""

"As some of you may know from the podcast I’ve been playing uber amounts of Spore lately. Though much of the game can be conquered without breaking the tiniest sweat, the real fun comes from watching your creature evolve and adapt to the situations it faces. That’s pretty much what Adventures in Sporeland is all about. This is a chronicling of the Turzex race from their humble beginnings from walking on land, to their uncertain future throughout the galaxy.

Simply put, the Turzex race is an..."

"What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Mario Kart Wii races to the first place on the Wii chart. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed holds on to the #1 spot on the PS3 chart. Rock Band 2 remains on top of the Xbox 360 hitlist. Lego Batman stays on the PS2 chart. Spore evolves to the first place in the PC top 5. Kirby Super Star Ultra debuts on the DS chart. And lastly, aft..."

A new evolution-type animal has been born called the Machinatons in Spore. Machinima.com explores the realms of these species and gives you the whole run-down on them, noting that they have the ability to fly.

"Spore has a ton of awesome customization features, including the ability to make your own vehicles. We hired Adam Covington, freelance artist, to create some vehicles from our favorite franchises, including Star Wars, Batman and more. Here's the group, we hope you enjoy it!"

"What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Mario Kart Wii races to the first place on the Wii chart. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed holds on to the #1 spot on the PS3 and PSP charts. Rock Band 2 returns to the top of the Xbox 360 hitlist. Lego Batman debuts on the PS2 chart. Spore returns to the first place in the PC top 5. Lastly Guitar Hero: On Tour returns to the DS ch..."

"While much of the buzz about Spore has revolved around the DRM and now the lawsuit, what's important to remember is that the DRM isn't in place just to "fight" pirates. No, the activation limit and the one-account system are also strong deterrents against selling your copy of the game; EA would much rather everyone bought it instead of taking part in a second-hand market. As one Ars reader found out, buying the game used may be a risky proposition. The question is open: is EA breaking the law..."

"On Monday, just three days after EA apologized for the DRM controversy and increased the number of computers each game could be activated on (from three to five), a lawsuit seeking class-action status was brought against the company in the U.S. District Court for Northern California.

The case targets SecuROM, a DRM technology meant to prevent PC game piracy. Spore installs the program on users' computers without their explicit knowledge and cannot be easily removed, according to the 36-pag..."

"More responsible forum moderators tried to clear the air yesterday and EA itself let us know that the warning was completely out of line and, more importantly, totally inaccurate.

"These comments are absolutely not true or in-line with EA’s moderation policy," an EA spokesperson told Kotaku. "They were made by an over-zealous community volunteer who does not work for EA."

"Anyone who looks at the boards will clearly see that DRM and other issues are freely discussed on the Spore forums,..."

"EA has threatened to ban the Spore accounts of members discussing DRM issues on the official game forum.

"SecuROM has been discussed and discussed so much and it causes arguments in threads," barked a moderator. "If you want to talk about DRM SecuROM then please use another fan site forum.

"Please do not continue to post these threads or you account may be at risk of banning, which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore.""

Australian software sales for the week of September the 21st for all consoles, the Wii and the Nintendo DS.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed heavily dominated the all consoles top ten, also managing a respectable second on the top ten Wii games from being beaten by Wii Fit which also managed third being the best all console seller other than Star Wars. Wall-E managed top spot for the DS chart closely followed by Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What To Eat.

Overall the Nintendo Wii was by far ...

"What did strike me, though – given the almost universal enlistment in an activity that only 20 years ago was the preserve of home-programmers and hobbyists – was the mismatch between the scale of teenagers' involvement in video games and the relative invisibility of this creative field in what you might call the traditional media. From time to time a new game release, such as Will Wright's recently released Spor, will edge its way on to the news pages – and most newspapers carry some form of ..."

"Today, Electronic Arts have announced their UK Christmas 2008 family gaming line-up. While many of these titles will already be familiar to both Casual and Hardcore Gamers, there may also be one or two surprises...

Spore

Littlest Pet Shop

Zubo

Monopoly

Boogie Superstar

Hasbro Family Game Night"

"Seeking out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go... Ok enough of that."

