Admin
Admin
Posts : 280
Join date : 2010-09-16
 | | Subject: Spore ~ Information Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:24 am | |
| - Roxas wrote:
- Website - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
^Downloads for purchasing Spore games there, along with a huge active community.
(Requires internet connection for online features).
"Spore" is a multi-genre single-player god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. The game was released for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems in September 2008 as Spore. Spore is also available for direct download from EA games. A special edition of the game, Spore: Galactic Edition, additionally includes a Making of Spore DVD video, How to Build a Better Being DVD video by National Geographic Channel, The Art of Spore hardback mini-book, a fold-out Spore poster and a 100-page Galactic Handbook published by Prima Games.As part of its license, Electronic Arts released Spore Origins, an arcade-style game for mobile devices, and Spore Creatures, a light RPG for the Nintendo DS. Spore Galactic Adventures, an expansion pack for the PC game, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena for Wii and Nintendo DS respectively, is in the fall 2009 lineup, and Spore Creature Keeper have been announced as part of the 2009 lineup.
Covering many genres including action, real-time strategy, and RPG, Spore allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These can then be uploaded to the online Sporepedia and downloaded by other players.
Spore was released after several delays to generally favourable reviews. Praise was leveled at the various creators which allowed players to create practically any creature, vehicle and building. However, Spore was criticised for its gameplay which was seen as shallow by many reviewers; Gamespot remarked: "Individual gameplay elements are extremely simple." Controversy surrounded Spore for its DRM because various aspects of it were not disclosed to the player.
GAMEPLAY
Spore allows the player to develop a species from a microscopic organism to its evolution into a complex animal, its emergence as a social, intelligent being, to its mastery of the planet and then finally to its ascension into space, where it interacts with alien species across the galaxy. Throughout the game, the player's perspective and species change dramatically.
The game is broken up into distinct yet consistent, dependent "phases". The outcome of one phase affects the initial conditions and leveling facing the player in the next. Each phase exhibits its own style of play, and has been described by the developers as ten times more complicated than its preceding phase. While players are able to spend as much time as they would want in each, it is possible to accelerate or skip phases altogether. Some phases feature optional missions; when the player completes a mission, they are granted a bonus, such as a new ability or money.
If all of a player's creations are completely destroyed at some point, the species will be respawned at its nearest colony or at the beginning of the phase.
Unlike many other Maxis games,Spore has a primary win condition which is obtained by reaching a supermassive black hole placed at the center of the galaxy and receiving a "Staff of Life". Another major achievement involves defeating or befriending the Grox, a cyborg species with a large empire guarding the core. However, the player may continue to play after any goal has been achieved. There is a difficulty selector to each stage, allowing players to choose the difficulty for each part of the game. Spore defaults to the easiest level. The first four phases of the game, if the player minimally uses the editors, will take up to 15 hours to complete, but can take as little as one or two hours. Note that there is no time limit for any stage: the player may stay in a single stage as long as he wishes, and progress to the next stage when ready.
At the end of each phase, the player's actions cause whose creature to be assigned a characteristic. Each phase typically has three characteristics, usually based on how aggressively or peacefully the phase was played. Characteristics determine how the creature will start and what abilities it will have during the next stage.
STAGES
In Spore the game is based on stages. When you advance in the game it will tell you to click on the advance button. Clicking on this any other time will show your history.
