Posted by
Judhudson on 16 March, 2010 at 3:02 PM
What do we have here? Another Spore contest held by MaxisCactus over at the official Spore forums! While it is super-fun to participate in, we must, no NEED to know what is going on at the Maxis studios! Please, give us some insight on the future of Spore 
Overview: In this fixed morphology challenge it’s up to you to modify our template creatures to fit the bios provided below. Your entry should be in the form of a Sporecast tagged mcnecrochallenge containing four creatures based on templates provided below. The set of creatures you create should form a cohesive group to have a connected look. Entries will be judged on creativity, adherence to creature bio, how well they animate, and how well the creations in the set relate to each other.
Goal aesthetic for all creatures: Shadowy, purple, dark, spikey
1. Tusked Lamprey
Bio: Indigenous to a nightmare world, the tusked lamprey is a revolting predator. Covered in razored horns, the beast possesses a repugnant mouth-hole ringed with fangs. Forget its small size: even from a distance, the creature is deadly, capable of murdering its target with necrotizing blasts from its inexhaustible lysogenic pustules.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, or mouth. You may swap the feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcLampreyEntry & mcNecroChallenge
2. Pterodyne
Bio: Beware pterodynes. They’re obscenities capable of ripping the brains and spine from their victims in seconds. Should they approach from behind, they can project their terrorpathic aura to make their prey scream, flail and flee in panic. But if they employ their stealth ability, you’ll never even see the approach of your own death.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, “hands” or mouth. You may swap the feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcPterodyneEntry & mcNecroChallenge
3. Clawed Spectre
Bio: Seeded on a ruined world as a sick joke, the genetically-modified clawed spectres were ineffective at keeping down the vermin population because there were no vermin to eat. Clawed spectres generally therefore live on diet of each other. Ironically, they also possess ability to resurrect their dead. They slaughter their victims from a distance with blasts of their spectray. Despite their cannibalism, clawed spectres possess sufficient intelligence to use tools, and to employ and revise attack strategies. It’s common for explorers to underestimate clawed spectres. Once.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, or mouth. You may swap the hands or feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere. The coiled ram horns may be modified/moved but not removed.
Tags: mcSpectreEntry & mcNecroChallenge
4. Death Mollusk
Bio: Death mollusks crabs are small, vicious parasites of low intelligence, imbued with the horrific ability to drain their victims of energy. Highly mobile and able to strike from a distance, death mollusks are a threat even in death, exploding the moment their disgusting innards cease functioning.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, hands, or mouth. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcDeathMolluskEntry & mcNecroChallenge
What will the challenge winner(s) get?
A chance to be featured on Spore.com! Maxis will hand pick the winner(s) in this challenge. Finalists will be posted before the winning creation(s) are announced. The winning creations will be creatures, not Sporecasts.
Challenge Rules:
- To submit a sporecast, tag it with: mcnecroChallenge
- Creatures should retain the same tags the templates have
- You can submit as many Sporecasts as you’d like
- All submissions must be in by 11:00am PDT Mar 30, 2010
- Optional: Post screenshots or YouTube movies of your creation on the forum
Feature Criteria
- Creation must not have any parent authored by a different creator (other than MaxisCactus and original author if different from MaxisCactus)
- Creation must not have any offensive creation in its lineage (any parent or child creations)
- Creation must not have any links or references to other sites in the submission’s tags, name, or description
FAQ:
How Do I use the Template?
1. Right click on either image above and choose Save as. (The second is for non-C&C players)
2. Open your Spore Creature Creator and drag the png into the editor.
3. Add parts and paint to flesh out the character of this creature. All parts including accessory, mech, C&C, and base game parts are allowed. You may not scale, remove or move any parts of the original template, with the exception that the feet may be swapped out for other feet.
Can I use cheats?
Cheats such as AddDNA and Freedom are not allowed. Asymmetry is allowed on the parts you add.
Why do some template(s) have different original authors?
Maxis was inspired by some player creations when making these templates. If your entry has an author other than MaxisCactus as the “original” in the lineage, don’t worry. Your entry is still valid. We want to give credit to the original authors as well for making such unique creations that would be used as part of an official challenge! In this case, the honor goes to celloguy and chimerahound!
Posted by
Judhudson on 16 March, 2010 at 9:16 AM
It saddens me having to report that long-time Maxis employee and friend Caryl Shaw has moved on from EA. Caryl has always been one of my most favorite people to deal with and was always kind and took a moment to listen when I had to contact her for various reasons (although I tried my best to not bug her much because I make it a high priority not to contact unless I have something absolutely important to bring). Not only that, but in person she is an entertaining and very outstanding speaker.
If your a long time Maxis fan, then you may remember her as MaxisLucky. I first met her over at the official Sims 1 forums (actually, many of us did). She helped with the management of the official site, as well as launching The Sims 2 website when the hit sequel was released. Her list of games include The Sims SuperStar, Makin’ Magic, SimCity 4 Rush Hour, The Urbz, The Sims 2 (and up to Open for Business if I recall correctly) then onto Spore (Senior Producer and manager of the Web Development Team)
She will still be with us in the game industry though, so not all is lost! We can now follow her progress with ngmoco, a developer for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I can’t wait to see what her first project will be! Best of luck with your new job, Caryl. Readers, if you remember her from past games or would just like to share your farewell wishes, please leave them in the comments. She may end up reading this 
Posted by
Judhudson on 12 March, 2010 at 7:28 PM
Meet the way we (sites in general, mostly) get our news – through the public relations representatives at various EA departments. Both Rachel Steinberg and Lauren Svensson are the ones responsible for sending out press releases and sending replies to our questions of the various games coming out of the EA Play label (Hasbro, MySims, The Sims, Spore and other EA casual games). At the official EA Play blog, they decided to share with us information about themselves and of course, pics of their offices:
Here at EA Play, we’ve got a great family of people who are super passionate about making (and playing) video games. We thought it might be kinda fun to introduce you to some of the real people who work here and make games for a living. Each month, we’ll share a short profile of one of our coworkers so you can get to know the people behind the games.
First up? Us! The EA Play Twitter feed is run by Lauren and Rachel. We’re no corporate robots—just two girls who love to talk about video games! Get to know us a little bit more by checking out our profiles below, and feel free to give us a DM or @reply to say hi and introduce yourself to us too!
read about them at the EA Play Blog
Posted by
Judhudson on 9 March, 2010 at 8:46 PM
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
Posted by
Judhudson on 1 March, 2010 at 11:06 AM
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
Posted by
Judhudson on 22 February, 2010 at 6:20 AM
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
Posted by
Judhudson on 21 February, 2010 at 8:51 PM
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
Posted by
Judhudson on 18 February, 2010 at 7:15 PM
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
Posted by
Judhudson on 16 February, 2010 at 6:16 AM
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
SimPrograms.com
SporePrograms.com
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