Esporo

Nenhuma novidade sobre o Spore Creatures nas prévias, mas eles possuem algumas imagens (que já estão na nossa galeria):

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O Spore vai ser lançado no Brasil em 5 de setembro! Dois dias antes dos EUA.

O motivo disso é que a EA Brasil é uma subsidiária da EA Europa, e não da EA americana (?!?), e na Europa eles vão receber o Spore entre os dias 4 e 5 de setembro, dependendo do país. O site da EA Brasil já lista o Spore para o dia 5.

Spore Creatures, o spin-off para o Nintendo DS, teve suas primeiras três imagens divulgadas hoje. Elas revelam basicamente o Criador de Criaturas, o visual in-game e como será a arte do jogo, que eu gostei bastante porque parece aqueles bichinhos de EVA que tinha na decoração da pré-escola onde eu estudei :)

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A EA anunciou hoje o que já era esperado. O Criador de Criaturas, a principal das ferramentas de criação do Spore, será lançado antes do dia sete de setembro.

O Joystiq fez o press release, mas não anunciou data de lançamento ou preço — ou se ele virá como bônus por pré-venda. Mas não será necessário comprar essa versão separada para criar criaturas no jogo final. Ele é um complemento para “iniciar a população da Sporepédia”, diz o site.

O terceiro artigo sobre Spore do Joystiq é sobre a versão para celulares. Assim como os dois anteriores, vem com um monte de informações bacanas e vale a lida:

Spore Creatures for mobile phones is launching with the rest of the Spores on September 7. I figured that this Spore had no chance of infecting me. But after recently playing, I was impressed and surprised by its quality. The graphics -- and even its concept -- would be at home on a DS or Game Boy.

Like Spore on the DS, the mobile version of the game doesn't even try include everything from the PC version. Spore for phones centers on the Cell Phase of the game. You use the phone's joystick to steer the creature through a slurry of suspended protein and other early life forms, eating objects and avoiding enemies.

But like the other versions of Spore, you'll regularly use a creature editor to upgrade the character. While the body part choices are also scaled down, there's enough variety to make the creature your own. Certain parts, like a dangling lure, affect how other organisms behave. That lure attracts food to you, for example. Or you could add a shell for personal defense; hit a button, and hide inside for temporary invulnerability.

The creature customization seems like a lot of depth for a mobile phone game, but Spore goes further. After winning the hour-or-so-long game -- it's broken into 18 short levels of several minutes each -- your complete creature can fight friends' creations. Those creatures can migrate to your phone through its network, where they'll battle in an autonomous fight. The better-evolved one will usually win. If you've raised a loser, you can play the full game again to create a new contender.

All of these features make Spore a standout phone game. But it's a looker, too. Sharp, clear graphics present the world, with the bright life forms popping off the backgrounds.

According to EA, Spore will be available for every "game-capable phone" on nearly every network worldwide. Pricing will be up to those carriers. Leave it to EA to launch big; at least the company is sticking to one planet.

O Joystiq escreveu outro artigo sobre o Spore, agora para Nintendo DS. O site teve uma semana para testá-lo e postou suas impressões. Leia:

Like many other multi-platform games, Spore DS Spore Creatures is being developed outside of EA's Maxis office. Foundation 9 -- formerly the Amaze Entertainment studio -- is handling the game. (Maxis says it's doing the "design" internally, for what that's worth.) Spore's immense scope is being cut to fit the DS screen; instead of five different phases, the DS game is more of an adventure story centering on creature creation, exploration, and evolution.

After hearing this scope — “You know... for kids.” — I almost wrote it off outright. After seeing the game, I think it's going to appeal heavily to that young demographic, but it's also going to snag a lot of The Sims fans.

Spore Creatures begins with your character's friend being abducted by aliens. Seriously. You amble through the world, fending off attackers, making friends, and evolving, while on a quest to reclaim your pal. After seeing so much Spore already, I had to fight to stay awake while the cute story was explained.

Creatures are mostly 2D cutouts animated into a 3D world. And they look good, with smooth animation and lots of details. But the bright, saccharine world was another clue that this isn't going to hit quite the same audience as the PC version of Spore.

The creature modification, however, kept me from dozing off. Sure, it's scaled down from numerous PC options, but it's similar. Using parts that you find, and DNA points that you earn through eating and survival, you'll enter the creature editor. And just like the PC game, you'll choose from dozens of body parts with attributes oriented for attack, defense, social interaction, and more. Players can adjust part position, size, and other characteristics. Creatures can even earn "bio-powers" to breath fire or otherwise embellish on life as we know it.

Spore Creatures lets players save up to ten different creations, including those from friends over a local, peer-to-peer connection. Those creatures propagate into the game in a similar way as the PC version, letting your friends' creations take on their own lives. Gamers can also trade creatures over Nintendo's WiFi network using friend codes. Spore even allows you to meet strangers' creatures by opting out of the friend-code requirement and registering through an EA website. (Yes, I give my permission not to enter sets of 12-digit numbers.)

Spore Creatures is unique in its controls. Painting creatures is a little more fun with a stylus. And you can steer creatures with the D-pad or touch-screen. A few mini-games also subtly creep in. For example, you might need to use the stylus to dig on-screen for buried prizes. Or the stylus aims and throws rocks. From what I saw, these extras felt like a good addition to the game. A beat-matching game appeared when a creature danced to entertain a new friend. I'm more dubious of that Simon-line repetition than these other DS-only ideas.

The DS version of Spore focuses on collecting items, sure to be a hit with the Pokemon crowd. Players can earn 60 badges based on game moments -- like one for accurate rock throwing -- plus discover 280 hidden creature parts. Over its 12 levels, Spore Creatures seems like it'll be a fun way to take some of the Spore ideas away from the PC. But admittedly, it seems to be targeting a different group than the full SimEverything game.