spore posts

Limited editions of games started coming with tangible in-game benefits a while back, and Darkspore isn't bucking that trend whatsoever. This trailer shows off the two bonuses all limited edition owners get with Darkspore: a custom hero and some extra equipment that gives things like more DNA drops or higher critical rate. Beyond that, it's not as in-depth as the other Darkspore trailers, such as the hero editor diary or the character reveals. There's not a whole lot of information given about the hero, and the item stats speak for themselves.

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Another hero spotlight for Darkspore! We have to admit that we like these, if just because seeing an action RPG as it is being played is interesting. In this case, the hero being played is Andromeda, a support and caster type hero who deals ranged damage and has a lot of crowd control abilities, The abilities shown in this trailer are her basic knockback, an area slow, a disable with damage, and a pushback that can reflect projectiles. It also reveals that every hero has variants, with the variant you take into battle determining certain abilities.

Download Darkspore 'Andromeda Hero Spotlight' Trailer
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Hold onto your debit cards. Steam has just posted up a new batch of PC games on sale from now until 1 pm Eastern Time on Thursday. We know; it's so tempting but we bet there's a few games on this list that you have to have RIGHT NOW:

Tales of Monkey Island - $17.49
Railworks 2 - $8
Spore Complete Pack (the original game and two expansions) - $19.99
Just Cause 2 - $7.50
Aliens Vs Predator - $5
Trials 2 Second Edition - $2.50
Day of Defeat Source - $2.50
Zuma's Revenge - $8
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - $14.99
Recettear An Item Shop's Tale - $6.80
Assassin's Creed 2 - $14.99 or $12 if you own Assassin's Creed 1
Bully Scholarship Edition - $3.75

Will Wright may have left the day-to-day business of making games but the creator behind Sim City, The Sims and Spore is moving on to his upcoming interactive TV show that he and his team at Super Fun Club are making for the CurrentTV network. This week CurrentTV launched the official web site for its Creation Studios which will allow viewers to interactive and contribute content to Wright's TV series.

The series itself is called Bar Karma and Wright himself talks about both the TV and the interactive portion in a video on the site which has a 1950's retro look and feel. Wright says the show is a cross between Cheers and The Twilight Zone. The video, which has some straight-faced humor, talks about how the viewers will contribute to the game's plotlines and decide which plots will be used in upcoming episodes. Bar Karma is set to start in February 2011. You can check out the video with Wright after the jump.

Earlier this week we reported that the Darkspore web site has started taking sign-ups to beta test the upcoming action-RPG game from Electronic Arts. Today EA sent over word that the Spore spin-off game will have some bonuses for people who pre-order the title.

The pre-order bonuses for the game will include getting early access to a special character and an armor pack. There will apparently be other bonus items in the game for pre-orders but details have yet to be announced. Also EA has released the final box cover for Darkspore which you can see to the right of this news post. The game itself is still due for released in February 2011.

[via email press release]

If you have been waiting to see if there would be a beta test for Darkspore, your wait is over. The official web site for publisher Electronic Arts' sci-fi action-RPG spin-off of the Spore franchise is now taking sign-ups for the beta. There's no word yet on when the beta will begin but Darkspore itself is still schedule for a first quarter 2011 release.

Just a quick reminder: Darkspore uses elements of the Creature Creator made for 2008's Spore as a way to customize and update your hero character as he tries to fight against an alien invasion. Co-op for up to four players as well as other multiplayer modes will be available.

In 2008, Electronic Arts and its Maxis development studio under Will Wright released the highly anticipated Spore, which used an innovative Creator Creator to allow players to create a near infinite amount of creatures and units for use in the game. While the final product perhaps didn't live up to its high expectations, Spore still managed to sell millions of units.

In 2009 Wright left EA but that's wasn't the end for Spore. The Maxis studio decided to take the franchise in a new direction with a sci-fi themed action RPG called Darkspore that's due out in the first quarter of 2011. Big Download got the game's executive producer Mike Perry to give us some more info on the title.

Without a doubt, one of the greatest PC game creators of all time is Will Wright. His contributions to the industry include two highly popular and trend setting game series: The urban simulation Sim City and the "people" simulation The Sims. Now a collection of nine of Wright's personal design notebooks has been donated by Wright himself to a game-themed exhibition.

The International Center for the History of Electronic Games announced this week that they have acquired Wright's notebooks which contain notes and drawings for the designs of a number of games including Wright's most recent title Spore. Some of the notebooks will be put on display to the public during eGameRevolution, an exhibition that will be shown at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York starting on November 20.

[Via GameSpot]

Darkspore may be a big departure from the formula laid out in Spore, but that doesn't mean it has to be bad. This latest gameplay trailer of the hack-and-slash RPG shows off some of the gameplay mechanics, and it certainly looks fancy. Flashy gibs, cool monster designs, and the touting of different game modes (single-player, co-op, and competitive) all lead to a fairly exciting trailer. While it does mention the different abilities of your squad, it doesn't actually show anything involving it in detail, so we're a little disappointed there. Either way, if you want to slaughter Spore creations, Darkspore looks to satisfy your bloodlust.

EA Maxis' reveal of Darkspore earlier this week made a few people scratch their heads. Maxis is known for their sim games like Sim City, The Sims and others. What did that team known about making an sci-fi action-RPG title? As it turns out the team is getting some help from a studio that has had a few RPG games on its resume.

GameSpot reports from the San Diego Comic-Con that fellow Electronic Arts development studio BioWare will be assisting Maxis on Darkspore, which takes the core of Maxis's 2008 game Spore with its Creator Creator and puts it in a totally different gameplay mechanic. GameSpot's article, based on attending the Darkspore panel at Comic-Con, goes into more detail on the game's features including some influence for Magic: The Gathering in making the game's monsters. Darkspore is due out in 2011.

Update: Destructoid clarifies that Malcolm Azania, a writer on the BioWare team, is the lead writer of the fiction behind Darkspore.