I don’t make it a habit of posting every review I see — but this one makes me laugh, so up it goes!

Warning: This review contains adult language not suitable for children

Don’t have spore yet? Get it now!

From the description:

Eat or be eaten when you play SPORE™ Origins on your iPod. Guide your spore through its evolution and shape its destiny. Devour smaller creatures, explore primordial worlds filled with bizarre organisms and avoid larger, lethal life forms. Grow from single-cell to complex prediator as you rise through levels. Customize your spore, and watch it move to the tunes in your iPod. Battle friends by importing their spores into your iPod. Battle friends by importing their spores into your iPod from the Sporepedia website. Based on the new game from the creator of the Sims!

Looks interesting, although I don’t even have a classic iPod anymore! Gimmie an iPhone version Maxis! :)

One of the most awesome parts of community day was being able to play SPORE for myself. The Maxis crew let us play for about 3 hours or so (I kind of lost track of time). I was one of the lucky people who chose a Mac (<3 my apple products)… which consequently meant I was one of the only people who could log into my actual account from the start. That means that all my progress was uploaded to the Sporepedia. You can check out my account here (notice that shiny Spore icon!). This is hardly a review, think of it as a collection of thoughts I had while playing the game.

Creatures

As you can see from the lineage above, I went from the beginning and went as far as I could (about 4/5 through tribal). I actually found it a lot more fun creating my creature in limited blocks than the everything-goes area of the CC. I think one of the coolest things was coming back and seeing a comment from someone on Sporepedia saying “this creature looks like it was just out cell stage! (it was).

It’s also interesting how little non-maxis content shows up throughout the first stages of the game (no one builds simple creatures, just complex ones that show up later on in the game). Even then, the content sharing is obviously an awesome idea when you get to use it in the game. You’ll see creatures from demos, featured creatures, and even some of your own if you’ve got enough content. Nothing like walking up to a herd of CareBears that consequently bash your creature’s skull in.

So much to do

I’ve beat some console games in under 3 hours, and in spore I only went through about half the stages, rushing through on easy mode. The thing that struck me most was just how much there was to do in the game. From collecting parts, exploring, plot, and achievements, this game is going to be playable forever. And I didn’t even get to play in Space for myself (watched Caryl play for a while in our demo).

Great humor

This is probably the first game I’ve ever actually laughed at before. There’s some great cinematics, and just awesome occurrences that happen while you’re playing the game. While playing Tribal, I was cruising along a war path to the next colony, when a UFO came down and stole one of my dudes. I kind of sat there in disbelief for a minute that someone just abducted one of my people. There’s a great mix of completely unexpected events and just sillyness that goes on in the game.

There’s also tons of edge-case type events (try eating something you’re not supposed to, removing eyes on your creature, standing next to steaming piles of…) that give me that warm-fuzzy feeling I haven’t felt since clicking on my grunts in Warcraft II for hours on end to hear them get pissed off and start yelling at me.

Everything just works

Don’t ask me how the geniuses behind the procedural animation did this, but everything just works. Need a creature without arms to throw a spear? Done. How about a winged slug that needs to burn a building down? Done. It’s mind-blowing how fluid everything is. Everything works.

Excellent sound design

I’m kind of a sound design geek, but just playing the creature phase was phenomenal. It really feels like the whole world is alive. From meteor showers that give you the feeling of something bad happening, but you’re not sure what — to creating a living world of dozens of unique creatures.

To start off my posts regarding our community day I thought I might answer a bunch of questions. Most of these came from my lengthy gameplay session, and a few from our interview with developers. I just went through the forum thread and picked off the ones I could answer. Sorry for no attribution, just trying to get through the huge number of questions!

I’d like to get a verification that creatures with ‘hidden’ parts and creatures made with the ‘invisibility glitch’ will function normally in the game.
Yes, they will. We explored space as a cactus, and one of the group had a giant teapot chasing her around. Even creatures without things like arms will work with things like spears in the Tribal phase.

Future Patches/Upgrades
Spore will be a platform. It’s not like we’ll see “Spore 2″ or anything (how can you do that?), but elements from Spore will appear all over Maxis.

Floral Editor?
Not in this release. It’s likely we’ll see more editors, but as the dev team said repeatedly “we wanted to get it out so bad”

Ability to fight other peoples Creatures in PvP , either by server or Direct Connect to peoples compies [like the good old days]
Well… not sure what you mean. It’s completely possible to craft a sporecast (collection of creations) of certain people’s creations and have them appear in your game, then go and pwn them yourself.

How many editors are there?
6 graphical editors (Cell, Creature, Dressing, Spacecraft, Building, Vehicle), 1 sound editor (national anthem).

How will communications (inter-species or otherwise) work?
If you mean how we read them, it’ll be in the language of your choosing (one of the 22 languages Spore ships with).

Are they really going to make the currency ‘Sporebucks’?
Nope, it’s in spice. (Dune FTW!)

Will there be any expansion packs or sequels?
Always and forever. Remember, this is a video game company ;)

Will they (at any point in time) release a planet editor to create your homeworld?
No confirmation, but from the slyness of the developers, I’d say that’s very likely in the (distant) future.

What kind of problems they are working on currently that makes the game release so late.
Balance, scope, online capabilities… so many things.

check how much blood there will be ;p
None from what I saw.

Is the weather gameplay related or aesthetic; in other words, how much will the weather affect gameplay?
Each world has a terra score that affects things like how many colonies you can plant on it. So, weather (err, planetary conditions?) have an impact.

Similar enquiry about day/night cycles. Can you choose to be a nocturnal creature?
I don’t think so.