CELL STAGE
The cell stage (sometimes referred to as the tide pool, cellular, or microbial stage) is the first stage in the game, and begins with a cinematic demonstration of the scientific concept of panspermia, with a meteor crashing into the ocean of a planet and breaking apart, revealing a single-celled organism.You must evolve so you can progress. The player guides this simple microbe around in a 3D environment on a single 2D plane, reminiscent of flOw, where it must deal with fluid dynamics and predators, while eating weaker microbes or plants. The player may choose whether the creature is a herbivore or a carnivore prior to starting the stage. As the game progresses it becomes possible to make creatures omnivorous, allowing them to eat both wort and flesh. Omnivore creatures can either have an omnivore mouth, a combination of herbivore and carnivore mouths, or a combination of the three mouth parts. Probably the most advantageous would be the latter, as it's impossible to eat chunks of flesh with the omnivore mouth. Once the microbe has eaten several pieces of food, the player can enter an editor in which who can modify the looks, shape, and abilities of the microbe by spending "DNA points". A player may choose to remove a part, which will refund the full price. Parts are acquired by seeking out special "golden shields" from meteor fragments and other organisms, which provide new parts to use in the editor, such as spikes, mouths or propulsion mechanisms. If the creature dies, the player restarts from wherever the creature last spawned.
The phase consists of five stages, further dichotomised or divided; every half-stage, the creature waxs. As the microbe grows, objects that are in the background draw to the foreground, making microbes that formerly lay harmless in the background a possible threat. Other creatures play a major role, and usually represent a threat. Even harmless herbivores can provide a challenge by stealing food if the player is also a herbivore. Carnivorous creatures will continually try to eat the player, fight, or compete for food. If the player can eat flesh, then who can kill other cells and eat them. Also, much smaller organisms can be swallowed up instantaneously. Larger, carnivorous cells will usually chase the player's cell and can be very dangerous. They can be killed, but only if the creature has spikes. If they do die, they cannot be eaten because a smaller cell's mouth can't penetrate their skin.
The cell's eating habits in the Cell Stage directly influence its diet in the Creature stage, and only mouths appropriate to the diet (Herbivore, Carnivore, or Omnivore) established in the Cell stage will become available in the Creature stage (However, diet restrictions can be overcome by swapping the cell's mouthpiece before entering the Creature phase, regardless of what diet is assigned to the creature).The ocean floor becomes more prominent as the player progresses, and once the player decides to progress to the next stage, the creature editor appears, prompting the user to add legs before the shift to land. The first creature editor is very limited, with only cell parts (with new functions) and legs to be had. When out of the water a cutscene will appear in which the players creature will call nestmates to join it on land and then move to the nest where the creature stage will start.
CREATURE STAGE
The biosphere contains a variety of animal species, which carnivorous and omnivorous player creatures can hunt for food, and a range of plants, some of which bear fruit that herbivores and omnivores can eat. Environmental phenomena, as well as the creature's vital health and hunger meters, are always a concern and sometimes a challenge. Sea monsters prevent all but the briefest forays to the ocean, although creatures with well-developed jump and glide abilities can use them to cross narrow stretches of ocean with impunity.
As the player's creature explores the landscape it will encounter other animal species, which may be neutral or aggressive, and their homes. Most creatures work together in their nests and live with each other, just like the player's species. In their nests, a wide variety of things may be found besides the standard creature. There are Alpha creatures, which have higher health and stats, and babies, which have lower health and stats. There are also eggs, which may be destroyed for experience points. Occasionally, instead of creatures there will be pulsating pods that will hatch into creatures after a while. How the player interacts with the nest will affect how they think of whom. For instance, if the player decides to befriend the creatures, they will act friendly toward whom, but if player attacks and kills some of them, the nest will get angry and frequently try to attack the player.
The player can then decide whether to use social skills to befriend, or combat skills to hunt, these other species; these decisions will affect the abilities of the player's species in the subsequent stages of the game. Successful socialization and hunting attempts will gain varying amounts of DNA Points, the 'currency' of this stage. DNA points may be spent on new body parts, which influence how the creature will perform when attacking or socializing. New body parts may be obtained by examining bone piles or fragmentary skeletons scattered throughout the landscape, although the new parts only come from skeletons with a sparkle effect. Also, when a player defeats/befriends an "alpha" creature, they are given a part, albeit a part that isn't always new.
To add new parts, the player's creature can mate with another member of whose nest. Then, the creature creator pops up, and the player can add new parts to whose creature, and take off old ones which gives a full refund. Who can also mold the shape of their creature and color it differently, so the new creature could look wholly different from the old version. More expensive parts will upgrade the player's abilities for their method of interaction. After they are finished, a newly evolved generation will appear with their new parts and form.
