All they would have to do to fix this problem is make the turrets actually work. I don't think i've ever seen a turret shoot down a damn thing in the space phase. If the turrets worked I wouldn't have to rush home every minute or 2 and the game would be awesome.
Hell i'd even be happy if the turrets worked but I had to fly home to repair them every 10 attacks or so...i could deal with that.

My thoughts on Spore after a couple of days:

Cell Stage - Fun. Should be a bit longer, more detailed.
Creature Stage - Fun. Should be more detailed. Too easy to max out skills of any character whether they are social or aggressive. Creature creator is fun.
Tribal Stage - Tedious and simiplistic.
Civilization Stage - OK, for a RTS-lite.
Space Stage - Broken. Reminds me of some strategy PC games I bought in the mid/late 90s that were broken out of the box.

I'm beginning to think the entire game is broken. The focus of the game is clearly on the creature creator. Unfortunately once you get past the creature stage, the characteristics of your creature don't seem to matter any more. And what you are left with is three bad mini-games that range from OK to completely broken.

It's a shame really because there is something special going on during the first two stages and then it just falls apart.

Tracy Jacks is dead on. I was so excited during the first few phases of the game and was actually rambling about my creature to the point that my fiancee painted a picture of it while on acid later that night. Now I wish the poor bastard had never evolved. I'm glad that I pirated this game instead of buying at my next pay day as I had originally intended.

Just finished Mass Effect, just started Call of Duty 4.

Goddamn it, I forgot about double XP weekend in COD4. Oh well, back in the closet you go COD4.

One week until the updated Colonization comes out. I'm freaking stoked. What a geek I am.

I just found out about this. I can't wait.

Check out

http://apolyton.net/colonization/11/159/

and

http://www.hookedoncolonization.com/

for more info/screens/videos/reviews, etc. Looks freaking phenomenal and appears to have successfully integrated Civ's mechanics and some new stuff into the game, while keeping much of the basic game from 1994 the same. Can't wait!

ZOMG Mega Man 2 on Virtual Console today. I'm playing it right now =D

Count me psyched!

Hey Sausage sorry about not joining last night on RB2. Was playing with a rookie trying to coax him through, and we had to keep flipping back to MNF because of fantasy football scores. Would have been a waste of your time. Look me up some other time and rock out with The Abe Lincoln.

oh yeah no prob i invited you and then completely forgot i did

just finished playing w/ wakingrufus and good dr bill

I can't hang playing RB2 with Sausage. I want to play Modest Mouse and Duran Duran, but that's too easy. I have no problem playing Expert Bass though.

I only pretty much play the easy songs as well, because im primarily the vocalist and those are the songs i know and like to sing

just because ive been playing nonstop for the last two days doesnt mean im any good at the game

me and GDB have been tearing shit up though

Force Unleashed is pretty fun. But the glitches and obviously limited scope of the design hurts what would have been the best SW game since KOTOR.

Also, the suggestion of Vader starting the Rebellion is nonsensical. And it betrays Vader's redemption in episode 3.

Spore is a massive failure as well.

Unprecedented 1.5 stars on Amazon, mostly due to DRM protests. I was going to ask for it for Xmas. I'm guessing I should hold off? What the hell should I ask for instead? On a Mac?

Ask for a gaming PC.

I wouldn't call spore a massive failure. There is a midground between greatest game ever made and massive failure. I think spore is somewhere in between. It's got an 85 on metacritic and sales are through the roof....not really a massive failure. Maybe a massive let down....but critically and financially it's not really failing.

Yeah.


I don't know. Considering the difference between what it set out to do and what it eventually became, I'd say "massive failure" is a pretty accurate description. Sure, it'll make money. With the marketing behind the game, it'd be hard not to. And that Metacritic rating is not too surprising. Game critics are pretty worthless overall, if not bought and paid for, and I think they're being overly generous because of the hype and because of Will Wright. It may not be the worst game ever, but it's still pretty bad.

Spore is the equivalent of a big budget movie with a famous director and all star cast that winds up being awful. It does make a lot money on its opening weekend due to the relentless hype, but doesn't do much after that because of the negative word of mouth.

