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Was browsing through the PC game section at Landmark, Forum Mall today when I stumbled upon this nice little offer from EA. If you are planning to pick up a copy of the latest Sims wannabe Spore, then you can pick it up at INR 999 and get a Sims 2 copy bundled along with it. A pretty neat offer if you ask us, considering the two games combined can give your hours upon hours of fun like trapping your sims inside a house with no windows and doors and watch them go insane.
Thanks to Kris Acharya’s Flickr photostream for the pictures.
On Tuesday afternoon, EA India unleashed the icky-galacticness that is SPORE upon unsuspecting press attendees at the game’s official launch event held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Delhi. General Manager Ajay Khanna was armed to the teeth with PowerPoint presentations that could apparently freeze time itself, as he went on and on trying to convince the mainstream news representatives that they were staring at something that was sheer “fantastic” incarnate (one of Mr. Khanna’s favorite words). But much like the evolutionary process itself, these things can take time. Which is exactly why you’ve got to bait these groups of 20-something-year-olds with a free lunch, a fancy press kit (nice job with that one, PR dudes), review copies, and a limited edition EA 2GB pendrive! Well played, indeed.
It wasn’t all that boring. In fact, with Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor and MTV’s Nikhil Chinapa around, tearing the shrink-wrap off a brand-new SPORE box (which ended up being one of our review copies) and giving a live-demo of the Creature Creator to the press, things were only somewhat boring. Also, it appears nigh impossible to have a discussion about SPORE without having to point out weirdo references about someone’s (or something’s) anatomy sticking out in the wrong way. It’s amusingly easy to tell how Nikhil is a lot of older than he tries to seem, what with him blurting stuff about his wife and bringing up people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson as means of comparison to SPORE’s customization features but with a dash of comedic relevance (seriously). Was rather keen about doing a podcast, though, but he’s “busy.” (Le Sigh.)
Long story short: SPORE is out. You go buy, yes?
If the sole ambition in your life has been to get Darwin spinning crazily in his grave, Will Wright has come up with something perfect for the job. The Spore team came out with the Spore Creature Creator today, which has you unleashing your fertile imagination on the hapless organisms ready to climb up the ladder of evolution.
The demo version of the Spore Creature Creator lets you fiddle around with a limited tool set while $9.95 (INR 400) on the table will unlock the complete tool set. The demo weighs in at 200Mb which hopefully won’t strain our excuse-for-broadband connections too much. The demo as well as the full version of the Spore Creature Creator is available for both PC and Mac, here.
In the meantime, enjoy this video. You can download a higher quality version of the same here.
For those of you that were pissed as hell about Spore getting pushed back to 2008, there’s good news. According to Maxis VP of Marketing Patrick Buechner, the game is actually complete and all its undergoing is testing, albeit at an alpha stage. Speaking to IGN about the game, Patrick said:
Well, the game is looking really good and can be played all the way through so the bigger technical challenges are behind us. Right now the team is focused on polishing and tuning that experience. A lot of what we’re doing is putting players in front of Spore and allowing them to play the game all the way through for several hours. We watch them play, we talk to them about their experience including what they liked or what they didn’t like. Then we take that feedback and use it as part of the tuning process.
As the interview progresses, Patrick talked about the DS version of the game, which will be releasing simultaneously with the PC version, and that the game will be playable at the Leipzig Games Convention later this year. And the best news, it may not be pushed late into 2008 after all. Says Patrick, “It’s still around that time frame but for business purposes it’s being planned for next fiscal year, which begins April 1st… but not too beyond [that date].”
Oh good, finally more good news. April 1 doesn’t seem too far away… Oh, wait!