Interacting with other species also gives the player's creature the ability to form a pack, or posse, eventually containing up to three creatures. Any befriended creature may be added to an empty pack slot by making a second successful socialization attempt. Pack members will travel, socialize and fight alongside the player's creature, increasing the odds of befriending other creatures and of surviving combat. Pack members may heal at the home nest or at the nests of allied/extinct species.
Rogue creatures are solitary members of other species, almost always neutral unless attacked, and have significantly higher health than other creatures. They can be befriended, and make valuable members of a pack because of their excellent statistics. However, this can be a difficult task.
Epic creatures are enormous creatures which randomly appear throughout the phase. They are always hostile, and cannot be befriended. They have 300 to 1000 health and can kill most creatures with a single strike. As a result, Epic creatures are almost impossible to kill during this stage and are often best avoided; during later stages they present a less serious threat. Killing one in this stage grants the epic killer achievement. Epics have very high damage and/or are very complex.
As the player's creature befriends or hunts more of the other creatures, its intelligence increases. Eventually it will be ready for the subsequent Tribal, Civilization, and Space stages; in these, only cultural evolution is possible and the Creature Editor is no longer available.
TRIBAL STAGE
After the brain of the player's species evolves sufficiently, the species may enter the tribal stage. Physical development ceases, as does the player's exclusive control over an individual creature, as the game focuses on the birth of division of labor for the species. The player is given a hut, a group of fully evolved creatures, as well as two of six possible Consequence Abilities, unlocked depending on the species' behavior in the previous phases. This is only possible if the player played the previous stages; if the player started directly from the Galaxy Screen, they are locked.
This stage begins with a humorous cutscene parodying 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicting the player's creature mastering fire using a stick tool, throwing it into the air, then swaying as the stick comes down on its head. The game during this stage is similar to an RTS. The player may give the tribe tools such as weapons, musical instruments, and healing or food-gathering implements. Food now replaces "DNA points" as the player's currency, which the player can spend on structures and additional tribe members, or use to appease other tribes. Creatures also gain the option to wear clothes, the editing of which replaces the Creature Editor in the 'Tribal Editor'. If creatures of a different species were added to the player's pack in the Creature phase, they are now used as pets. Additional creatures may be domesticated in the Tribal phase, which provide eggs for food. Contact with other tribes of the same species, or even different species, can take place in this stage, and creatures also learn to speak. Creatures, as with The Sims, also "speak", most noticeably in a cutscene where the player advances to the civilization stage, with icons embedded in word balloons.
Tribe members are created by giving birth to babies (which costs ten food) and waiting for them to grow up, although the tribe can only support a certain number of members. After reaching maturity, they can do jobs like gather food, hunt animals, attack opposing tribes, and befriend other tribes. Combat can be made more effective with weapons like stone axes (for attacking units) and flaming torches (for destroying buildings). For socializing, a player can give musical instruments like maracas and horns to the tribe. Those are more essential than weapons, for other tribes will get annoyed if the creatures don't play music correctly (or at all). Also, miscellaneous tools can be used for fishing and gathering food, and for healing tribe members. All tools, however, require a specialized tool shack, which costs food to build. Tribe members can also gather food, an essential concept.
Creature stage mouths affect what kind of food they can gather and eat. For instance, herbivores cannot eat meat or fish, and carnivores can't eat fruit. Obviously, omnivores have a slight advantage because they can eat anything. Animals can be hunted for meat, and fish can be speared for food. Fruit is gathered from trees and bushes, and players can also domesticate animals for eggs. Herbivores can fish, but will get seaweed instead of fish. Any foreign animals belonging to the player's pack in creature stage are automatically added to the tribe as farm animals. Other tribes also can provide food for the player. An allied tribe will occasionally bring the player a meal to show their gratitude. Also, players can steal food from other tribes (though it angers them), and dead tribes may be pillaged for their food, if they had any.