To what degree can you name in-game elements? It’s obvious we can name creatures and vehicles, but how about cities, planets, moons, or that valley where we fought our first successful war?
It seems pretty complex, you can name lots of things. You name your first planet, not sure about future ones. That’ll be a question for hours of exploration :)

I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW IF YOU CAN BLOW UP STARS? PLZ
No, stars are static (for now).

Is there any major advantages to high jump and/or glide, besides the fact youll be able to move around alittle faster? Yeah, it’s a lot like any other part. Faster legs means you can run faster than your predators, catch prey, etc.

And also, Can you swim???
Yes, to an extent. You can swim on the surface out to a certain point before your health starts to diminish.

If you are an aggressive style player can you still befriend other species to join your fleets without socializing with them?
That’s kind of a dumb question ;) You gotta socialize to build friends, attack to make enemies.

Can you choose what planet you start on?
Yes, there’s a number of “new game” spots in the galaxy you can chose from, then you get to name your planet and start out.

Can you choose what creatures start on your planet?
Yes, using sporecasts and buddy lists.

How many parts is it possible to unlock in each stage? A lot.

What stage are fans most looking forward to?
TRIBAL! :) Seriously, this stage is funny as hell to play around with. The developer’s favorite too.

How does the Maxis team decide which content gets featured? I have made alot of really great creatures, that fail to get featured. Some of the featured creatures are even a little…dull.
There are almost 3 million creatures right now. The shear volume of stuff coming in is overwhelming to say the least. I doubt they see every creature :)

Will the web based Sporepedia grow to include all content including vehicles and buildinds, and the like.
Yep, on launch day it’ll change to show all this.

Is the web based Sporepedia ever going to be removed?
No. In fact, the in-game Sporepedia is pulled in from the website in some parts. Definitely staying around for good.

Is Spore easy for the community to mod legally? Did you intend to make Spore moddable? Is it moddable?
Let’s say the developers recognize the ingenuity of the modding community. It’s not “easy”, but definitely not impossible either.

When you go from ceell to creture can you pick a cretur from one you made in Spore CC or do you have to start at Creture stage for that
You can start at any stage you want (after you unlock them) and chose a creature to start off with. But keep in mind complexity & DNA cost for the stage your creature is at.

What is the cheat codes. LOL
Disappointingly unimaginative :( I won’t release them cuz I’m not lame, but I am sure they will be out on launch day.

I saw in a new vid that Cells mate is that true it use to be by yourself
They mate.

How is the Spore Figuerens going to work. How much will it cost,Size ECT.
No confirmation on this, but there’s HUGE demand, and it’s obviously possible. They’re working a lot with problems like the fact that not all creatures are 3-D printable.

In Tribe and Civ do your species talk in English,Spanish you know the players laugengue
They speak in their own language.

Can we have more details on sporecast
A sporecast is a collection of content, cultivated by people. You can either create your own content to put it on, or act as a moderator and make a great list of content created by others.

What is weapon cool down lengths in Creture Phase
Depends on the part, and type of attack. It shows as a little circle that closes up when it’s ready.

I want to know if there will be higher resolution available,
High resolutions. Depends on your video card, not really the game. For example, my CC maxes out on my 24″ display (I think it was like 2400×1600 or something?). But I have a good video card :)

What kind of needs will your creatures have in the Creature Phase (apart from food), and how will they be fulfilled?
Food, health.

If my creature has two heads one is carnivore and the other is herbivore will my carnivore eat plants and my herbivore eat meat?
You can have any combination of carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore mouths. Adding each one will allow you to each each type of food. No, it will not put you at an advantage :)

What was the most surprising thing you saw about the game(directed at you).
Intro to the tribal stage. Awesome :)

Secondly, today has been a crazy day of Spore, beers, developers, traffic, concerts, and beers. So to that end, my writeup of today is going to take a little while to gather together. For now, here’s a quick slideshow of all my photos I took today (completely unedited).

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

P.S. May take a few minutes to finish uploading. Should be around 20 photos all together.

More integrated site

Before the game launches, Total Spore will be relaunching with a more interactive experience. Something more than just adding forums and comments to a site — we’ll be making the whole TS experience a lot more integrated and seamless.

Spore preview!

The guys over at Maxis have gone ahead and invited the leaders of the top Spore community sites over to Maxis Studios on August 22nd for a day with the game & it’s developers. So in just two weeks I’ll be able to get my hands on Spore and give it a go myself!

But I need your help. I need to know what kinds of questions you guys have for the developers. Head on over to the thread in the forums and let me know what you want to hear!

Winners

Let’s get to the down & dirty.

1st Place: Tri’Eye by WORMSS

I think from the first second I saw this creation I fell in love — it’s just completely awesome. Nevermind the sick 3d rendering, the ideation behind it is awesome. WORMSS: Congrats!

2nd Place: Mousefant by actruncale

Not only is the Mousefant just leaking all kinds of character, he’s an awesome creation all in all. You can’t help but smile when seeing the Mousefant!

3rd Place: LA-TS (Low Altitude Transport Shuttle) by GeoSpore

First off: Legos are awesome. Secondly, I love this thing! Seriously though, I didn’t even think I’d be picking a non-creature creation, but the results from the community were awesome! We had tons of great vehicles, and GeoSpore’s LA-TS deserves mention.

Prizes

I’ll be contacting the winners soon via private messaging.

More to come

The turnout for the first TS contest was absolutely amazing. I’d like to thank our kick-ass community for putting out everything they have so far. Don’t worry — there’s even more to our creature gallery coming soon!

Go and get you some!