Crispy Gamer News

I’ll admit it. When I think of a magazine giving a video game an award, Popular Mechanics isn’t exactly the first name that comes to mind. Nonetheless, the publication has recognized Will Wright and EA’s latest brainchild, Spore for its achievement in design, creativity and engineering, awarding the game with a “Breakthrough Award”. Spore is being honored for its procedural animation system. Other “Breakthrough Award” winners announced included the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the Intel Atom processor, and the Caroma Profile Smart Dual Flush Toilet. Yes, Spore and a toilet are earning the same award.

“The Maxis team is honored to be recognized for Spore’s procedural animation system by Popular Mechanics,” said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager, Maxis Studio. “We’re in great company with the other recipients of the Breakthrough Award. Procedural animation helps to bring Spore players’ creations to life through intuitive, realistic movement and we look forward to continuing to push the limits of this system in future Spore projects.”

Electronic Arts has shipped SimCity Creator for the Wii and Nintendo DS today. SimCity Creator is billed as an open ended city building game with a twisted sense of humor. Like the classic game its based on SimCity Creator lets you build - and if you want - destroy the city of your dreams using new tools and disasters to work your magic.

Using the Wii remote, players begin by zoning their city, constructing homes, businesses, factories, skyscrapers, freeways, railroads and much more using 13 city styles including Chinese, Japanese, European, Mediterranean, Military State, Indian, Egyptian, Las Vegas, Greek, Sweets, Sci-Fi, Crystal and Jungle themes. Players will even be able to build transportation systems with curved roads and rail line.

Look for the game to start appearing in stores this week, with a full retail rollout expected by Sept. 28.

From “you might give a damn” department comes word that Electronic Arts will release Spore Origins for the iPhone and iPod touch will be available this month. The game, which will be released on the PC September 7, promises to take full advantage of the devices’ built-in accelerometer . In conjunction with the launch of Spore Origins, EA Mobile also announces a list of nine games in development for both the iPhone and iPod touch platforms.

Spore Origins uses the platforms’ motion-sensing technology to let gamers navigate the primordial ooze on a quest to evolve. Players must prey on the weak and flee from the strong through two modes and 35 challenging levels.

EA Mobile today also announced nine titles in development for the iPhone and iPod touch, including YAHTZEE Adventures, EA Mini Golf, Lemonade Tycoon, Mahjong, MONOPOLY: Here & Now The World Edition, SimCity, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09, Need for Speed Undercover, and The Sims 3. Expect to hear more about all these games soon.

If you are excited about Will Wright’s latest endeavor, Spore, then your head might just explode this week because it ships September 7. Spore will be available today in Europe (Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and Australia), and September 5th in the rest of Europe and South America.

Yes, soon you’ll be able to create your own strange species , build a civilization for them to rule and interact with other races and species created by players from around the world. For all the wonderful creations I hope to see, I also expect thousands of disturbing and strange creatures to invade the Spore universe, many with what some might call “inappropriate” themes. It is going to be fun to see what people come up with in the days and weeks ahead.