The creatures' behaviors are affected by the way the player utilizes them. If a player uses them aggressively, their autonomic behavior will reflect that; conversely, if the player uses them peacefully, allying other tribes, their behavior will be more kind. Even their idle behavior will reflect this; warlike tribal members will practice combat while docile members will practice instruments and throw parties.
There are five other tribes that appear along with the player's tribe. 3/5 are aggressive and can either be destroyed or befriended. For every tribe befriended or destroyed, a piece of a totem pole is built, which may increase the population limit of the player's tribe or grant access to new tools and clothes. Depending on the means the tribe used to overtake the neighboring tribe—by forming an alliance or annihilating the tribe—the totem piece will either be a music-playing or war-like figure. When the totem pole has five pieces, the player may move forward to the Civilization stage.
CIVILIZATION STAGE
This stage begins with a cutscene showing a brainstorming between several members of the player's tribe about what they should do. One tribesman suggests an idea, another suggests vehicles to do the jobs, and another suggests something to the effect of "let us bake pies!" Meanwhile, the rest of the tribesmen wonder where in the world that came from and the chief dismisses it, shouting town, ideal, vehicles. Fireworks then come from around the city hall.
The events of Tribal Stage have left the player's tribe the dominant species of the planet, but the species itself has since fragmented into several nations, similar to the way humanity now lives. The player retains control of a single nation with one city. The goal in the civilization phase is to gain control of the entire planet, and it is left to the player to decide whether to conquer it militarily, economically, or religiously. When entering the phase, the tribal camp is now a city. Two new editors (the building and vehicle editors) are used to create city buildings and vehicles. The player can place three types of buildings (House, Factory, and Entertainment) around the default City Hall building and may build up to 9 types of vehicles (religious, economic, and military varieties of sea, land and air). The main unit of currency is "Sporebucks", which is used to purchase vehicles and buildings. To earn income, players can capture spice geysers, conduct trade, or build factories (see below).
In constructing vehicles and buildings, as with most real-time strategy games, there is a capacity limit; building houses will increase the cap, and constructing various buildings adjacent to one another will provide a productivity bonus or deficit: for example, building an entertainment centre next to a house will provide happiness, but a factory will decrease happiness and increase production. Like Civilization III and IV, the player's territory is marked with a colored border that increases as the player gains more power through militarism or influence.
Players can choose to gain global domination depending on the types of cities they own. Military states grow solely by attacking other cities. Instead of military conquest, players with a Religious trait construct special missionary units that convert other cities via religious propaganda. Likewise, Economic players communicate solely by trade and have no weapons. They also gain more money by trading. It is also possible to build superweapons, allowing civilizations to unleash devastating effects on their enemies. Players can also form alliances with a rival civilization, and when the entire world has been conquered by both factions, the rival faction will join the player's.
Capturing cities is the key to Civilization stage. With more cities, players can support bigger armies/merchant fleets with greater populations and economies. An economic player can send trade ships and vehicles to the opponent's cities to trade with them, if they have a trade route. Each one will bring in a small profit, as well as swifter "buyout". After trading with a city for a while, the player can buy it. A military player can simply use vehicles armed with weapons to destroy buildings to lower morale, so the city eventually surrenders. In addition, a city will surrender faster if they are unhappy (i.e. if the city has few entertainment buildings and a lot of factories). The third strategy, religious domination, is converting cities to the player. Religious vehicles spread propaganda to cities, but can be harmed and destroyed in the process, as enemies don't like their cities defecting. All three paths can eventually have a superweapon which requires a large number of cities and money, but will allow the player to conquer the world in one shot.
Epic creatures are also seen in the stage. They are greater and bigger, and will attack cities (a reference to Godzilla, King Kong, and other giant monster films)[citation needed]. The player no longer needs to kill them, as they can be charmed and manipulated (temporarily) by religious vehicles.
