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Spore coming to the Wii
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 29th October 2007
Spore looks to be Will Wright's masterpiece and it will definitely be coming to the Wii as well.
Spore is the latest game to be coming from Will Wright, creator of the Sim franchise which includes The Sims and SimCity. The game is the ultimate extension of the simulation idea, giving players a chance to control an entire race of beings from conception to extinction. The game will start off players managing the single-cell organism and adding new abilities via evolution, the game will then continue to zoom out it's perspective until the player is managing the entire species and it's home planet.
In a recent interview with Guardian Unlimited Wright confirmed that the game will definitely be coming to the Nintendo Wii as well as the PC. Fans had previously worried that the Wii may not have the power needed to run such a complex game.
"We're doing Spore on the Wii, and we did MySims. It takes significant re-thinking to work out how you're going to do it. PS3 and Xbox 360 are similar enough that you can basically use the same system for both."
Speaking further about the platform, Wright said that he thought the Wii was the only next-gen platform available at the moment.
"The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement but the Wii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic."
So, there you go - motion sensitive evolutionary gaming is on the way. What do you reckon to Wright and his favourite console though? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (42)
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I can't wait for Spore, I've been following it for ages, I wish EA would stop pulling him off spore to do quick money making crap so he can finish it.
Updates on progress would be nice.
On another note Wii is crap end of its a gamcube in different packaging where instead of using a joystick to do the same monotonous movements you wave your arm about looking like an idiot doing the same monotonous movements, with games that are exactly the same as the ones on the N64 and gamecube.
And the current ETA is 6 months so April hopefully
now lets play with this: "On another note PS3 is crap end of its a PS2 in different packaging where instead of using a vibrating gamepad to do the same monotonous movements you have a motion sensing gamepad you wave about looking like an idiot doing the same monotonous movements, with games that are exactly the same as the ones on the PS2 and PS."
or: "On another note XBOX360 is crap end of its a XBOX in different packaging where instead of using a game pad with a cord you use a battery consuming wireless gamepad, with games that are exactly the same as the ones on the XBOX."
if anything the PS3, Xbox360 and the wii have had a hardware change, a software change and an interface change.....
the wii is about twice as powerful as the GC in terms of hardware, it has other hardware changes, as in networking and storage.
i am not saying that the wii is the best console, i am simply saying that saying that X = Y in a different packaging is not correct.
Because, ya'know, the amount of logical fallacies some random twit makes really affects how awesome a game can be on release date.
Since someone has already shown how silly this post was I won't harp to long. You say it's crap yet it's the number one selling console worldwide. It has also done something no other console could do, attract non-gamer types. Something the industry has tried for years and failed at. I don't own a wii but I do think they are really fun to play. It's great that anyone can play not just someone who has mastered the massive multi button controllers on other consoles.
Of course it does
The hype about a hyped up game being overly hyped up is almost as bad as over hyping the game in the first place.
I think as far as the hype goes, almost all of what I've seen has been journalists coming out of previews and interviews and singing its praises, rather than will wright and his crew themselves really attempting to hype it up, which seems like a good sign to me.
Graphics arent everything otherwise the PS3 would be more popular than the Wii and 360 combined as it has the best graphics. They are nice and most people are shallow but if you've ever played uplink you'll know limited graphics can be just as fun as high end ones.
The graphics are very similar in style to what I've seen of Mario Galaxy and that looks awesome.
You say the nunchuck's wired nature annoys you, granted it can be restrictive occasionally, but surely you can learn not to extend your arms too much? After all, the separation doesn't make any difference, nor does the amplitude of your swinging.
The Wii's control scheme is a step in the right direction for how people interact w/ games, but the experience was not as "wireless" as I was expecting especially with having a wire between the controller and the nunchuck which does restrict how "free" I am when using both controllers and the nunchuck wire also ends up hitting me in the face at times which like I said (and anyone would agree) makes the experience less enjoyable.
It's not perfect- I'm perfectly happy to admit that. The controllers definately should be rechargable, but hell, you can easily get conversions on the internets that either take AAA rechargeable or have their own Li-Ion battery.
I'm just pointing out things that I, along with a lot of other people I know were not expecting, and yes the 360 and PS3 have made me expect certain things out of the box, sorry.
Btw my g/f has the Wii at her house now, but when it was in my home theater I did have a permanent home for it and every time I wanted to play it I had to untie the wire and then bring the wire in front of my equipment and then onto a ledge for it to sit directly in front of me and then after I was done I would have do to the exact opposite to put it back and make the wires disappear. Now is it lazy of me to say that I don't like having to do that every time I wanted to play it, that's up to you, but I, along with other people I know were not expecting to have to do that.
