Heh.
So I said I was going to make an effort to write more, then my sister showed up and gave me a copy of Spore. Needless to say, not much writing has happened.
On the plus side, I got to create a horrible hybrid race of gargoyle-dinosaurs, and fly around savaging lesser creatures.
Then I had to 'evolve' them and make them look somewhat humanoid, since I couldn't see gargoyles buzzing around in cars/planes/spaceships, however I designed them.
Needless to say, the first attempts were somewhat...
Shall we say...
Less than satisfactory.
Eventually I managed something that was at least tolerable, and got to move on to Tribal and Civilization stages.
Conquering other tribes simply by marching over to their villages and hacking them apart with axes was pretty satisfying, though the upgrades to high-tech were somewhat less enjoyable. Particularly given that, about halfway through the Civ stage, I was given access to a bomb that automatically destroyed all of my remaining opponents. Pretty anti-climactic.
Space stage is just disappointing all-around, at least in my view. After playing the entirety of the game as aggressively as possible, and being rewarded for being a predator, the first thing I discover in space is that playing the same way gets me killed. Fast. Because instead of encountering any other species that are new to space, I get to interact with established empires, instead. On top of that, the game begins to revolve around flying from planet to planet, gathering up plants and animals, and transplanting them onto yet more planets.
So while I had a lot of fun in the earlier parts of the game, and wouldn't be surprised if I end up going back and creating new abominations to roam around with, I think I've about had my fill of the actual 'game' in Spore.
Which is well-timed, with Rock Band 2 coming out tomorrow, I guess. I mentioned in my last post that I was practicing up on guitar for it - I play on expert, and I can consistently clear all but ~4 of the tracks I have between the original disc and the tracks I've downloaded, and do well on most of them - but I've actually started to play guitar and vocals together, instead. It makes the hard songs a lot harder - I just about had a heart attack when Green Grass and High Tides came up on a random set - and the easy songs are challenging again to some extent, but it lets me play through the band tour stuff that I can't do on just one instrument, and it's actually a lot more fun, at least on the songs I don't fail on.
Unfortunately, I'm likely going to have to start out on just guitar again with the new game, just so I can get comfortable with the new songs and hopefully pick up the lyrics well enough to mumble along. Regardless, it should be fun, and hopefully I'll be able to get some people together to actually play as a band at some point.
Plus, it'll likely leave more time for writing than Spore did. Heh.
On the plus side, I got to create a horrible hybrid race of gargoyle-dinosaurs, and fly around savaging lesser creatures.
Then I had to 'evolve' them and make them look somewhat humanoid, since I couldn't see gargoyles buzzing around in cars/planes/spaceships, however I designed them.
Needless to say, the first attempts were somewhat...
Shall we say...
Less than satisfactory.
Eventually I managed something that was at least tolerable, and got to move on to Tribal and Civilization stages.
Conquering other tribes simply by marching over to their villages and hacking them apart with axes was pretty satisfying, though the upgrades to high-tech were somewhat less enjoyable. Particularly given that, about halfway through the Civ stage, I was given access to a bomb that automatically destroyed all of my remaining opponents. Pretty anti-climactic.
Space stage is just disappointing all-around, at least in my view. After playing the entirety of the game as aggressively as possible, and being rewarded for being a predator, the first thing I discover in space is that playing the same way gets me killed. Fast. Because instead of encountering any other species that are new to space, I get to interact with established empires, instead. On top of that, the game begins to revolve around flying from planet to planet, gathering up plants and animals, and transplanting them onto yet more planets.
So while I had a lot of fun in the earlier parts of the game, and wouldn't be surprised if I end up going back and creating new abominations to roam around with, I think I've about had my fill of the actual 'game' in Spore.
Which is well-timed, with Rock Band 2 coming out tomorrow, I guess. I mentioned in my last post that I was practicing up on guitar for it - I play on expert, and I can consistently clear all but ~4 of the tracks I have between the original disc and the tracks I've downloaded, and do well on most of them - but I've actually started to play guitar and vocals together, instead. It makes the hard songs a lot harder - I just about had a heart attack when Green Grass and High Tides came up on a random set - and the easy songs are challenging again to some extent, but it lets me play through the band tour stuff that I can't do on just one instrument, and it's actually a lot more fun, at least on the songs I don't fail on.
Unfortunately, I'm likely going to have to start out on just guitar again with the new game, just so I can get comfortable with the new songs and hopefully pick up the lyrics well enough to mumble along. Regardless, it should be fun, and hopefully I'll be able to get some people together to actually play as a band at some point.
Plus, it'll likely leave more time for writing than Spore did. Heh.