VGT at E3: Spore and Lost Planet
05-11-06 | 07:26 PM
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From: Westchester, Los Angeles
VGT at E3: Spore and Lost Planet
Spore Demo
Spore is certainly a site to see. The sheer complexity of the game is hidden by its simplistic GUI and gameplay. If you haven't read about it, Spore allows you to start at the bottom of the food chain with a little tadpole-like creature and continually evolve into a being that can conquer the entire galaxy.
In the opening of the demo, the creature creation menu allows you to manipulate the body of your tiny animal. The spine can be rotated and molded to fit your specifications. Then you get to add parts like wings, arms, feet, horns, eyes, etc. Each part has 10 to 20 variations of itself. Also, the parts play a huge role in determining the attributes to a creature. For instance, adding small feet may increase your speed, but it will decrease your stealth. Other attributes include sense, power, and social skills.
When you finally have all the parts on and the creature is ready to go, it moves into the coloring stage. Certain colors will affect the attitude of the creature. Once the color is chosen, something called procedural texturing kicks in. This type of texturing will affect patterns in the skin as well as dictate how well a creature moves and what it sounds like.
After character creation is completed, you move into the actual planet. At this point, you can explore the area, interact with the other creatures, and enter social groups. These groups will allow for mating and the next generation of creature to be created. Once your offspring hatches, the character creation screen comes back on and you can add features previously not available to your species of creature.
Eventually, your creature will evolve high enough to enter a tribal stage which will unite fellow creatures under your rule. The lady running the demo glossed over this and went directly into the city stage. Similar to Sim City, everything in the city is customizable and dependent on creating a stable ecosystem.
An interesting sidebar: Dependent on your choices over the early points in the game, the world around you will be populated with similar creatures. The cool part is that these creatures are ones that have been created by other gamers playing Spore. Basically, the game figures out your preferences and adapts your world using player created content.
Anyway, after progressing through the city stage, you will eventually have the option of building a UFO. Again, the game will suggest UFO designs that have been created by other players. But you have the option of creating one from scratch. Once you build a UFO, you can travel quickly around the planet as well as visit the thousands of planets in the entire galaxy.
During the demo, we were shown how it's possible to abduct creatures from your own planet and transplant them into other worlds. If you manage to populate another planet with homeworld creatures, you will get a certain amount of influence with the native creatures. This can eventually lead to trade agreements to boost your own economy.
Graphically, Spore has the gorgeous quality that the Apple operating system seems to have. The lines are curvy and the textures are sleek. The animations are silky smooth as well. There is a slight hitch when zooming out from planet to galaxy to universe, but it's not a problem considering the scope of the game.
Spore is definitely the game to end all Sim games. I wonder if Wil Wright has any idea where to go after this. Creation of the ultimate Sim game leaves no room for expansion. Anyway, it's the game to watch for at the end of the year.
Lost Planet Hands-on
I briefly spoke to a Capcom rep about this game as well as getting some hand-on time with it. The demo section I played through seemed oddly similar to Starship Troopers. The level was a snow covered mountain filled with huge insect like creatures. The main character has various weaponry (machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc) to take out the baddies. It's not a very unique concept, nor does the story seem too captivating. Also, it seems to take an arcade feel to the action. Not as much as Dead Rising, but it's still prevalent.
Graphically, Lost Planet looks above average for a 360 game, but nothing overly impressive. The only thing that looked extremely amazing was streaking fireballs in the sky that left thick black smoke trails. The particle effects are a bit odd. Creatures will explode, but into an unrealistic barrage of glowing lights.
Lost Planet is attempting to create a frantic shooter wrapped into some sort of storyline, but it doesn't seem to pull it off. Be wary of this one.
Turok Trailer
What a huge joke! Turok has an enormous display set up to show of a crappy pre-rendered trailer. The trailer was about 2 minutes long. It was pretty much a series of prerendered stills set to cheesy music. Also, not coming out until 2007.
Anyway, I'm going to hit a couple more booths before heading out for the day. BTW, the line to see the Wii and its games got up to 6 hours today. Yowsa!
Spore is certainly a site to see. The sheer complexity of the game is hidden by its simplistic GUI and gameplay. If you haven't read about it, Spore allows you to start at the bottom of the food chain with a little tadpole-like creature and continually evolve into a being that can conquer the entire galaxy.
