It's universally agreed upon that the best bits of Spore are its creature creation and galactic endgame. It's really no surprise, then, that the first expansion for the game -- Spore Galactic Adventures -- seeks to produce a viable cross-breed of the two modes.
One of several Spore projects on tap for 2009, the expansion will give players the ability to design whole planets and build their own adventures, then share them via the same web-based mechanism as other game creations. Maxis has put together a "behind the scenes" look into the concept -- which, even if it doesn't address all of Spore's sore spots, will at least allow for planets that look like adult novelties.
The 2009 GameStooge Awards continue with the fourth part of the Awards – the Technical category that covers expansions, digital games, and the surprise games of 2009.
Winners:
Best Expansion: Fallout 3: Broken Steel
Best Digital Game (Original): Plants Vs. Zombies
Best Digital Game (Adaptation): Trials HD
Best Multiplayer: Halo 3: ODST
Best Game You Didn't Play: Dead Space Extraction
Best Surprise: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Stardock has released Impulse's Top 10 Sellers list for the week ending on January 9.
GP writes: "The sheer scale of Will Wright's vision for Spore was praiseworthy, even if the final product occasionally felt pinched and clipped.
In brief, Spore zoomed out from the microscopic to the telescopic in five phases as players evolved and nurtured a single celled organism representing a species into a space captain representing a galactic empire. Unfortunately, the first four phases played like a rambling prologue to the final galactic phase. But what it lacked in aspects of game-play it made up for in charm and creativity."
