Spore Islands opens on Facebook

If Civilization can be on Facebook than any game can do it right? That’s probably EA and Maxis studios’ way of thinking. Today EA announced that it is bought Spore Islands to Facebook. In Spore Islands Facebook users compete against each other in a 2D world that uses social gaming as its lynch pin.

Spore Islands focuses on player-to-player interaction; users choose their own island to live on, create creatures and evolve them, invite friends to live on their island with them, and send their creatures to friends’ islands. The goal of the game is to dominate as many islands as possible. Players can earn and purchase DNA points that they can use to modify their creature’s stats or customize their creature’s appearance with accessories such as hats, animations, holiday-themed items, and more. Players’ progress is tracked on both Global and a Friends-only leaderboards, which can be viewed by players and their friends, u

Get into the action by installing the application from apps.facebook.com/sporeislands.

The Sims 3 World Adventures star power

The Sims 3 World Adventures Expansion Pack for the PC and Mac, coming this November, will feature over a dozen additional artists who will lend their Simlish voice stylings to The Sims 3 World Adventures including GRAMMY winner LeAnn Rimes and hot rising stars Fefe Dobson, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, Katie Melua, Esme Denters, Evan Taubenfeld, Madina Lake, and more. A list of these songs can be found right after the break.

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A double dose of Spore Hero in stores this week

Electronic Arts has released Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena in North America with an international date of October 9th. Built specifically for the Wii and Nintendo DS, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena give players different adventures in the new game universe built by Will Wright and carried on by EA’s Maxis studio.

Spore Hero is an action-adventure game that lets the player become a hero on a quest to save their creature’s home planet from destruction by the evil nemesis, Zarkhator. Along this journey, players engage in battles, solve puzzles, and explore to collect more than 250 creature parts, all with unique abilities. These parts, which can be used to customize creatures in the Spore Creature Creator, can change the way creatures will play and fight in the world. Players can also utilize their acumen in fighting in multiplayer mode, battling their friends with their own customized creature.

Spore Hero Arena is a pared down version of Hero with players taking on fighters in arenas throughout the galaxy or via multiplayer.

Players can create their own unique gladiator hero creature and guide it from planet to planet as they fight enemy creatures, collect new parts, gain upgrades and unlock special abilities that will benefit their hero. Spore Hero Arena also allows multiplayer combat with up to three friends locally or over Wi-Fi and share creature creations over a Wireless network.

Available for $49.99 MSRP, Spore Hero is rated E10+ by the ESRB. Spore Hero Arena is available for $29.99 MSRP and is rated E by the ESRB.

Spore - The Movie?

According to a report in the Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to Electronic Arts and Maxis Spore video game to create a computer-generated animated feature of some sort. As you know Will Wright, creator of such hits as The Sims and SimCity, is the mastermind behind Spore. Chris Wedge, who directed Ice Age and Robots for the Fox studio, is attached to the project.

Wedge hasn’t directed a movie since 2005’s “Robots,” which grossed $128.2 million. He’s also attached to direct “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” which is set up at Warner Bros.

This could be a very fun movie if it is done right, and Wedge has done a good job thus far with animated films, so it has the potential to be good. We’ll keep you posted.

Spore Creature Creator goes 2-D

The Spore Creature Creator has officially become 2D. Maxis has released Spore Creature Creator 2-D, a new Flash application that lets users experience the creature builder in one less dimension. Available for free at www.spore2d.com, players can create a creature from scratch or import a creature from the Sporepedia. The 2-D creatures users create can also be embedded into social networking pages, and shared with friends via email.

The launch of Spore Creature Creator 2-D comes just weeks before the launch of Spore Hero for the Wii) and Spore Hero Arena for the Nintendo DS on Oct. 6.

Spore Hero, Spore Hero Arena dated for October

Electronic Arts will release Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena to North American retailers on Oct. 6 2009 and internationally on Oct. 9, 2009. Built for the Wii and Nintendo DS, Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena give Nintendo fans a taste of Maxis’ popular new franchise with some platform specific adventures.

Spore Hero is an action-adventure game for the Wii set in a 3D world where players are charged with being hero on a mission to save their home planet from total destruction. Players engage in battles, and solve puzzles and collect and unlock more than 250 new creature parts, all with unique abilities. These parts, which can be used to customize creatures in the Spore Creature Creator, can change the way creatures will play and fight in the world. Players can also utilize their brawling in multiplayer mode against friends.

Spore Hero Arena for DS is an arena-based combat game featuring a story set in the same universe as Spore Hero. Spore Hero Arena takes players on a quest to save planets in their galaxy from an evil force. They’ll do this by creating a unique gladiator hero creature and guide it from planet to planet as they fight enemy creatures, collect new parts, gain upgrades and unlock special abilities. Developed with multiplayer capabilities in mind, Spore Hero Arena also allows players to battle with up to three friends locally or play with a friend over Wi-Fi

Spore Hero will Retail for $49.99 MSRP, while Spore Hero Arena will be available for $29.99

EA to host GLAAD panel on Homophobia in gaming

Electronic Arts passed along a quick note to let us know that it is hosting a roundtable discussion for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called “Homophobia in Virtual Communities - Highlighting the Problem and Working Towards Sustainable Solutions.” The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on July 18th from 11am - 1pm at its Redwood City, CA location (50 Shoreline Drive Redwood City, CA 94065).

The point of the event is to address ongoing concerns that GLAAD members and the gaming community have had concerning how companies handle cases of discrimination both from gamers and game companies. You may recall that Xbox Live has had some challenges in dealing with how it handles gamertags and harassment on its Xbox Live service. No doubt these growing pains have put the issues into the public eye.

While EA is hosting the event, plenty of other company’s organazations and indivuals will take part including Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net; Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA); Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio (Electronic Arts); Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab; and Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft’s XBox LIVE. the event will be moderated by GLAAD Director of Digital & Online Media, Justin Cole.

More information can be found at www.glaad.org/digitalevent.