Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A strange beast shambles this way: Darkspore! ‘Tis the progeny of Maxis, sim-creators, and it is… an action RPG? A bold genetic strangeness, then – but is it a virile cross-breed or an inbred abomination? Let me take some time you tell you wot I think.
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Those of you with allergies had better take your antihistamines, because with action RPG Darkspore coming out tonight experts are warning of epidemics of play fever. You know, because it’s like hay fever but with a game, and the game has “spore” in the title… and I think hay fever might be caused by spores. It’s either caused by spores or ghosts, I’m sure of it.

Never mind. The Darkspore launch trailer’s out now, anyway, with clips of the game interspersed with various pieces of lukewarm-to-warm praise from gaming sites. See it for yourself after the jump.
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We’ve talked a bit already about Maxis’ strange action-RPG reworking of the tools and ideas of Spore, which they’re call DarkSpore. But now you can have a look for yourself over on Steam, where there’s an open beta until the game’s launch on 26th April. Probably worth a look if you like to loot the genetic materials of your fallen enemies, and honestly, who doesn’t? There’s a four-pack pre-order bundle up there, too, for encouraging of the co-op. I think you will want to try before you buy.

The gentlemen of BigDownload have posted a video of Darkspore’s editor stuff in action, which you can conveniently see below. As you are probably aware, this part of Darkspore is based on the creature creator technology developed for Spore, only the idea for Darkspore is that the things you create in terms of monster morphology have direct implications for your abilities in the game world. Go take a look for some more details.

Also, the trailer reveals that the game is arriving on March 29th, 2011. So not long to wait.
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The Darkspore team are busy getting their game, Darkspore, finished off, and they’re also flexing their hype muscles in prep for the big launch. Below you can see they’ve gone and played through one of the levels co-op, and explained what they’re up to. A “walkthrough” is what they’re calling it. Could catch on. There are a few interesting insights in there, too, such as the variety of combat skills, and the fact that the enemies are spawned and controlled via an AI director, as you would get in games such as Left 4 Dead. It’s a huge chunk of game footage, so if you want to know more about this game, this is where your eyes should stare.
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The genetic-warrior action RPG currently being made by Maxis has moved into the phase where it needs poking, repeatedly, to see if it breaks. If you are interested in such a task then you can sign up for the beta just here. The last glimpse we got of the game actually made it look fairly interesting.

Here’s a video of Maxis Executive Producer Michael Perry talking about their current project, DarkSpore. Okay, the name probably isn’t the most inventive they could have come up with, but some of the other stuff going on in there looks interesting. It’s a kind of squad-based Diablo with a genetics twist. In this video Perry talks about how the genetics of characters generates their different abilities and how they can be selected in a squad to compliment each other, in a manner similar to deck-based games.
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It might sound like a medical condition, but it’s actually an “online, science-fiction action/RPG”. There’s a bunch of information on the Darkspore site, including a teaser trailer. Looks like an attempt to rework the Spore systems and make it a bit more palatable to mainstream gamers. Here’s EA’s blurb:

“Darkspore is inspired in part by the award-winning creature editor tech of Spore, but also in large part from the team’s own passion for gaming and prior experience,” said Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager of Maxis Studio. “The team has combined these inspirations to produce a unique take on the action RPG genre.”

Darkspore will feature dynamic, fast-paced action as players battle across alien worlds to save the galaxy from the mutated forces of Darkspore in a four-player co-operative and full single-player campaign, as well as intense multiplayer battles. In order to defeat the malicious Darkspore, players will need to collect an arsenal of living weapons – genetic heroes with different combat abilities – and upgrade them with tens of thousands of collectible body parts and armor.

Release set for February 2011.

Ooh, just a kind of radar-blip news post for Spore’s expansion pack, Galactic Adventures. No firm release date yet, but we understand it’s not far off. So here’s something: Galactic Adventures delivers a whole load of space-stage stuff to do, mostly with missions on the planet surfaces that you can undertake with your creature and his/her space chums. There’s rescuing of princesses, destroying aliens motherships, and of course loads of that user-generated content pollination. Judging by the trailers post after the jump, the planets themselves are massively more detailed than they were for vanilla Spore, and the “massive battlefields” that the expansion reportedly features could make the unhappy endgame of Spore a little more interesting to get through. Take a look at how Spore will change.
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Much like everyone else, we’ve been thinking far too much about Spore recently. Alex Hutchinson, the game’s lead designer, has been thinking about it for years. With the game released, we grabbed the opportunity to talk candidly and extensively with him about its design choices. From high level decisions like the actual in-game effect of customisation to basic technical elements like the lack of autosave to the question of the sudden difficulty spike in Space (And the lack of difficulty elsewhere), he reveals Maxis’ thinking. Whether you adore or abhor it, after reading this, you’ll understand exactly why Spore is the game it is.
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