Also, I didn't mean to make the rechargeable thing a big deal because it's not...it's just the extra wires that I don't like and the graphics not being any better than Gamecube's....everything else is great.....that's why I recommended my g/f buy it for her brother......
o well it's not worth arguing....time to do some hmwk....
*cough* the 360's isnt, for that luxury you get to buy a battery pack kit.
Ah but they do at least have an official battery pack, and don't make you reliant on 3rd party suppliers.
the sensor bar's wire don't bother me, bar sits on top of tv 2-3 meters away from couch and works fine wire hidden behind tv. Though from what i remember, you can buy wireless bar's or even use 2 candles as it doesn't communicate with the Wii at all and just needs 2 infra red sources. Personally I still hate the fact that Nintendo sells you each part of the controller separately, really starts to add up the cost. And the wire connecting the classic controller add on is very annoying
I smell a fanboy! :p
The wii's graphics are better than the gamecube, problem is that developers were not anticipating the wii being the success it is and sunk their monies into the 360 and thus all they have been able to produce so far are ports. Mario Galaxy is proof that the system is a step up from the cube.
Let's not have that discussion again.
Astutely put.
Anything where you want to point at the screen and track movement (everything from the WiiMenu to something like WiiPlay's best game - Tanks!) needs the sensor bar.
Incidentally, is anyone else addicted to Tanks as much as I? I love it to bits...
Actually, wisperwolf is right. The sensor bar is literally two infra red leds. If you don't want to use it you can can use two TV jiggers with the buttons pressed down (so that there is a signal being sent). Or, like he mentioned, 2 candles (although I've tried it and they only work in the dark.) The wiimote picks up the lights, sends their position to the console and the console works out where the wiimote is by triangulating. Then the sensors in the remote help work out acceleration and rotation.
Just like the PS3, I guess we all still need to give the console it's time to mature.....
And yea, a lot of the wii games really do look horrific. But the ones that are made for the wii look just fine. I'm playing Metroid Prime 3 at the moment and it's true, the graphics compared to the sexbox and the pussthree are pretty poop, but there are some really nice effects to take your mind of the bad textures. The control scheme alone is worth buying the game. This is the first console FPS I have ever played and not found myself furious at the lack of accuracy (or the amazing way my badly aimed bullets seem to gravitate to my enemies - lookin' at you bioshock!)
From way up top:
I'm going to be a little bit of a fanboy here in the wii's corner, but when people say innovation with regards to consoles, they are not talking raw power in the system. If that was the case, my computer is one of the most innovative gaming systems money can buy! For example: Putting a bigger engine in a Ford Mondeo does not make that Ford Mondeo innovative. Neither does making the steering wheel square or adding some more speakers. Just because the PS3 has more processing power, more memory, and better graphics with some cool media functionality to boot does in no way make that innovation. Making the controllers wireless doesn't change the way they function in any way. This is why the wii is looked upon as being innovative. It took the control scheme and made a fundamental change to the way we use it. It might not be new technology, but used in this way, it is innovative. Its one of the main reasons the wii is doing so well. There is no longer this outside view on gamers that make us all look like couch potatoes. Nintendo used this to great effect with all their advertising. Instead of showing just the game and its graphics they show people having fun and interacting with the console in a manner which appeals to people outside of the usual target audience.
And that in my opinion is a non negotiable fact. While I may love playing on the 360 and when I get a ps3 I'm sure I'll find something to enjoy, I know full well that really these are just beefed up versions of their predecessors.
Anyways, in your experience will, what can we do in order to better sharpen the communication between the Wii-mote and the Sensor Bar because when the lights are turned on the controller works great, but when the lights are turned off the controller sux. Any recommendations?
As the sensor bar is just needed when you point at the screen, isn't the wiimote quite like the sixaxis but with an additional lightgun attachment type thing.
to improve the communication, I'm guessing you have already adjusted the sensativity setting, in which case you need more power. kotaku have a review of a wireless bar that they say is more powerful than the original, it would solve both your problems with the bar.
o yeah...Time Crisis is coming to the PS3 w/ it's own gun, too and there's no need for a bar of any kind (that I know of), so.......
Actually the beauty of the remote (and one of the reasons it's $40, I expect) is that the positional calculations are done in the remote itself. That way the console doesn't need to waste its CPU cycles calculating positions for up to four remotes - each one does its own homework and sends it over to the system.
Other than that you are correct. Although as far as rotation combined with pointing, I suspect it might make sense for the remote to use the orientation of the two lights to find its angle, and only really use the accelerometer to determine whether it's upside-down or right-side-up.