Spore Release Date and Hands-On Demo!

Tucked away behind beautiful booth babes, flashy lights, big-rig computers, and jamming speaker systems I found the mobile gaming booth on the vendor floor of Quakecon. Here they had several mobile phones set up running various games such as Orcs&Elves, and I think even Wolfenstein RPG. What caught my eye, though, were the Spore: Origins logos posted alongside logos for these other in-development games. I inquired with the representatives at the booth, and they gave me some interesting info that the Spore: Origins game for the iPhone and iPod Touch will be released on September 7th, 2008.

Here’s a quick video of the statement:

They went on to say that there were actually several iPod Touches with the Spore: Origins game installed and ready for demo! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one to start playing, and I must say I’m really excited for the final product to reach the AppStore. I only played 3 levels, but the idea pretty straightforward at first: eat or be eaten. You first start off as highest in the food chain, chasing smaller organisms and getting stronger and more evolved with each one you eat. As you progress, however, organisms that will eat YOU come into play and you must avoid them while using the accelerometers to steer your creature into eating the smaller organisms. One really neat attention to detail I noticed was the fact that, in the lower levels, the background of the primordial ooze showed fuzzy images of larger organisms swimming around, giving a sense of realization of how small your start off as.

The customization aspect of it is pretty interesting. Aside from choosing what colors, designs, and even textures your creature can have on its body, it looks like players will be able to add their own personal photos as an option for the creature’s look. While browsing through the customization options, I found an icon of a polaroid picture of palm trees, which led me to this assumption. As the levels progress, more customization options are unlocked. You’ll be able to change the bone structure of your creature, what types of defenses and probes it has (like horns or thicker, tougher skin), etc, etc.

At the end of this post is a video of me giving a hands-on video demo of Spore: Origins. It’s only of level one, and I can upload the others if there’s a large demand for the rest. Keep in mind, however, the video of the demo is very blurry (I can’t control the focus on my Flip video camera), so here’s your warning. Yes, it is also very loud seeing as how I’m on the show floor at Quakecon…and the booth where they featured Spore: Origins was dimly lit.

Quakecon Day 1: John Carmack Keynote

Quakecon kicked off with a great start today as gamers and game enthusiasts alike gathered around vendor areas and the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) section. Competitions, raffles, free swag, LAN gaming, and hyper-caffeinated BAWLS-infused gamers swamped the show floor the entire day. The highlight of the day, however, came at the id Software Press Conference and John Carmack keynote.

As usual at Quakecon, Carmack likes to drone on and on about game development and his hobby of rocket launching, but if you can stay awake and pay attention through the whole keynote (and the Q&A session afterward) you can walk away with quite a few tidbits of information coming from the id software front. Carmack gave an update on the progress on id’s new upcoming game Rage and squashed rumors of it being a racing game and emphasized that it is a FPS shoot-em-up with a racing quality built in, and the racing doesn’t take up the majority of the gameplay. Along with the update he also presented a revised trailer for the game:

He also said that due to disc licenses from Microsoft’s xBox360 platform, Rage will only span across two DVD’s instead of the preferable three by Carmack. The price of licensing a third disc would cost too much for the software company to allow. Carmack also stated that because the game will be squashed onto two discs for the xBox360, the Playstation 3’s version of Rage on a large Blu-Ray disc will have much better detail and less artifacts.

During the keynote, Carmack also spoke about Doom IV and how id is focusing more on the multiplayer aspect of the game than the previous iteration of the series, Doom III. Co-op for both Doom IV as well as Rage isn’t out of the question, either. He further went on the say that the source code for Doom III will be released (hopefully) sometime next year, and after the release of Rage.

New multiplayer versions of Quake and Wolfenstein are in the works as well. Every attendee at the Quakecon’s BYOC got a key to the private beta of QuakeLive, a multiplayer (free!) deathmatch game that will be played solely online, with statistics, friends lists, and match-making systems organized all through one website. Here’s the trailer shown during the keynote:

Wolfenstein’s multiplayer is in the works as well. Even though Carmack didn’t say much as to a release date they did release a never-before-seen trailer (not even at E3) to the Quakecon goers:

Finally, the mobile gaming scene. Wolfenstein RPG as well as Doom II RPG were announced with a full trailer of Wolfenstein RPG and a teaser for Doom II. My previous speculations of an announcement of an iPhone game from id were partially right in that Carmack mentioned working on a game for the iPhone and that he finds the AppStore great and easy to use and how wonderful a job Apple did on the SDK. However, he didn’t give any insight into which title is being developed specifically for the iPhone and if anyone has any information on it, feel free to post it in the comments. Trailers for Wolfenstein RPG and Doom II RPG below:

No set release dates on when these games will be available. As they like to say at Quakecon about the release dates of games: “it’ll be released when it’s finished.”

That concludes day one of Quakecon, and pretty much most of the news for the rest of the event. If you care to continue for Quakecon coverage as the action unfolds, keep an eye on my twitter feed.

Also, I would like to see how you guys are liking the coverage I’m giving. Feel free to leave a comment below throwing in your two cents on how bad (or good) of a job I’m doing. Thanks in advance.

Live From Quakecon!

Blogging live from the Quakecon id software/ John Carmack keynote and a lot has been announced, including Wolfenstein RPG for mobile phones, new online Wolfenstein multiplayer, QuakeLive beta, and a new Rage trailer. If you want a play-by-play, follow my Twitter feed at:
http://www.twitter.com/frankli

More to come later!