Spore is a game where the player creates his/her creature through various stages. I’ve only played through the Cell and Creature stage. In the Cell stage, you control a cell by using the mouse and your objective is to eat meat (if you’re a carnivore) or veggies (if you’re a herbivore) in order to fill up your progress bar, which is required to move on to the next stage. The more you eat, the more you grow. It sounds simple, until you encounter other cells that are trying to eat you. So you weave around the area, getting your cell its fill and avoiding hazardous cells, and your cell will eventually become sentient.

Once you’ve reached the Creature stage, the game feels a lot like a PC RPG/MMORPG. I recommend using the WASD keys to move your creature but people are free to continue using their mouse. In this stage, you will encounter other creatures on the land and it is up to you to befriend (by impressing them with singing and dancing) or slaughter them (using various hostile attacks like biting and striking). Using both methods, you’ll eventually rule the majority of the land.

The game isn’t difficult at all, regardless of its adjustable difficulties. The harder the mode, the more hostile creatures there are. The reason the game is accessible to everyone is because there is no penalty for dying. When your creature die, you simply play the offspring of your species. It’d be a tearful moment to see your kind become extinct, wouldn’t it?

Despite the stages of gameplay, Spore’s main attraction is its in-depth creature creator. You can modify your creature with any cell/creature parts you find throughout the game. You can give your creature limbs and wings, you can adjust their posture, height, color, and length. I spent a good hour just modifying my Kronik creature because I wanted to look a certain way.

The game’s cosmetics isn’t exactly next-gen but it works in its atmosphere. The game is very appealing graphics-wise (detailed monsters and environments that are pleasing to the eye). The game’s audio is its annoyance. During the Creature stage, your monster and neighboring creatures will not shut up. They will make all kinds of ridiculous noises, which drove me to think that it was one big animal orgy (oh wait… it is).

Spore is an interesting game where the fun begins and ends with one’s creativity. As long as you have a vast mind, the game will always be fun. If you like monsters and random animal noises, you should definitely jump on the Spore-wagon.

Well, since many people these days are graphics whores and cant stand anything not on Gears of War standards then they shouldn’t dare look at this game. This game was made for two, and only two types of people: the fans of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction ( not me, never played) and people who just like to have fun, (me). Yes I do know the graphics could’ve used a bit more graphical touches, but when you have the power to level an entire country, I’m sure some things had to be sacrificed. And these sacrifices are: major pop-ins no matter what you are doing, repetitive buildings, and terrible textures. But if you look at the glass half full like moi, then; beautiful, sometimes jaw dropping explosions that light up the screen. Seriously, they are gorgeous. Also, great destruction, and lovely scenery when you aren’t seeing pop-ins.

Now for the gameplay, which may be the worst part of the game. Controls are the absolute worst, with driving just being an absolute pain. The cars are just so…heavy and…ugh, unresponsive. It just feels dirty and so slapped in there, and there are only about 10 to choose from anyway. Heli’s are better, yet still could’ve used some work as well. The combat is very unorganized, and that’s not even talking about the friendly/enemy A.I. . When calling in support, you have to pull up a menu in game which stops you from moving and has you take damage, which then makes you almost dead when your support comes in anyway. The shooting mechanics seems like it was just put in at a good enough point to ship the game, kind of like Army of Two, meaning the guns sound like pellets, or Dante’s guns, and it never fully feels satisfying killing anybody. It also doesn’t help when the enemies basically stand there and wait for you to kill them.

Wait, you know what? Forget everything I just wrote, cause everyone should buy this game, well everyone who wanted to crucify GTA4 that is, cause this game is as unrealistic as you can get. And if I remember correctly, everyone hated the realism going back to Liberty City, so this game should sell instantly when you think about it. I enjoyed this game very much, its fun to blow things to high heaven, and I do beleive it deserves atleast a rental.

Now not every superhero game is terrible, but none particularly stand out. Spider-Man 2, Xmen Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance series are decent games. None stand out as the memorable classics they could be. Its sad that I can say in my honest opinion the best superhero game ever made was Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage of the 16 bit era. Sitting down with Producer Joe over some games, we were able to come up with ideas for different superhero games that could be easily executed right. Namely, a 2d or 3d fighter that would force you to play a character exactly as they would act in battle, and I don’t literally mean force you too, but you’ll get the best result by playing that way but of course you would be able to play your own way. Just one of a few ideas we came up with, but that there alone is better than Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects.

Developers sit on the rights to these titles and when they do use them, the games seemed either rushed or just plain not thought through. Marvel Nemesis could have been an amazing title, but it was just not executed properly and just felt clunky. EA bought the liscense to make garbage like that? Activision has done a mediocre job with the spider-man games, hopefully that will change with Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, and it will play as good as looks. All in all, superhero games need a hero to make a great comic book game that can be considered a classic and an example that the rest sould follow.

