The newly released v1.02 patch of Spore has actually caused a minor furore with one of its changes. Is it that you can hold down control in sporepedia to select multiple things? Nay. Is it the improved gait for two legged creatures? Nope. Is it the fact that there’s an occasional cubic planet thrown in? Why, yes, that’s it entirely. Here’s an enbiggened image of the planet. What do you make of it? A poll and my own thoughts on this clearly crucial PC gaming issue beneath the cut…
The argument against it is that its thrown all the laws of physics out the window. Which is true, but that’s not really why people are angry with it. The game’s already well divorced from any real scientific underpinings. What this is really about is its symbolic nature. First real content added to the game, and it’s something that is from the cute rather than simulator side of the issue. This means that they can take this as evidence of where Maxis’ priorities lie.
Perhaps more importantly though is the fact it’s an easy, obvious thing to go for. When a fanbase is angry at a game, they choose an aspect of it and magnify it so it encompasses everything that’s wrong. If they’d just slipped in cuboid planets without bringing attention to it in a patch, it’d have probably just been a fun occasional Easter Egg that fits in with the fabric of the general cartoon-heavy approach of the game. Since they’ve trumpeted it, it’s a flashpoint. As loot-glint was to Thief: Deadly Shadows and scaleable enemies was to Oblivion, I suspect Cube Planets will be to the disappointed parts of Spore fans.
They’ll be an added “n” here, but there’s nowt we can do about it. Some manner of bug in our poll system. Man! RPS so needs a patch too.
Spore Cube Planets?
My take? Option 3. Of course, this is all based upon it not being a gag from Maxis, as the only screenshot I can find online is one a Maxis chap lobbed up online. That’d be very mean.
So – your take? And obvious subtleties in your position can be explained below…
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Ian, what an awesome idea!. Mini-bribes from users are the new hot thing. Actually, it could be an auction, the one with the higher bid decides the score and tone.
@Leon
I think in any field there are those who do it primarily for the love of [the end product] and those who want to make as much money as possible. Expecting EA to be at the love end of that spectrum would be naive in the extreme.
@Theoban
The whole act of critiquing/reviewing kinda implies that a thing (game in this case) can be judged, at least to a to a degree, objectively. That’s part of the purpose of a review, really – to intelligently assess how successful a thing is in terms of what it set out to do. There’ll be subjectivity in there, of course, but I think the intent is for reviews to move towards an objective appraisal.
Something being enjoyable isn’t the same as something being good (there are some terrible films which I enjoy enormously and some brilliant films I intensely dislike) and a critic will (where appropriate) tend to separate these things where an average user will not.
@ Macbeth – You’re getting mormon ads…. i’m getting busty girls screensaver ads.
Now, i’m not going to say that the advertising overlords are scanning our browser history but…. you’ve got to stop watching that Mormon pr0n. It’s ruining your eyesight!
On topic! I don’t care about Spore one way or the other since on the one hand i have friends who say it’s a boring, empty game and on the other i can’t abide the limited installs, online authentication crap either. But just for the sake of argument, if i did care about the game i might be a little peeved that they’re adding in square planets and harping on about them when there are unfixed bugs in the game.
Not to offend anyone, but if cubic planets in Spore is the kind of thing that seriously upsets you, you’re insane and it’s time to get help.
But games are children’s toys. If oblivion is the hard to follow book that you make your kid read so that he grows up anti-social and smart, spore is the play-doh.
The only thing that annoys me about cubic planets in Spore is that I haven’t been able to find one yet.
Poll needs “Yawn, still a bore” option. This is all.
It looks like cheese.
I like cheese.
Kieron, don’t tell me my $2 a month hasn’t paid off your Ferrari yet?
Nick: It keeps me sweet. Or, at least, in sweeties.
KG
Eh. Based on Will Wright’s ramblings (I’ve probably listened to Will talk for longer than I played spore), I’d expected a much more sciencey game. I was a little disappointed at how it turned out, but at the end of the day it’s a business and they want to make money. I doubt a pure-science version of Spore would have so much as broke even, what with how fecking long they spent developing the game.
That said, I emitted a small squeal the first time I saw a binary system, and some of the other astronomical anomalies. And I’m very glad that children will get to see them and understand how this stuff happens.
RPS FOR SALE! €2 per word!
As an Angry Internet Man, I prefer my giant sentient cockbeasts in their bewinged cockships to live on round planets.
I’m taking my money and going home.
At the end of the year we gotta make a list of the 2008 Top 10 Gamer’s Moot Points.
A list that will include the words “pirates”, “fallout”, “brown”, “WAR”, “gay rainbows” and “cubic planet”.
:D
I wonder if they had a similar outpouring of rage when human civilisation realised the earth wasn’t flat, many, many (cubic) moons ago… :D
For my penny’s worth- I like spore, it’s fun. Creating and sharing is just as much fun, if not more than the “game” part-it’s interesting to see what people do given SDK’s, level editors and character creators. Can we not appreciate that aspect of the game as being quite useful and interesting? A streamlined way of exchanging personal content from within the game is a bonus, I feel.
@ Yhancik: awesome list sir, i salute you.
Next patch, there’ll be a disc-shaped planet on the backs of four elephants, which are standing on the shell of the giant turtle.
Never happen Fomorian. EA would have to hand over some money to Terry first – like they’d ever do that.
That said it’d be a hell of a lot easier to navigate around a planet surface if it was flat. So maybe cubes would be better – don’t know how it would fit in the flattened surface scanner though.
The reason gamers have different views to gamer reviewers is that gamer reviewers (especially the PC Gamer tainted types here) play A LOT of games. Not just the ones they know they are going to love but even those donkeys most would avoid. Gamers get to cherry pick and tend to obsess over a few. Reviewers need to move on. Thus gamers have a comparatively narrow point of view, which is fine. We need reviewers to be experts and have a broad POV, that’s how they earn their living.
He guys, you must check Framsticks. Is a old game, but is real artificial life emulation.
http://www.framsticks.com/
Since Sim Ant I have enjoyed Maxis games because of the sense of free-will I get from them. Spore is no different. You have to approach the game with an attitude that this is gonna be sand box gameplay so really the level of “fun” is up to you. Spore has more positives than negatives for me so I like it.