"All-Format Chart
1. (NE) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
2. (5) Wii Fit
3. (6) Mario Kart Wii -
4. (NE) Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning
5. (2) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09
6. (1) Mercenaries 2: World In Flames
7. (10) Wii Play
8. (7) Carnival: Funfair Games
9. (9) TNA Impact!
10. (3) Spore

Wii Chart
1. (1) Wii Fit
2. (2) Mario Kart Wii
3. (NE) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
4. (5) Wii Play
5. (6) Big Beach Sports
6. (7) Carnival Games: Funfair Games
7. (17) Guitar Hero III: L..."

"Electronic Arts and Maxis have released the first Spore patch for the PC / Mac game, which updates the life simulation to version 1.01.

This first update fixes several bugs, addresses community complaints, and implements a few new Spore cheats. As for the still missing Spore DRM fix, Electronic Arts announced earlier that the maximum install limit would be increased from 3 to 5 to accommodate their legitimate customers. EA also promised that: “If we were to ever turn off the [DRM authoriza..."

Spore got pwned?

That's right, Spore has received a rather negative review (for the Nintendo DS version, at least) from a website called The Star.

The review builds up your excitement by talking about how people have been waiting a while now and the features. They then finish off, however, with a rather derogatory statement:

"A grind through a short sequence of uninspired levels, given drive only by the kind of collect-'em-all completism that continues to fluff up weak games a decade...

"What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Mario Kart Wii races to the first place on the Wii chart. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed force grips itself to the #1 spot on the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and PSP charts. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning debuts first place in the PC top 5. Lastly Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir enters the DS chart."

"The install limit for Spore will be upped to five, from three, and EA promises it is working on a way to deauthorize the game on your machines so you can move your installs between five computers without having to contact customer service, an expensive proposition in places like Australia where the call costs nearly $3 a minute. Talking to MTV Multiplayer, EA claimed that it was rare for gamers to install the game on multiple machines, or almost unheard of for gamers to want to put the game o..."

"Video after the Jump"

"
"

"Complaint: A legitimately bought copy of “Spore” can’t be activated on more than three different computers — ever.

EA Response: That will be changed, according to the EA spokesperson, who told Multiplayer that the current limit on the number of computers that can be associated with a single copy of “Spore” is “very similar to a solution that iTunes has. The difference is that with iTunes you can de-authorize a computer [that you no longer want associated with your iTunes content]. Right no..."

Machinima.com has uploaded a video that shares all their knowledge about the Machinamals - a group of species who have evolved from the Machina type - in Spore. They tell us about their fighting ways, how quick they grow up, and a lot more!

"With all the sound and the fury, we wondered if anyone had even yet dealt with this install limit? Mark DeSanto, who reviewed the game, installed his review copy of Spore on his main gaming PC twice, once on his laptop, and then again on the gaming PC. Four installs, across two systems. The fourth installation received an authentication error when he tried to log into the game. A quick call to EA's customer support brought an oddly-happy voice on the line, and once informed of the issue, he q..."

"Origins makes use of the iPhone accelerometer for movement; simply tilt the device in any direction to guide your creature around. Eating is as simple as maneuvering the front-facing part of your creation into a nearby food source. When that little morsel is part of a larger group, combos are racked up by repeatedly tilting the iPhone or Touch in random directions until all the food has been consumed. It sounds a bit wonky, but everything works quite well in practice.

Every few levels,..."

"What are the best-selling games in America, Japan, and Europe (UK) this week? Thanks to Amazon online sales data here are the games that are the most popular now.

Mario Kart Wii races back to the first place on the Wii chart. After a price drop to $20, Dead Rising “rises” to the top of the Xbox 360 chart. Grand Theft Auto IV remains on the top of the PS3 chart. Yakuza 2 debuts in first place on the PS2 charts. Spore debuts globally on #1 in the PC top 5. Mario Kart DS returns to first plac..."

"

1. Overly Restrictive DRM
2. One account per game
3. A mile wide but an inch deep
4. No Diversity
5. 4 out of 5 stages unneeded
6. Forget about peace
7. No lasting impact
8. Space Stage loses casual players
9. Evolution Ends
10. Long wait for low payoff

"

""

"Red Alert 3 is shaping up to be a world-class RTS game that will give you many hours of enjoyment. I think it would be a shame if people decided to not play a great game simply because it came with DRM, but I understand that this is a very personal decision for many of you and I respect that. As you might imagine, I’m a lot less respectful of those people who take the position that they will illegally download a game simply because it has DRM."