Who cares about Spore when Peggle Nights has just been released!!

Indeed. A new Peggle is worth a million Spores.

This is disappointing to read.

And WTF - it suggest Vader started the Rebellion?! That's fucking stupid.

In concept, gameplay and design the game is not even close to being good. The gameplay is shallow enough to be nonexistent. The design is shoddy to the point there is no incentive or advantage to any choice a player makes. There is not even an illusion to the creation or vehicles/creatures/society. In fact the game does away with the pretense altogether around the tribla stage. Conceptually, the game is an incomplete progression of video gaming and offers no commentary to the already flimsy allegory.

There is no aspect of design or gameplay in which Spore succeeds.

spore is getting good reviews because it's a will wright game, because of the hype, and because reviewers are scared of slamming it because they probably think they havent invested enough time in it to properly trash it.

However, spore is not deep or involving and is the biggest letdown of the decade.

whatever coolness and potential the space phase has is ruined by constant pirate attacks, poor AI, and the general monotony of collecting spice and not really feeling like you've accomplished anything whatsoever.

Speaking of pirate attacks, anyone here play Sins of a Solar Empire?

Yes, I posted about SoSE several times in this thread. It's fantastic if only for the groundbreaking UI. The gameplay is very deep. Though I felt the planetary development process was a bit too simple and easy to game/mine for invincible fleets. The map editor was also very limited which disappointed me a bit. Still very good game. Not GalCiv level of awesome. But good nonetheless.

I played the shit out of it when it first came out. Haven't been back to it in awhile, though. The new 1.1 patch sounds interesting.

Changelog http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/316556 and http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/324241

Yeah, I kept an eye on SoSE patches. Most excited about the UI improvements (streamlining commands to min/max trade/warfare windows is awesome) than the fixes to balance. The AI put up a good fight through good economical decisions on higher difficulty levels. The balance fixes are really only necessary in MP, which is moot because nobody plays MP.

To be honest, I am more excited for Sword Of the Stars: Murder Of Crows and Sword Of the Stars 2. As far as streamlined 4x space strat games g, I found SoS to be a more enjoyable game. Though again, SoSE had incredible UI design and depth. But it almost becomes an issue of not going far enough in SoSE.

I hadn't heard of Sword of the Stars. I'll give it a look.

You could say pretty much all the same stuff about the sims, and yet it continues to sell an insane amount of copies. Not everyone is looking for spore to deliver deep gameplay on par with a civilization game, some people just like making creatures and spaceships. The creature/etc and sharing options do actually deliver on their promises. For every person who tells me they hate it there's another person who tells me they love it. The creature creator has been selling very very well since it's release I really don't think we're going to see a drop off in spore sales. Just because it's not appealing to the hardcore gamer doesn't make it a massive failure. And I really don't think Will Wright is magically above criticism from game journalists. The game is getting good but not great reviews and I think that's fair.

The Sims does not qualify as a video game. No.

anything below a 9.0 for spore review means the reviewer thinks the game sucks ass but doesn't really know how to say it

i guarantee in ten years IGN will say this game is disappointing and not very fun

i just finished COD4 again. This time on the Hardened Veteran setting. not as horrible as i thought it would be. Now COD2 is fucking tough on the high level. not sure if i have the sanity to crack it.

back to Bioshock! is there a sequel coming for this?

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/879/879727p1.html

The chairman of 2K already announced BioShock 3 lol.

All right, we'll I'll jump on tonight.

Yeah, the general population of game reviewers are ridiculously awful at cutting through hype. I can't say for sure since I haven't played it, but I would imagine Yahtzee Croshaw has the most accurate Spore review out there. Of course, he has the most accurate reviews on every game.

