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loomer wrote: Furthermore, Spore was not designed to be incredible in and of its individual phases, but rather a collection of toys, in his own words. Cheap, easy fun, rather than a fully developed game.

Hotfoot wrote:I actually liked the original SimCity games, but it's a far cry from "He made a good game once" to "He'll make a good game now".

The Sims is a POPULAR game. It is, perhaps, a well constructed game. However, it is largely mindless, repetitive, and ultimately boring to me outside of the "one more turn" syndrome. I played it, realized I was spending more time organizing my character's life than my own, and promptly shut the thing off.

Popularity != Quality. American Idol should be proof enough for that.

And again, just because someone made an awesome game twenty years ago does not mean they'll make an awesome game today, especially when you're talking about completely changing the scope of the game involved. If the developer of, say, Final Fantasy 6 told me he was going to make an Oblivion-esque game with a totally open world and organically flowing characters, I'd be very cautious until I saw something resembling the final product, because while both games are huge, sprawling RPGs, the qualities of a Final Fantasy game and an Elder Scrolls game are rather different.

Similarly, Spore promises 4X and RTS gameplay, plus city-building, plus cohesive behavior citizens, and huge scale. I can see right off from the videos he's shown us that he's taking huge shortcuts and that those aspects of the game are going to be, at best, mediocre. He has not history of developing anything like those games, of course, so naturally I would expect them to suck, and the entire process of Spore is a giant case of "Too many ideas, too little time". The fact that he cut major parts of the game out and has basically redesigned it is indicative of this fact.

Bottom line: He's promising us the world and giving us Hoboken. Just like Molyneux. He might have a somewhat better track record, but at this point, just be glad it's a disappointment like what Molyneux comes out with, and not utter shit like what Derek Smart churns out.

Vympel wrote:Hear hear. Black & White will always be the ultimate expression of this syndrome for me, and since then, I've stayed well away from games that are really toys masquerading as games. I don't remember who drew that distinction on SD.net, it was a few years ago, but it was a very good one. I want games, not fucking toys.

Andrew J. wrote: Uh...all video games are toys, aren't they?

Stark wrote:Games have rules and goals. That's why a spinning top is a toy and a rubics cube is a game.

Stark wrote:Irrelevant. The distinction stands.

And relevant to Spore, a bunch of flash games does not a pile of LEGO make.

loomer wrote:18, please, watch the videos I linked to get a better idea.

Those editors are not just for creatures. They're for goddamn EVERYTHING. The player designs his cities, his creatures, his buildings, his vehicles, and they filter into other player's games.

Ohma wrote:Yeah, unless the free version is pretty damn fun, I can't see myself paying for the full demo. Though I can spend hours tinkering with my little virtual doll house to get just the right decor so I may end up finding the free version much more entertaining than other people would.

Resinence wrote:E.V.O was one of my favourite SNES games ever, I never knew anyone else liked it, awesome

That creature is kind of creepy man, spore is supposed to be "cute" and that thing just sends out a "rip you apart with mah 14 arms" vibe. >_>

Hopefully as others have said, the actual game doesn't suck like impossible creatures.