokoyama has brought his talent to TV, including orchestrations for "Once More, With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He also conducts his own works, as you can see in the above video. Now that we've seen and heard the game, here's hoping (if only for Ludwig's sake) that we finally get to play it next week at E3.
So, see if you can wrap your brain around this one. In the fall of 2007, EA released a boiled-down version of The Sims on Wii and DS called MySims, which went on to sell 1.5 hojillion copies. Now, perhaps looking to push it to the 2 hojillion mark, EA announced today that on October 27 of this year MySims will be coming to the PC ... so, does that make it a "boiled-up" version?
Yes, to be fair, the PC will be getting some new characters and new online features like the ability to play Tag and share your creations with friends. But you know what else the PC will be getting at some point? Sims 3. Just saying.
By design, Sporeis all-encompassing, with nigh infinite possibilities for gameplay, from crafting the very essence of life to managing entire galaxies. But sometimes, you have to go to the bathroom, it's a scientific fact. For those moments, there's the Spore Galactic Edition announced today by Gamestop, available for $79.99. In addition to the game, you'll get:
'Making of Spore' DVD video
'The Human Toolkit' DVD video, by National Geographic
'The Art of Spore' hardback mini-book
Fold-out Spore poster
Premium 100-page Galactic Handbook
So whether nature calls and you need reading material or your significant other wants to watch some TV, you'll have no problem keeping it Spore-centric. And yes, now that you mention it, that was a very depressing sentence.
According to Game|Life and Dengeki Online, Namco Bandai is bringing Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii's latest film, "The Sky Crawlers," to the Wii in the form of a flight combat sim. The genre (not to mention Namco's Ace Combatteam) makes for a perfect fit given the movie's focus on a group of fighter pilots, albeit in an alternate setting.
Though it won't be measured in Japan until fall, the success of Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces will likely hinge on how well the controls are implemented -- the Wiimote functions as the throttle and the nunchuck acts as the control stick -- and how popular the film ends up being. At least the game will let us skip all the existential chatter, right?
