Crispy Gamer News

Spore and Spore Creature Creator owners will probably want to pick up the freshly released Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack. The Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack is the first add-on pack for the creature building game for the PC. Available for $19.99 (MSRP) for PC and MAC, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack gives players more tools to create unique life forms using more than 100 new components. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts includes 60 new creature parts, 48 new paint options and 24 new animations including the robot, hoe-down, moonwalk and more.

Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack requires Spore or the full version of Spore Creature Creator for Mac or PC.

Fallout 3 is doing pretty well on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but the game is doing particularly well on the PC charts where it has managed to land at the number one spot for the month of Oct., according to NPD Group. Fallout 3 managed to beat out Spore and a new Nancy Drew game, as well as Far Cry 2, Warhammer Online and the ever popular World of Warcraft Battle Chest. With the new world of Warcraft expansion hitting retail this month, Fallout 3 better enjoiy its time on the top of the hill..

Coming in at the number 2 spot for Oct. was Spore, followed by Nancy Drew The Haunting of Castle Malloy, Far Cry 2, and Warhammer Online. The Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition also managed to land at the number 8 spot, shoring up Bethesda’s number for the game even more. top ten after the break.

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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.”

In an interview with Gamasutra this morning EA’s Chief Executive Officer, John Riccitiello, said that he personally abhors digital rights management software but feels that it is a necessary evil in the fight against piracy. The hot button issue of DRM continues to outrage many gamers, but that certainly hasn’t hurt sales of Spore.

“I personally hate DRM. I don’t like the whole concept; it can be a little bit cumbersome. But I don’t like locks on my door, and I don’t like to use keys in my car… I’d like to live in a world where there are no passports. Unfortunately, we don’t – and I think the vast majority of people voted with their wallets and went out and bought Spore…”

Or perhaps the mainstream, high profile coverage of the game helped drive sales to a more casual demographic. Who knows? But the most interesting comments - sure to be disputed by zealous anti-DRM voices on the Internet - is that half of those people complaining about Spore’s copy protection were.. pirates.

“Everyone gets that we need some level of protection, or we’re going to be in business for free… [But it was] a minority of [anti-DRM] people that orchestrated a great PR program. They picked the highest-profile game they could find. I respect them for the success of their movement.”

“I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn’t understand. If I’d had a chance to have a conversation with them, they’d have gotten it… There are different ways to do DRM; the most successful is what WoW does. They just charge you by the month.”

Of course that’s just his opinion and - I would imagine - it’s not based on anything more than a gut feeling. Anti-DRM opponents who are not pirates and find the kinds of copyright protection being deployed in modern PC games as nearing draconian levels will no doubt strongly and loudly disagree in a messy and public fashion shortly.

Source: Gamasutra

Just when you thought the “Spore-nado” had finished tearing its path through the gaming world, Electronic Arts today announced the development of a Space stage expansion pack and the new Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, both designed to add to the already expansive life building experience in Spore.

The currently unnamed space expansion is scheduled for a Spring 2009 release, and will allow Spore players’ creatures to beam down from their spaceships to explore new planets and earn rewards for completing challenging missions. The expansion will also include a new Adventure Creator, allowing players to build and share online their own custom missions.

Meanwhile, much sooner on the calendar, the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack is on tap for worldwide release on November 18th. The pack will provide more than 100 new creature-building components themed in two distinctly different styles: the ‘Cute’ side, with animated, cartoon-like creature parts and the ‘Creepy’ side featuring a more frightening, parts line-up.

“Spore is an incredibly personal and customizable experience,” said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of Maxis studio. “Many of our fans have asked us for even more tools to build with, while others are looking to extend their gameplay. As soon as we wrapped up Spore, we turned our focus to creating additional content that caters to fans’ individual tastes. With the cosmos as our backdrop, we can take Spore in almost infinite directions, constantly changing and evolving the experience.”

Well now! There’s a fight brewing between the children of EA for the top spots on the PC gaming sales charts. EA’s newborn MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning took Spore out for the week ending Sept. 20, 2008. Poor, poor EA. WAR took the top spot for the week, followed by Spore, and WAR Collector’s Edition. No big shockers this week - though Stalker Clear: Sky - a standalone expansion of the original game by GSC Gameworld, broke in at number 9 for the week. EA and Activision Blizzard still control the board, with EA holding 7 of the top ten spots and Activision holding 2 spots with World of Warcaft.

Oh, and despite all the tough talk on DRM, Spore is still at the top of the list this week. Full list after the jump.

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According to NPD’s retail sales data for the week ending Sept. 13, Spore and Spore related products have taken the top spots in the North America.

Will Wright’s popular game takes three spots this week: Spore landed in the top spot, followed by the Galactic Edition of the game and Spore Creature Creator in the number 4 spot. EA continues to dominate the top ten , with 6 titles in the top ten, while Activision takes up the rest of the spots with World of Warcraft, Warcraft III and the Burning Crusade expansion. The full list after the jump:

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