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When thinking about it, it really doesn’t matter which it is, both we as gamers and the companies win. They make quick cash and we get our nostalgia. One can argue that this is a better deal than paying out for a full priced game for a rehashed formula. The Dynasty Warriors franchise comes to mind as I say that. Also we get many full games for less than a third of the price of one, and when you really take a good look, these old school games might as well be brand new to a large population of gamers. Take Capcom Classics Collection vol. 2. Many newer gamers know who Strider Hiryu is, but how many have actually played Strider? How many newer gamers can say they’ve played Metal Slug, or the original Ninja Gaiden or Dead or Alive games?

Upon seeing all of those collections dangling there I’ve found myself quite into collections of more old school titles. Its essentially a company’s story from when they started until now. Whether or not it was their intention to show us how they came up in the industry or were truly just trying to nickel and dime us remains unknown except to them. One thing is for sure however, we can be glad they do it, for all of us who’ve missed out because we were either too young or just not even born yet, we can now truly appreciate why gaming became such a phenomenon in today’s society by playing the games that laid the foundations for what we play today.

We’ve already seen examples of how they’re attempting, breathing the flames that are  MAG, Killzone 2, Heavy Rain and the like. Does this mean that 360 owners are doomed to regret their purchase? Not at all, the bird’s still got some life in it, The 360 seems to be getting more cost effective by the minute with its frequent price drops, Sony has some catching up to do in that regard. Soon you will be able to store games onto your hard drive which will allow cut back on load times and increase the longevity of your disc by cutting down on the disc spins in the console. This allows developers to use multiple DVDs to equal the quality of a PS3 title because not only will multiple DVDs eventually reach the amount of space of a Blu-Ray game, with the new storage feature load times should be not a thing of the past but an inconvinence so minor it could hardly be considered one. Sony though has more than just the format to fight with, a Dragon’s got other tools and those would be the fact that Sony not only has 3rd party support but that also their first party titles are for the most part amazing games.

At this point it seems like the dragon has that phoenix pinned down.

Microsoft, in order to not let themselves become obsolete need to begin working on first party titles of their own that can stand against the onslaught that is God of War, Socom, Ratchet and Clank, Gran Turismo, and Little Big Planet. With only Gears of War 2 and Banjo Kazooie on the roster one can only wonder what will Microsoft do to improve themselves in that regard. They have the potential to match blu-ray with the combination of multiple discs and saving games to the hard drive. From what we’ve seen Microsoft is taking this console generation very seriously, so I believe the question is what will they retaliate with and when they will do so. That anticipation is what has me as jolly as Santa Claus about gaming again. The ingredient that was missing before this year has returned, like when you’ve finally lowered your cholesterol and you have that first strip of bacon, competition is back in this console cycle and this battle between Dragon and Phoenix has only one winner.

Us.

If you thought Final Fantasy and Megaman were the only gaming franchises reserving the right to go double digits think again. The King of Fighters series started in 1994 with the aptly titled King of Fighters ‘94. Its roots, however, seep into other SNK titles including Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors and Athena. The King of Fighters was the original dream match pitting characters from various SNK universes against each other. Also originated in the King of Fighters series was the 3 on 3 battle system. Worldwide it was one of very few games that could rival the money making machine that was Street Fighter 2. The King of Fighters series innovated fighting games far beyond Street Fighter, featuring better graphics, the 3 on 3 system, super combos and later having more than one super combo at your disposal.

The franchise saw a new addition yearly similar to a sports title featuring slight tweaks on the existing formula until three years would pass, traditionally, the King of Fighters series has an entirely different mechanic every 3 games followed by a dream match that collects the best parts of the previous three years. ‘94 itself was considered a dream match, ‘95,’96 and ‘97 featured upgrades and tweaks to the existing 3 on 3 formula. ‘98 featured the best of all three worlds. ‘99 through 2001 featured the Striker system which allowed you to pick three characters and then a striker who could be thought of as something similar to an assist in the original Marvel vs. Capcom. After the King of Fighters 2003, SNK waited two years to release the King of Fighters XI which seems more suiting that resuming the yearly title after skipping a year.

The King of Fighters XI was on a new arcade system which featured better graphical effects, all new possibilities for the 3 on 3 tag system that was implemented in 2003 such as the Saving Shift which allowed you to break your opponent’s offense by tagging out, or the quick shift which allowed you to combo with one character, switch to another to continue the combo and then switch to the last character to complete the combo. Skip a few years yet again to 2008 and we have the announcement of the King of Fighters XII which SNK has promised to be the greatest 2D fighting experience ever. Screenshots and a trailer have been released since then and so far we’ve only seen graphics and a few characters. The graphics are the best hand drawn hi-resolution sprites ever seen in a 2d game period. More information about the King of Fighters XII will be seen at Japan’s AM show later this month.

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Hosts: Mel, Gary, Stephen

Producer: Joe