Japan – Spore Hero Wii / DS boxart, images and trailers

Poor Japan, they have been waiting to get their hands on EA’s Spore Hero for the Wii and DS due to the amount of time it takes to localize the game for their region.  Have no worries, the game should be out for release during the first week of April.  Here are your boxarts for both versions along with screens.  You can also check out the trailers at the official site (which won’t let me embed here).

Thanks to reader Jucimar for sending me a note!

DS Screens

Wii Screens

Spore Pi Day Challenge – Vote for the finalists

Whoa, there are a number of great creations sent in for the Spore Pi Day Challenge!  My pick to win is the Wheel of Fortune, but I also love the Grox one as well.  Who do you think should win?  Vote here!

Voting: The top 4 creations will be featured and the top rated adventure will be featured. If there’s a tie, Maxis will be the tiebreaker and choose our favorite.

Vote by 11:20 AM PST 3/12.

1. Blueberry Pie By Jonathanjj55jj
2. History of Pi By Acheron55
3. Pi By 321drew123
4. pi nomer By Loppynutjob
5. Pi By techno605

6. Pi 3-142 By Vektrix
7. Pi Oven By codyr2391
8. Cutie Pi By _Mark_
9. The Power of Pi By delayedreaction
10. The Greatest Pi Ever By sarcosuchus

11. The Complexity of Pi By Stultus11
12. Ping By ComTek
13. Wheel of the pi By Berbert77
14. Spectral Pi By Chaoskampfkeks
15. Sir Cumference vs THE PIE By Quaizor

16. Super Ultra Pi Tribute By Phenotypical_1 (Adventure)
17. π-Race By yjulixz (Adventure)
18. KDC_Pi(e) By Rantalia (Adventure)

UK: Top 20 PC Games Chart ending February 27, 2010

The Sims 3 can’t catch a break.  Right when you think they’ll claim the number one spot (as they were in #2 last week) a new game was released (Napoleon: Total War) taking away their chance for glory.  However, even if the game did not release, the Europeans are still crazy for Football and Aliens.

On a much brighter note, The Sims 3 High-End Loft Stuff is still at #1 on the Budget Price list.

Source:  Chart-track

UK: Top 20 PC Games Chart ending February 20, 2010

Well done, Sims!  You finally were able to surpass Football 2010…it looks like it is starting to lose steam!  However Aliens vs. Predator just released and that took the #1 spot, so maybe next week you’ll get back to your normal position. As for The Sims 3 High-End Loft Stuff, it is still hanging on to its #1 spot in the budget price list.

Source:  Chart-track

EA/Maxis Job Opening – World/Environment Modeler for upcoming RPG project

We are still left to wonder what the next project coming from Maxis will be. All we have right now to speculate on is Spore Creature Keeper, a PC game based for the younger audience designed much like The Sims, but with your favorite Spore Creatures. From what I can tell, the job opportunity below does not look to fit that game. Is this for a new Spore expansion that we may soon see? Or perhaps for the version of Spore that will be coming to consoles? I don’t know, we need to hear what Maxis has in store for us soon, the fans are craving for any new pieces of information!

Maxis seeks an experienced Lighter to join the environment team and create outstanding content for an upcoming level based action RPG. Candidate will adopt a proprietary pipeline, assume full ownership of the environment lighting, and work within an established style.

Responsibilities:

• Create atmospheric lighting that contributes to storytelling in a science fiction setting
• Collaborate with level designers to make compelling gameplay
• Troubleshoot and problem solve technical issues with minimal supervision
• Optimize lighting setups to meet performance requirements while maintaining desired aesthetic
• Adjust textures & object placements as necessary for best results

Requirements:

• 3-5 years experience in game development lighting
• Well organized and able to commit to and meet deadlines. Ability to multitask while still meeting deadlines
• Excellent communication skills both written and verbal; an ability to work effectively with producers, designers, engineers and artists
• Proficient with Maya & Photoshop
• Experience with level population and world building a plus.

Source: SimOperations

Activision passed on Maxis & The Sims

We all know the end of the story. Activision today is one of the biggest and most successful publishers in the world and owns the rights to some of the most popular gaming franchises, including 2009’s blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

But Kotick said that his high-level management style has proven costly on occasion. For instance, when Activision had the chance to buy Maxis, the developer of SimCity 2000. He visited their offices and spent an entire day looking at SimCity 2000, which was said to be buggy and unpolished. He thought the only reason to buy the company would be for the game and the franchise so he didn’t even bother to look at another title codenamed Jefferson in one of the back offices. It was being worked on by Will Wright and it turned into The Sims. 

I don’t know what would have been better – the way it is now or if Activision had bought the company.  Personally I’m kind of glad it’s at EA…It’s been a pretty good run all the way up until 2007 when EA switched CEOs.  Bobby Kotick of Activision probably would have ran the Sims series into the ground faster than what EA could ever do.  I mean how many Guitar Hero games did they produce last year?  7?  I used to love that series, now I despise seeing the game in stores…

IGN – Activision passed on The Sims

Touch My Apps – Spore Creatures iPhone review

Let me note that compared to Origins, Spore Creatures is more challenging. There are 20 levels spread out in 4 different environments, and to complete each level successfully the player needs to collect a certain number of points or fulfill quests. There are boss battles for example, that require some ingenuity in order to emerge victorious.

The game is unstructured enough to allow the player freedom to explore the environment. Because the environment is populated with flora and fauna, it’s more difficult to move around especially using accelerometer controls. While the tilt controls run quite smoothly and can even be calibrated to suit one’s preference, the small physical space to work with makes it difficult to move around freely.

review here

AppModo – Spore Creatures iPhone review

The second in the series takes us to land this time, you start off with a basic Spore on the sandy beach and it just gets wild from there. As you play the game you can create new Spores based on your actions in the game, there are over 40 different things you can add to your Spore to make it different there are so many possibilities of what it could look like. As you play the game and explore around on one of the 20 different levels you can find and collect different items that can then be later added to your Spore all while slowly evolving the DNA of your spore. You also have the option the change the color and shape of your Spore. One of the really fun features is how you can chose to interact with other creatures; you will sometimes have the choice of communicating or attacking and both will lead you down different paths in the game. This all makes for a unique game play with high replay value.

AppModo reviews Spore Creatures for iPhone

Spore Creatures iPhone trailer

I had this on my YouTube profile but I never did post about it.  Luckily SimOperations is there to remind me that I should!  If you’ve yet to grab the game then fire up iTunes and pick it up!  Its a great time-waster in between games of Bejeweled

EAmobile’s Spore Creatures Creature Creator Contest

If you follow EAmobile on Twitter and would like to win a copy of both Mass Effect 2 and The Sims 3 World Adventures then enter their Spore Creatures Creator Contest!  All you need to do is create a creature in your iPhone/iPod Touch version of Spore Creatures and then twitpic a screenshot of you creature to EAmobile.  At the end of this week they’ll pick a winner.  Good luck if you decide to enter!