"We've done our best to scour the pantheon of user-generated creatures to snag what we like to call the Top 50 Spore Created Creatures. By using an extremely experimental, and far-too-complicated-to-explain ratings system, we've been able to rank the creatures across three primary categories: creativity, execution, and tons of personal bias. We never set out to look for the run-of-the-mill creations that the internet is now flooded with. We wanted to find some user creations that take their cu..."

"In Cell, we play as a primitive, unthinking species — fighting, fleeing or mating. Physical improvement follows the mating. Every new generation of the player’s species brings an advance based on what’s been chewed on. All the eating generates DNA points and scheduled milestones allow players to advance to grander scales of tide-pool conflict. Enemy creatures that once were too big are now merely evenly matched opponents, and, later, smaller prey.

Since Cell is the starter level, it must b..."

"I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.

We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.

After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God."

"For the last couple of days we’ve seen thousands of users back lashing against EA on Amazon for their restrictive DRM which limits the game to only 3 installs. Today, Amazon deleted the most viewed negative review against Spore."

"Right now the game has 222 customer reviews, with 194 of them giving the game one star. The game also has nine five-star reviews, two of which were written in 2006, while the other reviews spend significant amounts of time complaining about the one-star reviews. The game's rating sits at 1.5 stars as of this writing.

So what are the people complaining about? Taking a look at the review Amazon tagged as "the most helpful critical review," it's pretty clear. "First of all, the game incorpora..."

"Here’s a list of this weeks U.S. game releases. The most popular games are Spore on PC / Mac, Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise on DS, Yakuza 2 on PS2, and NHL 09 & NHL 2k9 on multiple platforms. On the downloadable games front we’ve got today’s Wii Shop titles Groovin’ Blocks, Cho Aniki, Final Soldier, as well as Samurai Shodown II, RocketBowl, and Shotest Shogi on Xbox Live Arcade (updates Wednesday). American McGee’s Grimm: The Devil and His Three Golden Hairs will join the GameTap lineup (upda..."

"As wonderful as the content creation and sharing options are, the one consistent complaint I’ve seen is that the gameplay seems to have been “dumbed down” for the sake of appealing to a more casual audience. Was it?

“I’d say that’s quite accurate,” Wright told me. “We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. “Spore” has more depth than, let’s say, “The Sims” did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for “Sims 2″, which was around 90, and something like “H..."

"Spore is a game about evolution, but evolution that's intelligently designed by the choices you make. Players design their creatures' traits, and those traits ultimately influence the civilization. The game is segmented into five phases of the evolutionary scale: Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space, with each stage presenting a different kind of game-play; a progress bar along the bottom of your screen marks how far along you are within each evolutionary stage. This is a game that..."

"PC
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Super Pack, Spore, Spore Galactic Edition

PS2
Cabela's Legendary Adventures, NHL 2K9, TNA Impact!, Yakuza 2

PS3
NHL 09, NHL 2K9, TNA Impact!

Xbox 360
NHL 09, NHL 2K9, TNA Impact!, Zoids Assault

Wii
Active Life: Outdoor Challenge, Cabela's Legendary Adventures, Hell's Kitchen: The Game, NHL 2K9, The Price is Right, Ten Pin Alley 2

DS
Air Traffic Chaos, Hell's Kitchen: The Game, Lock's Quest, Mazes of Fate, Metallic Silver Nintendo DS Lite..."

"It will only take 30-60 minutes for the install to complete before you can begin conquering galaxies in Spore before anyone else! Please note that you will be charged for the game on the 28th of August and your statements will reflect this.

Spore ships on September 5 in Europe and Asia and on September 7 in North America."

"Ahead of Spore's September 7 launch for PC and Mac, genius creator Will Wright has been talking about the create feature that's so far spawned more porn than yesterday's Bristol pirate.

But Wright says he's not offended by the army of cock monsters that invaded the internet following the release of the Spore Creature Creator. Quite the opposite in fact.

"When you give players creative control, you have to expect they're going to do the unexpected," he told the AP.

"Some of it's reall..."

