Spore.. Over rated?
polycounter lvl 18
Spore seems to be a very highly anticipated game, and EA seems to be treating it like its going to be the next Sims or something. Will Wright is very much a game dev god, and has been pretty vocal about how spore is his next big thing.
That being said.. am I the only one who is really not looking forward to thing game? Primarily for me its the art style. I know the art does not make the game, but none of us can deny the big impact it has.
I feel that if a lot of the creatures and environments Ive seen were removed from the omg its spore context, they would just look umm.. bad. Procedurally generated user created art just doesnt seem to do it for me. Not to mention all the Sporn creatures people have been cranking out. haha. Im not sure who this game is for? Who are they selling to? Because it just doesnt have me amped up to run out and buy it like so many other new releases.
I am looking forward to seeing what its all about though. Thoughts?
That being said.. am I the only one who is really not looking forward to thing game? Primarily for me its the art style. I know the art does not make the game, but none of us can deny the big impact it has.
I feel that if a lot of the creatures and environments Ive seen were removed from the omg its spore context, they would just look umm.. bad. Procedurally generated user created art just doesnt seem to do it for me. Not to mention all the Sporn creatures people have been cranking out. haha. Im not sure who this game is for? Who are they selling to? Because it just doesnt have me amped up to run out and buy it like so many other new releases.
I am looking forward to seeing what its all about though. Thoughts?
Replies
My Cons:I just hope the whole procedural art thing dosn't get people thinking artists are no longer needed.
many a father might be proud of an ashtray their child slaved away on in kindergarten - but if you remove it from the 'omg first piece of art' it looks pretty shitty.
spore gets people involved with the game, excited about making art, eager to share what they've made with everyone they know. with as much fun and creativity people are squeezing out of the demo, something like 10% of the editor, I can't see how the full product is overrated.
Have you grabbed the demo and given it a whirl?
Basically I expect it to be some sort of family-friendly version of Civilization meets Populous meets The Sims, on a wide-ranging scale.
Personally while I think the art itself doesn't look amazing (since it's mainly procedural), the stuff they manage with this hindrance is impressive - a lot of the animation sets when applied to a COMPLETELY WEIRD creature actually add a whole ton of personality, it's really quite impressive.
It bet it will be pretty darn cool, but probably won't be anywhere as big a hit as the Sims.
The thought had crossed my mind about artists not being needed and that this ("creating characters") is the next big thing, create the character you would like to play with in your game, which in a way is great I love the idea but don't think it would work with everygame.
I'll speak for myself when I say my interest in game art started with the idea of wanting a particular character for a game (Q3A), at least it sparked my interest to create characters for games.
About Spore:
The attatchment system still needs a bit of work if you place objects to close together you get weird artifacts going on in the "mesh" of the created character, at least this happen to me in the demo.
PS. It's not aimed at polycount users. It's aimed at a wide audience of NORMAL PEOPLE.
However, it's not really my "thing". I'm guessing it will be hugely successful. The formula is perfect for the current market. Right now people want to be able to feel like they are creating things and then to share those things. Social networking is huge. It's got all of the kind of stuff to hit hugely right now.
So yea, I'll probably play it, enjoy it for a couple of hours, and that'll be that. However I think it will be a giant hit and will sell very well.
http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=usr-docrob100
Nothing can be overrated when there is content like that available.
It seems like game-devs and gamers are the ones flipping out about it while average joe non-gamer is kind of scared away, I typically hear people say "I don't really think I'm creative enough to play this game"
They just made me think of Zoobs :P Now I think I'll actually try out the character creation demo.
Also i dont think there has been empty bubbles of info released about this game, they have backed up pretty much everything with live demos.
With that story in mind, all you really need to know about it is this:
>250k spore creatures were created in a day.
It doesn't matter if you dislike the game, or the visuals, or don't have faith the gameplay will be any good. They've already proven it isn't overhyped or overrated and it's not even out yet.
Or... sales don't translate directly to the quality of the product.
I'm not saying that I disagree with you that Halo is a good game, and I'm not saying that spore is going to be bad. What I am saying is that just because a game sells well does NOT mean it's good, and until Spore is released whether or not it is overhyped, overrated, underhyped or underrated will not be proven.
I think this is a pretty silly comment, the scope hasnt improved since then? If the scope hasnt changed, and they actually manage to implement all of the features they talked about doing, this could be one of the most in depth, deep games ever created. Most games get cut and cut and cut before release to the point where its just another generic boring game that we've all played. If they manage to actually deliver what was promised i think thats a pretty huge achievement. Hell if they even manage 3/4s of that it will still be a quite expansive game, with insanely high replay value.