GAMES: A "Spore" Roundup...and Team Fortress 2
My wife knows I've been salivating over Spore for...well, I guess like two or three years, because I was freaking out from the first moment I heard about it. So imagine this irony: Spore comes out this weekend, and I don't plan on picking it up. I hope to get it someday, but right now I'm enjoying Team Fortress 2
way too much. I think TF2 may genuinely be my favorite game of all time. I loved the original mod to Quake so much, and this delivers all that I remember from that and more. But that's not the irony part, that just means I'm actually being semi-responsible, not purchasing a second time-sink. What's ironic is that after years of me mentioning it, my wife heard a story about Spore on NPR and is fascinated with it.
So for her sake and yours, here are a handful of great links about Spore:
By the way, The Orange Box, which used to be like $60 and which I bought for $30 on sale and which contains not only TF2 but the amazing and delightful and hilarious Portal
puzzle game and a bunch of Half Life 2, now appears to just be $30 all the time, only $10 more than buying TF2 by itself. TF2 is COMPLETELY worth he $19.99 retail, but for $10 more you get all that other stuff. WHATTABAAHGIN.
way too much. I think TF2 may genuinely be my favorite game of all time. I loved the original mod to Quake so much, and this delivers all that I remember from that and more. But that's not the irony part, that just means I'm actually being semi-responsible, not purchasing a second time-sink. What's ironic is that after years of me mentioning it, my wife heard a story about Spore on NPR and is fascinated with it.
So for her sake and yours, here are a handful of great links about Spore:
- The NPR Story (both in text and streaming audio) called In 'Spore,' Players Create Civilizations From Cells
- An extremely well-written review at MTV Multiplayer called The "Spore" Verdict - One Week With 2008’s Biggest Video Game Experiment
- The PC Magazine review, wherein it is written, "My computer crashed while I was playing Spore. I mention this not as a knock against the game-if anything, I blame the hardware-but rather to highlight that, as my game dissolved before my eyes, it felt like I had been ripped from a sound sleep and rudely dumped back into this reality, after spending an undeterminable amount of time fighting, allying, eating, mating, and generally evolving in my own self-contained universe. Saying that Spore is addictive is a gross understatement: The game grabs you with a pair of newly evolved talons and won't let go."
- The Rock, Paper, Shotgun review called Spore: Things To Know that cautions you about some reviews: "Ignore anyone’s opinion who’s played it less than - oooh - eight hours. There’s certainly good reasons to dislike or even dismiss Spore, but it takes that point before you see past your preconceptions."
By the way, The Orange Box, which used to be like $60 and which I bought for $30 on sale and which contains not only TF2 but the amazing and delightful and hilarious Portal
puzzle game and a bunch of Half Life 2, now appears to just be $30 all the time, only $10 more than buying TF2 by itself. TF2 is COMPLETELY worth he $19.99 retail, but for $10 more you get all that other stuff. WHATTABAAHGIN.