Well, not wishing to leave a good story down (see magazine cover disk blog entry) and having got the latest copy of .net magazine it seemed reasonable to give them the same level attention PC Plus has had.
First off, I like the magazine. It is useful and informative. It is far from perfect though!
It blurbs it’s cover disk is “worth over £350″…. well really…….
Click on http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore to see the preview of a game that is supposed to be in development. Perservere or fast forward through the explanations and the early stages of the evolution of creatures and worlds. After about 17 minutes you can start to see the possibilities.
This game looks like genius because it brings together aspects of games from the basic Game of Life through Civilisation to galactic war space games. It is very complex, so it doesn’t seem likely to have a very wide appeal except for people who like world building games and would still like them without the preset scenarios. The genius is in design – the amazing levels of interactivity and the incorporation of so many elements. The designers must be both brilliant and blessed/cursed with the most workaholic capacities, because it looks like about ten years’ work just to have prepared the demo and probably half the lifetime of the universe to get a playable game issued. but I look forward to seeing it.