In the opening of the demo, the creature creation menu allows you to manipulate the body of your tiny animal. The spine can be rotated and molded to fit your specifications. Then you get to add parts like wings, arms, feet, horns, eyes, etc. Each part has 10 to 20 variations of itself. Also, the parts play a huge role in determining the attributes to a creature. For instance, adding small feet may increase your speed, but it will decrease your stealth. Other attributes include sense, power, and social skills.
When you finally have all the parts on and the creature is ready to go, it moves into the coloring stage. Certain colors will affect the attitude of the creature. Once the color is chosen, something called procedural texturing kicks in. This type of texturing will affect patterns in the skin as well as dictate how well a creature moves and what it sounds like.
After character creation is completed, you move into the actual planet. At this point, you can explore the area, interact with the other creatures, and enter social groups. These groups will allow for mating and the next generation of creature to be created. Once your offspring hatches, the character creation screen comes back on and you can add features previously not available to your species of creature.
Eventually, your creature will evolve high enough to enter a tribal stage which will unite fellow creatures under your rule. The lady running the demo glossed over this and went directly into the city stage. Similar to Sim City, everything in the city is customizable and dependent on creating a stable ecosystem.
An interesting sidebar: Dependent on your choices over the early points in the game, the world around you will be populated with similar creatures. The cool part is that these creatures are ones that have been created by other gamers playing Spore. Basically, the game figures out your preferences and adapts your world using player created content.
Anyway, after progressing through the city stage, you will eventually have the option of building a UFO. Again, the game will suggest UFO designs that have been created by other players. But you have the option of creating one from scratch. Once you build a UFO, you can travel quickly around the planet as well as visit the thousands of planets in the entire galaxy.
During the demo, we were shown how it's possible to abduct creatures from your own planet and transplant them into other worlds. If you manage to populate another planet with homeworld creatures, you will get a certain amount of influence with the native creatures. This can eventually lead to trade agreements to boost your own economy.
Graphically, Spore has the gorgeous quality that the Apple operating system seems to have. The lines are curvy and the textures are sleek. The animations are silky smooth as well. There is a slight hitch when zooming out from planet to galaxy to universe, but it's not a problem considering the scope of the game.
Spore is definitely the game to end all Sim games. I wonder if Wil Wright has any idea where to go after this. Creation of the ultimate Sim game leaves no room for expansion. Anyway, it's the game to watch for at the end of the year.
Lost Planet Hands-on
I briefly spoke to a Capcom rep about this game as well as getting some hand-on time with it. The demo section I played through seemed oddly similar to Starship Troopers. The level was a snow covered mountain filled with huge insect like creatures. The main character has various weaponry (machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc) to take out the baddies. It's not a very unique concept, nor does the story seem too captivating. Also, it seems to take an arcade feel to the action. Not as much as Dead Rising, but it's still prevalent.
Graphically, Lost Planet looks above average for a 360 game, but nothing overly impressive. The only thing that looked extremely amazing was streaking fireballs in the sky that left thick black smoke trails. The particle effects are a bit odd. Creatures will explode, but into an unrealistic barrage of glowing lights.
Lost Planet is attempting to create a frantic shooter wrapped into some sort of storyline, but it doesn't seem to pull it off. Be wary of this one.
Turok Trailer
What a huge joke! Turok has an enormous display set up to show of a crappy pre-rendered trailer. The trailer was about 2 minutes long. It was pretty much a series of prerendered stills set to cheesy music. Also, not coming out until 2007.
Anyway, I'm going to hit a couple more booths before heading out for the day. BTW, the line to see the Wii and its games got up to 6 hours today. Yowsa!
05-12-06 | 10:51 AM
#5
DVD Talk Godfather
I'm looking forward to checking out Lost Planet.
From what I read, a new company is handling the Turok franchise and they are going back to the roots of the first game, which coincidentally was the last good Turok game. So that is a move in the right direction.
From what I read, a new company is handling the Turok franchise and they are going back to the roots of the first game, which coincidentally was the last good Turok game. So that is a move in the right direction.
05-12-06 | 12:38 PM
#7
DVD Talk Godfather
Nope. They've all been Acclaim.
05-12-06 | 02:39 PM
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From: Westchester, Los Angeles
Originally Posted by PixyJunket
This fills my heart with warmth.
05-13-06 | 12:12 PM
#9
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Couldn't disagree more with your Lost Planet impressions. Played this demo at home, and not only does it look great, it kicks much ass. The second level is really where it starts to kick. Plus it runs smooth as silk. This is the most polished demo I've ever seen, especially for a game that won't see release for quite a while.
