The Vicious and Powerful SovereignSaurus

By sovknight | June 17, 2008

I’m not much of a gamer.  I never really have  been, save for a couple of exceptions.  Video games just aren’t my thing.  I’m not very good at them, and I get bored easily after a few plays.  I played World of Warcraft until my free 30 days ran out, then shelved it.  I managed to make it almost all of the way through Half Life 2, then stopped for no good reason.  I haven’t owned a gaming console since the Atari 2600 (except for a Nintendo Wii which I purchased, played maybe twice, then sold.)  No, you could say that video games don’t hold my interest for long.  It’s not even something I’d even typically blog about.  I’m a terrible Gen-Xer.

Seems that’s bound to change soon.  The game Spore is nearing completion.  It’s intended release date is sometime in September, but today the creators released a Creature Creator in trial version, giving a tiny little taste of the game to come.

For those who don’t know, Spore is probably the most ambitious game ever made.  It has five phases, each lasting however long it takes to complete the evolution of your creature.

Evolution you say?  Exactly.  You start out in this game as a single-celled organism swimming about in the primordial soup of some planet.  Your goal here is to eat other cells in an attempt to grow into a multi-celled creature, whilst avoiding predators and the like.  After that’s accomplished, you crawl out of the ocean and begin your life as a land creature.

This is where it gets interesting.  You have to guide your evolution from sluggy invertebrate to intelligent citizen of the planet, all the while finding food, potential mates, shelter, learning about fire and the wheel, having children, etc.  The complexity abounds.  And if that weren’t enough, the entire game is massively multiplayer, which means the other creatures vying for dominance of your planet are other players connected to you through the Internet.  Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

The final phase, after you’ve conquered your planet, (or destroyed it via global warming or other disaster) is to spread out into space and explore new worlds.  You’ll be able to terraform planets, or guide the evolution of lesser creatures, culminating in eventual mastery of the galaxy.

This is the Sims times one million.  The game has elements of RPG, 3D adventure, 2D, and multiplayer games.  All wrapped up in one.  This is finally a game I can get excited about.

Today I downloaded the Creature Creator and played around a bit.  I recommend that everyone go and get it, because it’s seriously a lot of fun.  You basically turn your little blob into a creature using some pre-defined things like eyes and legs, then you paint him and walk him around a bit.  You can save your creature as an animated avatar, load a movie up to YouTube, or just take a picture.  The combinations are endless. 

So without further ado, I present the vicious and powerful SovereignSaurus, teaching her new hatchlings the art of the hunt.

If this simple tool is any indication on how much fun this thing will be, I’m all for it.  I’m so getting this game.

Check out this video.  It explains the game better than I can, and gives you perspective on just how complex it is.  Truly awesome!

If anyone makes a creature, please give a link in the comments, ok?  We all wanna see.