"Unfortunately, the Sporepedia option isn’t possible yet. iPod “Spore” points users to EA’s mobile website, which still features a “coming soon” tag. The idea is you’ll register with EA and gain the ability to download user-made creatures to your own iPod. Their unique, customized characteristics are deduced with a “DNA Code.”

I’d previously been told such a feature would not be possible with the iPhone version. Strange, considering the old iPod product line has no Internet connection. Once..."

"Atlanta-born Wright, a bespectacled, mop-haired alien obsessive who builds robots for research purposes, said Spore was inspired by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program.

"I believe there are other intelligences out there, and the closest is several galaxies away," said Wright, 48, who grew up building model cars and dreaming of space travel."

"The BBFC have got their rating wand out, waved it about, and have deemed that the upcoming Spore, the only game ever to let you follow the evolution of a species all the way to interstellar exploration should be tagged with a PG rating. The rating is apparently due to mild language and animated violence.

The BBFC comment that “the language in the game comes late on, as the creatures and organisms at the beginning have no method of communication. Once players get to the space level, a grou..."

"While we wait for the Q&A to be completed by Lionhead's Peter Molyneux (they're in his hands now and we're told we should have them soon), we're very happy to announce today that legendary game designer Will Wright will be our next 10 Questions participant.

Wright is a man who needs little introduction, but just in case you're reading this and you don't follow the industry, he co-founded developer Maxis with Jeff Braun over 20 years ago and created a game called SimCity, which revolutioniz..."

"She then added that a "flora editor" may be among these additions, allowing players to create their own plant species as well, presumably for your creatures to munch on. I'm sure the internet community will keep things completely tasteful when it does come out and certainly will not produce a field of phallic trees or some such.

If you want to hear more about the future of Spore, be sure to check out the interview we did with Maxis senior producer Morgan Roarty on 1UP FM."

"Thumbles: Will said this week that atheists have been more vocal critics of Spore than religious gamers, contrary to his expectations. What are your beliefs, and did they influence the decisions you made developing the game?

Lucy Bradshaw: I think that Spore takes an approach that can be interpreted by the player. The religious devleopment of your species as it reaches its civilization stage is one of the choices that you have as a player. The team itself had some strong opinions about thi..."

"The wait is almost over! Electronic Arts Inc. and Maxis today announced that Spore(TM), the most anticipated video game of the year from the creator of The Sims(TM), has gone gold and will be available for the Mac and PC at retailers September 5 in Europe and September 7 in North America and Asia Pacific."

The Spore Creature Creator is essentially a demo of the tool you use to create your species in game Spore. Now this has been available for purchase for some time, but for those scroungers and cheapskates there is a free version coming with the Sunday Telegraph here in Australia, at least according to the advert that I witnessed.
It gave the impression of being the full version but no news on whether this will occur outside of Australia.

"Some people just want to seem like rebels. Whether it’s a supposed boycott of a company, or merely hating a company for the sake of hating it (of course the excuse is usually because that said company is “evil”), some people just need to hate something to love… well, something else."

"At its press conference just now, EA announced that over 1.8 million creatures have been created by people using the Spore Creature Creator -- that's more than the number of known species in the world (1.5 million)! The Creature Creator has been available less than a month, meaning all of those creatures were created in just that amount of time. This is an especially staggering number considering the real game in which these creatures are used, Spore, isn't even available yet.

Spore creato..."

"LOS ANGELES, California (AFP) - - The "Spore" alien population is exploding, boding well for the September launch of the latest brainchild of computer game legend Will Wright.
The response astounded even Wright, maker of the world's top-selling computer game "The Sims."

"I was really hoping we'd get 100,000 creatures by September and a million by the end of the year," Wright said Monday while demonstrating "Spore" on the eve of the Electronic Entertainment Expo video game trade show in Lo..."

"

"

"







"

"Even if you are not going to get Spore, the creature creator has such amazing design it is a must see for any fan of games. However, again, it really one step up from a demo, so if you like a purpose to your game and get angry or frustrated if there isn’t action, action, action, then you may want to wait for the full version of Spore. However, this will appeal to those people who love playing the Sims, just to build the house... and tear it down so you can build another one."

