Hey there

Kept delaying this overdue blog update dueto various delays and difficulties, but here it is, and with it my micro review of Spore: Galactic Adventures...

I shall go through my experience of the game, from purchase to play...

So I went into my local GAME store, and looked around for a bit,forpart of my brain was nagging me "DON'T DO IT!" for no apparent reason. So I eventually resigned to buy the game with a £15 voucher I had recently recieved from a friend...

Upon arriving home,I made for my laptop and opened up the game box, a strange smell of play-dough hit me in the face. This smell was apparently related to the logo on the inside of the box saying 'EA Bio-Box', hell if I know what this 'Bio-Box' was composed of, or if it was 'Bio' at all...

Enough of the unnecesary ramblings of purchase, onto the actual experience...

So when I installed the game I was prompted to install the latest patch, which looked like quite a welcome update... but this opinion was soon to change...

I opened the game .exe, then closed it because it was the original Spore application,then navigated tediously to the Spore: Galactic Adventures directory to find the separate executable. I then opened up the .exe, and was treated to a modified version of the Spore 'intro'.

I saw underneath the usual 'Play, Create, Share' buttons a new button, saying 'Galactic Adventures', I would explore this later, but right now I wanted to experience the integration of this expansion in the main game.

I opened up a saved file in the space stage, and after exploring around for an adventure to go on I noticed that there was a system named 'BAD_DATA', in which all the planets were called 'BAD_DATA', I soon found out that every un-explored system in the game was named BAD_DATA, along with all their planets... I was shocked... I quickly opened up a Firefox window and searched 'Spore GA BAD_DATA', and found I was not the only one to experience these issues...

I found out that the error is attributed to the latest patch and not the game itself, EA are apparently aware of the error and are working on a fix. The error turns out the name 'BAD_DATA' when the game generates a random name...

So I resigned myself to stick to the close-by systems until the error was fixed, and the actual expansion is very good, the adventures are engaging, and the ability to upgrade your captain is a welcome feature...

When your captaincompletes adventures he gains experience, your captain also levels up when he gains experience, much like in an RPG. Each level your captain gains gives him a point, which you can spend on various parts to outfit him with, these parts also give your captain abilities whilst in adventures. There are different 'classes', which are basically trees of part categories, for example the 'Zealot' tree includes items that give you armour. Once you buy a part you can add it to your captain in the outfitter.

The adventure creator is very good, easy to learn, but hard to master, as is the case with most things... The editor is hard to explain, but I must say it is very very good...

A problem with the adventure creator is that copies of your characters will appear in your main game, for example if I was to make a soldier and a sergeant for an adventure, I would then later see different empires of the same creature, but outfitted different... This can be a very tedious experience, and I am yet to find a way to somehow disable the sharing...

Overall, Spore: Galactic adventures is a good expansion, and adds a whole new level of depth to the game, hopefully with more expansions the game can become the game we wanted in the first place...

Benfclark

Following up my previous entry, I am going to buy or order Spore: Galactic Adventures today. I feel a slight pang of guilt in my decision, should I be feeding the greedy bastards at EA? Well my decision will pay off (or not) later when I eventually play the game, hopefully the game will be good, and a nice add on...

You will have probably heard of the tragic demise of Michael Jackson... The so called king of pop. I heard of his death when I logged onto MSN and the news page showed up. After briefly suspecting a hoax I checked wikipedia and BBC news, both sites verified the sad news. I never actually listened to any of MJ's music, but I heard a lot about him. And like his many fans, I am sad to hear of his sudden passing away...

Benfclark

Hmm, just bought Empire: Total war, and I must say it is very well done. Whilst staying loyal to the series in terms of gameplay it adds some new and interesting features, with an 18th century setting working perfectly with the game.

So a very good game for a very good series... which is more that could be said for Spore: Galactic adventures...

Ok so the expansion does not come out for 2 more days, but I can base the following on some clear evidence from trailers and stuff...

Now the main game was a total disappointment, while it is still fun in its own right, it was lacking many features we were promised. Now I could rant on all day about this subject... but I will show restraint for now.

I must now admit that Spore: GA looks quite fun, from many sources and an awesome vid by the Robot Chicken guys. From what I currently know you can design your own city layouts, and immerse yourself in them, as well as other planets. You will be able to design your own adventures (like quests), which looks good. Guns, which are always good. And the adventures, like other user-created content, will be downloaded and implemented into your game.

So the game comes out on 26th... I am tempted to go and pick up a copy, maybe EA can sort out Spore after all...