I don't know if you guys listen to podcasts at all, but GFW Radio is ending. Jeff Green left last week and this week Shawn Elliott will announce he's leaving. It's a sad fucking day. Best gaming/non-gaming related podcast evar.

gfwradio.1up.com

I'm playing Mercenaries 2. For a game that has quite a list of things wrong with it, it's still quite fun. How the developers managed this is beyond me. Terrible AI, NPCs randomly disappearing/getting stuck in rocks, irritatingly repetitive dialog (I'm over halfway through and still getting aural tips on what to do), sound glitches, average graphics and so forth don't break the game. It won't win any awards for sure, but I guess I just like blowing stuff up.

maybe like 50/50

I listen to GFW Radio. Yeah, it is sad the show is ending. The GFW guys were of the few reviewers that brought a serious critical discussion to videogames. In particular, Sean Elliot who wrote some of the most insightful and rigorous games writing (his thoughts on latent racism in games. oh man.) since the UK guys at NextGen folded up shop in the mid-90s. Jeff Green was also very good.

Of course, GFW Radio was extremely funny and silly too. That is what made it such a great show though. The humor balanced with the serious discussion.

Very sad.

Fuck the the enthusiast press.

I find even his most controversial opinions pretty astute or at least well argued. Even his hatred of RPGs suits me these days as its a genre I've become less and less interested in since playing D&D.

I can't remember the last time I watched a Yahtzee review, typically covers games i could care less about. The last really good one was MGS4.

His hatred of RPGs is fine as there's so many things wrong w/ that genre right now I don't even know where to start, but the dude can't write about fighting games without sounding like a total retard. the soul calibur IV review just sounded embarassing to my ears.

spore review so otm though

I thought the Soul Caliber review was fairly good considering that he stated upfront that he doesn't really understand the appeal of fighting games. As someone who isn't much of a fan of the fighting genre, I found a lot to relate to in it. I mean, as much as I really enjoy the occasional Tekken or Soul Caliber, I can't say I ever come back to them much in the long run and the perennial popularity of something like Street Fighter II does baffle me a bit. Of course, with you being an avowed fighter fan, I'm sure the idea of not seeing the appeal in fighting games was just absurd on its face.

It should also be noted that games Post-PS1 Tekken are comparable to fighting games such as Street Fighter in legacy only. As the 2-D fighters became more tactical (Alpha, GG, Vs series) and the Virtua Fighter (also a few games for DC + Saturn fit in here) series became more technical; games like Tekken, SC, PS, etc, moved toward more simplistic systems.

To the point that say, MK2 is a good deal deeper than SC4. So it is not fair at all to think of Soul Caliber as being in the genre of "fighting" games as they were in the hollowed early 90s. That would be like saying Streets Of Rage is in the same genre as God Of War (and to some extent Diablo/Titan Quest). Rooted in the same place, but they branched into different entities.

My problem with Yahtzee & other reviewers is they are unaware or unwilling to take a hard look at fighting games in their current form and evaluate them within context as the genre has branched. There is simply no reason to think of Tekken in the same vein as Street Fighter anymore. It is inappropriate and inaccurate.

This is a pretty far-fetched argument, Damo. Fighting games have followed the same setup since the days of street fighter. The emphasis shifting from tactical considerations to button mashing is hardly grounds for recognizing it as some entirely separate entity. Certainly, they have striking differences, but this could be said of games 10 years apart in any genre.

edit: anyways, Yahtzee is hardly the man to make this distinction. He openly acknowledged his bewilderment at all fighting games. His review was more of an amusing attempt to come to grips with the appeal of Soul Caliber and still finding it shitty.

Not far fetched at all. The gameplay is aimed at entirely different things. And you can't compare or speak of a shooters from 10 or 20 years apart in the same terms. Contra is a shooter as is Half-Life. But while HL was born out of Contra's legacy, nobody mistakes or reduces HL to the gameplay conventions of Contra or Gunstar Heroes.

And before you make the point of Contra having platform elements- think back on what a good portion of HL had players doing when not dodging head crabs and helicopters.


Noted. But it is still lazy criticism. Or at least, outdated.

I will cede this argument to you mostly because I am simply not qualified to talk about the nuance of Fighting games as I find them powerfully uninteresting over any decent span of time, be it Tekken on Street Fighter. This is why I found the Yahtzee Soul Caliber review enjoyable. We have a similar perspective on the phenomena.