"Get ready for one of the game industry's biggest events of the year: the annual E3 Media & Business Summit, better known simply as E3, which takes place this year in Los Angeles from July 15-17. The three days of the expo won't be the only days in which you can expect to see new games and announcements; this year, as with other years, several major game companies will be making big news before the show at their press conferences."

"UNIQUE GALACTIC EDITION CONTENT

*
'Making of Spore' DVD video
*
'How to Build a Better Being' DVD video, by National Geographic Channel
*
'The Art of Spore' hardback mini-book
*
Fold-out Spore poster
*
Premium 100-page Galactic Handbook"

"Video In Link"

"So I was all excited to download the free Spore Creature Creator, until I was coldly informed by the installer that my Powerbook isn't up to scratch. I'm humiliated. All I can do is longingly cruise the Sporepedia, looking for Spores That Look Like Stuff. Geeky stuff, mostly, like the Trogspore above. That looks really good."

"Most likely my final version of Petey. This is Mario's enemy from Sunshine and other games. He has wings hidden in his body, and spitters in his mouth.

I normally don't like putting up videos with music or video I didn't fully create, but the Spore CC Demo invites you to upload directly to Youtube. I created these creatures in it."

"Okay, so let me get this straight. If I go to the Australian EA Store, the Spore Creature Creator is unavailable. However, if I jump across to the New Zealand version, I can download it for $NZ 14.99. I can even select "Australia" as my location in the checkout section.

Okay, great, we can get the full program now, but why do we need to hit up the NZ store for it? If Australia's there as an option, why not just put it on the Australian store?"

"Hey! People aren't just using the Spore Creature Creator to make penis monsters. Creative kids are trading cocks for controllers — just look at what Kotakuite zOmbi's friend Eric made in the Spore creator editor a few minutes ago. Yep, that's right, Eric made an Xbox 360 controller."

"Any time you give human beings a vehicle of expression, they are liable to try to impress you...OR degenerate the medium to portraying the most primal acts and functions. Over the past few days, humanity has been using the Spore Creature Creator to flood Youtube with tons of penis monsters, booby monsters, and vagina monsters. There's videos of monsters (though technically the same monster) bumping uglies. Spore porn (Sporn?) is all over the internet. These people are the kids that made i..."

"How far is too far in the Spore Creature Creator? PC Gamer's Kristen Salvatore found out the hard way this morning when she got a time-out in her email from EA.

Less than a day after responding to Tim Edward’s “member” contribution to the Spore Creature Creator community with “Boobalicious”—a somewhat more gynocentric take on the same theme—she received the following cordial but unambiguous email:

quote

Hello [Perv],
Your Electronic Arts account has been flagged for violating the Electr...

"

"

• Amount of Parts
  
• Parts can be placed anywhere
  
• You can put (almost) as many or as few of a part you want
  
• They animate as soon as you place them
  
• The coloring system allows a non-artist to create works of art
  
• Once finished, the way a creature moves makes perfect sense
  
• Ease of use
  

"

"Spore Creature Creator — available for both Mac OS X and Windows — enables users to create creatures using design tools taken from Spore, a virtual life game created by Will Wright, designer of Sim City and The Sims. Spore takes the Sim City and The Sims concepts to an extreme, where you create a life form from its first stirrings in primordial ooze all the way up to an intelligent, spacefaring civilization.


Spore Creature Creator lets you assemble hundreds of parts into a creature of yo..."

"(Video in Link)"

"The Creator itself, which will be hitting the public soon, is impressively flexible. All of the pieces you place on your creature have various manipulation points which you can click, drag, and turn to mold your digital putty into something unique. You can alter how many spinal columns it has, how many limbs it sports, whether it has eyes sticking out of its head or recessed into its body—the options really are pretty vast. Wings, beaks, claws, horns, and more are all available. The slick int..."

"It seems there's a trial version out, which was made available on the front of some magazine. It can now be found on P2P.

It's fun! :D"

"The publisher handed out 50 or so copies of the Spore Creature Creator to a bunch of celebrities (and me) and asked them to create a single, marvelous creature. This eclectic selection of creatures will then be posted on an Electronic Arts site for people to vote on next week. The winner gets $15,000 donated to the charity of his or her choice.

I've been able to cobble together a short list of some of the folks I'm competing against:

Stan Lee
Richard Branson
David Lynch
Ellijah Wood
..."