When the player has conquered or allied with all the civilizations on the planet and decides to move on to the Space Stage, the UFO editor appears.
SPACE STAGE
The space stage provides new goals and paths as the player begins to spread through the galaxy. The player may now terraform and colonize neighboring uninhabited planets with special tools (comet tool, volcano tool, etc). Although these tools start off as limited and very expensive one-use items, the player can later obtain limitless energy-based versions. Terraforming tools include a heat ray which can create more favorable conditions on, for example, an ice planet. If left unchecked, this can cause oceans to rise, then eventually to evaporate and transform the world into a desert planet, followed by a molten rock in space (though since Heat Ray is a manual tool, this will only happen if the tool is left on). There are 3 levels of terraforming (called T1,T2, and T3) which allows more cities and buildings with higher "T-score". Plant and animal life are needed to support and stabilize an atmosphere by balancing the ecosystem. Terraforming can also be used as a weapon, sucking out the atmosphere or altering the temperature of a planet in order to kill the inhabitants without a pitched battle. The ultimate terraforming tool is a technology called the Staff of Life, dubbed the 'Genesis device' prior to the game's release, which instantly can transform any planet into an ideal (T3) planet, complete with stable temperature and fully-filled ecosystems, although it is limited to 42 uses.
The player may cause ice comets to crash into a planet to lower temperatures. Players may build colonies on the surface of an inhospitable planet to create bubbled cities, similar in function to self-sustaining arcologies. When establishing colonies on alien worlds, players have to take care of them as they would of any other city and keep morale up.
The player may also abduct creatures and transport them to other planets to test a planet's habitability and to create ecosystems to stabilize a planet's atmosphere. The player may utilize various tools such as fireworks to interact with primitive lifeforms, or place a monolith (in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey) on a planet, triggering evolution of intelligence. On some worlds, the player may also find strange "artifacts" with functions varying from terraform coloring tools to treasures which can be sold for a relatively great price. Artifacts can be present on lifeless worlds and inhabited worlds, although taking them from planets occupied by sentient beings will anger them.
The player controls a single starship that seems to be the only useful one, as the player has to manage the empire and contact aliens alone. The player can travel by clicking on other planets and moons and stars, though each jump costs a little bit of energy. By making more interstellar trips, the player can get upgraded jump drives that allows whom to extend their jump range. However, near the center of the galaxy there lie denser star clusters, so the jump range is shortened more as the player gets closer. Also, later in the game there is a wormhole key which enables the player to travel through black holes, offering instantaneous transportation to a sister black hole.
There are around 500,000 planets in the game's galaxy orbiting around 100,000 stars (including Earth and its star, Sol).
Players can make contact with other space-faring civilizations, called "empires", most of which contain species created by other players, though if searched hard enough the player may find their own creature in another empire (sometimes they are next door). When the player's UFO visits a world owned by sentient creatures, he or she may impress the beings with fireworks or a 'happy ray', attack them with weapons, or cast crop circles. Performing various missions for alien empires increase relationship levels as well as garner money, called "sporebucks." The player may beam down a holographic image of his/her creature to explore a planet at a closer level, though it may not enter cities nor interact directly with creatures, sapient or not. A user-created civilization's AI reacts depending on its behavior and personality, both of which are based on the play-style of its user. The player can unite or conquer the galaxy by creating a federation or sparking an interstellar war. As a show of might, the player may even completely destroy a planet (using a bomb known as the "planet buster" which has similar capabilities to those of the Death Star from Star Wars), which may bring retribution from that species and its allies. The player is sometimes called upon to deal with problems on their home planet, colony, or an ally's planet, caused by space pirates (called "raiders"), environmental collapse, or attack from enemies.
One of the main goals in the Space Stage is for the player to push their way toward a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. Completing this mission rewards the player with the previously mentioned Staff of Life while introducing the game's final antagonists, the Grox, a unique species of cybernetic aliens with a powerful empire of 2400 systems surrounding the core. (They are mostly based on The Borg of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Series.) | |
|
