I liked the 300. I think the graphic treatment and storytelling were great. But this, isn’t really a 300 to me (by the way, be sure to check out the 300 reference on the door to the Comedian’s apartment…).

I can’t say what the fanboys are going to feel like after coming out of the theater on this one. Just like anything else that’s got devoted fans, you’re gonna hear yeas and nays. Someone’s gonna say it was awesome (maybe because they get to see it on the big screen finally…after 20 years of bouncing around in Hollywood–Arnold Schwartzenegger as Dr. Manhattan? Fuck sake…but at least he’s already auditioned for the role…). The guy next to him will say it sucked balls.

I say, it was a decent movie with some cool scenes that spent all of it’s 162 minutes (yes, 2:42, my friends) telling the full story of the Watchmen. And, I realize you can’t break this up into multiple movies (no real point) and that it’s really unlikely there’ll be a sequel (since there isn’t a story to follow it up). So, the writers and the director are stuck trying to compress it all down into one movie. I wouldn’t say they failed outright but there are times when you think, “Oh, crap, we’ve only gone down memory lane with two out of the five Watchmen…someone get me another soda.”

Not to say the stories aren’t pretty well done and at times spot on (pay attention to the way Dr. Manhattan tells his story…it matches who he is like a glove). The various threads of stories unfurl slowly over the course of the movie and I think the director, Zach Snyder, did a great job juggling all of that plus doing his best to please the fans. Be sure to look for all the easter eggs (I noticed a couple but I’m sure there were plenty more…note the digital clock on the left during the McLaughlin scene and check out the folders that are on Ozymandias’ floppy disk).

Plus, the characters are flawed in a good way. I think my favorite character has to be Rorschach. Gotta love the line when he’s in prison: “I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with ME!” Brilliant.

One serious problem with the film, though? Music. Who the fuck was the idiot that put those stupid tunes in over the scenes they were on? I can’t think of one that really matched the mood of the particular scene 100%. The only one that got close was a sped up version of Mozart’s Requiem (1st movement) but that was sacrilege given the beauty of the original piece. Made me want to throw something at the screen.

All in all, though, I think you all best judge for yourself. If you’re a fanboy, you’ve got to see it in theater. If you’re not and you’re looking for a decent action flick but aren’t into comics, I’d go for a matinee or wait for the DVD if you don’t care about the big screen experience. Definitely worth seeing but a bit disappointing given the hype and interest out there. Too bad…

kn

What a game. Quick overview: you’re given a “limitless” galaxy to work with and have five phases of life/civilization: cell, creature, tribe, city, space. While there are similarities between tribe and city phases (with space including the city game to a limited extent), each phase plays out as essentially its own game. The interface is point and click for the most part but you can use the WASD keys to move around and some various shortcuts but most of the time, you’ll likely be left- or right-clicking.

Once you’ve successfully completed a phase, you can start a new game later at that phase, skipping previous phases if you want. So, if you really like the city and space phases, you can just start there.

From a pure gameplay perspective, each individual phase is fun but I can’t help but feel the gameplay is limited. I understand that the whole goal is to advance you creature/race to the next phase and you can linger in a phase without advancing if you want. But, the things you can do in each phase will always be limited enough that you won’t want to.

For instance, at the tribe phase, there are nine structures you can build (corresponding to three structures per behavior category: weapons buildings for aggro, music buildings for social, and food buildings–like a fishing hook building for fishing–for gathering/economic). You get six or seven (can’t remember) slots in your village so you’ve got to pick and choose what you want. This combined with a cap of maybe 12-14 on the number of villagers you can have means this is the sampler platter for an Age of Empires-type game.

Honestly, I can’t say it’s all bad since I’m sure they (Maxis) wrestled with scope and how much playtime to allow in each phase before you really should move on.

Despite this, though, the game is fun and is really easy to pick up and get going. This is definitely a game that kids and families even could have some fun with. I remember hearing Wil Wright talk about how he wanted this to be all about freedom and the ability to play how you want to play. I think he really hit the nail on the head with this one. You can be an aggro/militaristic race or you can be a social/religious race. And, the choices you make early on in the evolution of your species will impact your race’s direction in later phases.

Of course, you have to talk about the creature creator/vehicle and building customizer. This is a very intuitive tool and it’s really fun playing around with the various things you can attach to a creature or object. On the creature side, you can unlock items various ways in the early phases (killing a creature and consuming its DNA, accomplishing goals, etc.). Counting the slots available, the possible permutations for any creature is staggering: for each of the six body parts, there are something like 24 parts. There are literally millions of ways you can create a creature.

Via Spore.com, you can subscribe to Sporecasts which basically mean your Spore game sessions will pull from other people’s published pools of creatures (by default, you’re subscribed to Maxis’ Sporecast for the creatures in the game). This is a really great feature which I could see being used in other types of games (imagine being able to subscribe to a cast of characters for a boxing/fighting game or modded creatures for an RPG or FPS).

All in all, is this worth the purchase? Definitely, if you’re into sim games and such, you’ll have a great time. Is the Galactic Edition worthwhile? Only if you’re a fan. It comes with an art book and a DVD with the National Geographic documentary that recently aired, actually, on cable. The hard case is interesting and keeps everything together but unless you’re a nut like me, you’ll probably do just fine with the regular edition.

I literally laughed out loud when I first saw another creature being teleported up into a UFO. Too funny. The humor mixed in with the openness of the game really make a game I love to play. Because of the myriad of creatures and styles of play, you can bet this has a lot of replayability. I wonder if I can conquer the galaxy as a blob with eyes and a mouth and that’s it…I’ll find out tonight!

Ken’s Rating: 90%

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Title: Spore (Galactic Edition reviewed)

Dev\Pub: Maxis \ Electronic Arts

Released: September 8, 2008

Web: http://www.spore.com

Platform: Windows and Mac (both on the same DVD!)

Chances of Success: 100%

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UPDATE: For those of you interested in game development, check out the Spore team’s prototypes page: http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes

You can download prototypes the team put together to test concepts and ideas when building Spore.