"Our experience with the editor is that it sort of feels like you're manipulating a virtual lump of clay on the screen. Many aspects of creature creation involve pulling and stretching various parts to achieve a shape that you like, and then mashing on parts wherever you'd like. Do you want a bipedal creature? Then shorten the length of the spine and slap a couple of legs near the bottom of the torso. But if you want a four-legged creature, pull the spine out and grab two pairs of legs and put..."

"A new trailer has been released showing the first stage of Spore known has Cell Phase. You start the game a single cell organism which is dropped onto a planet by the way of a meteor. From there you are basically trained in the ways of Spore and how it all works. There you can play has a meat eater, vegetarian or both. You earn DNA and collect parts to develop you creature further, make your choices wisely. Your choices have long lasting effects on how your creature will develop so you have t..."

"Despite some hand-wringing by fans, EA today announced that their hugely anticipated Will Wright game Spore will not make use of SecuROM's 10-day periodic re-authetication and instead use a modified version to require online authentication.

The announcement comes on the heels of news that Mass Effect will also be ditching the ten day re-authentication."

"After revealing yesterday that Mass Effect PC would employ an online activation system that requires users to re-authenticate their game every ten days, BioWare and EA have decided to back down and listen to those who actually purchase their games. In other words, the community.

BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk confirmed today that Mass Effect PC will not make use of SecuROM’s ten day re-authentication. Instead, owners of the game will be prompted to activate their copy when the ga..."

"PC GAMERS WHO have had their fill of online activation headaches with Windows will be pretty miffed to hear the latest anti-piracy scheme being dreamed up by top games publishers.

In a post on Bioware's forums, producer Derek French has confirmed that two of the biggest PC titles of the year - Will Wright's Spore and the Xbox 360 conversion of Mass Effect - will require ongoing, rolling 10-day activation over the internet.

"Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for ..."

"Spore Creature Creator Available Worldwide June 17 Free Demo and Complete Retail Versions Deliver Powerful Creativity Tools to Create, Play and Share

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Maxis today announced that a free downloadable demo, and complete retail version of the Spore™ Creature Creator will be available starting June 17, 2008. The Spore Creature Creator gives Spore fans, and those who are creatively curious, the first hands-on opportunity ..."

"The Creature Creator functions identically to the creator you'll find in Spore. You'll be able to create an unlimited number of creatures. Mold them, apply body parts, [and] paint them. Once you've made a creature, you can bring it into a test area where you can walk it around and try a variety of animations."

This months (April) issue of PCFormat, a UK based magazine has a four page spread on Spore. A few nice new in-game screenshots and a general speal on what Spore is about, for those of you who may not know.

higher quality scans:
page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4

Following the announcement of a Macintosh release of Spore, EA and Apple have unveiled Spore for the iPhone platform. A short demonstration of what the final product could look like was shown at yesterday's iPhone Software Roadmap Event in Cupertino, California.



Spore is set to be released this September via the iPhone App Store. Pricing details have yet to be revealed.

"Dead Space (Oct 31, 360/PS3/PC)

Dead Space feels eerily similar to Aliens, but the introductory trailer and our first hands-on demonstrated a level of suspense, mood, and intensity we haven't seen in a while. The premise: the entire crew of a deep space mining ship has gone missing, and it's up to you, the sole survivor, to rid the vessel of alien baddies. It should be noted that EA's survival horror only marginally beat out Left 4 Dead (360/PC), the fast-paced Zombie Killer by Valve with ..."

"In addition, when asked about possible Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, CVG quotes Spore producer Thomas Vu as stating: "There's lots of technical hurdles we have to think about before we can say, 'Okay, we can do this or not'."

In a whopping 34min long user video; Will Wright demos Spore, at NASA. Unfortunately, it's a shaky cam that cuts out periodically, so, the whole demonstration was really longer than 34mins. Will answers some audience questions as well that give us a bit more information on the game.

"Official Release:
Get ready for the next Big Bang this fall! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Maxis today announced that Spore™, the highly anticipated game from the creators of The Sims™, will be available at retailers worldwide the weekend of September 7. Spore will be available for the PC, Macintosh, Nintendo DS™, and mobile phones."