maxis

EA's 'Spore' a week from being finished

After more than three years of anticipation, Spore is almost finished.

Electronic Arts' evolution game, from legendary designer Will Wright's Maxis studio, is about a week from going "gold," I was told Tuesday by Thomas Vu, a producer on the game who gave me a demo Tuesday morning. Going gold, of course, means the game is about to be sent to manufacturing. EA has said that Spore will launch September 7.

As you probably know, Spore is designed to task players with evolving through a series of stages, from the initial cell stage, to creature creation, to a tribal stage, then onto civilization, and then out into space.

Over the last few years, I've had a number of opportunities to see the game in its various stages of development, and let me tell you: It's looking good. What was a fairly rudimentary system back in 2005 when I first saw it at E3 in Los Angeles is now a polished, slick game that looks just about ready for prime time. Its interfaces all seem to work, there were no obvious bugs and it just seemed like a game that is doing what it's supposed to.

"Thank goodness," is what EA must be thinking. Spore has been the industry's most-anticipated title for at least a couple of years. When I first wrote about it, during E3 in 2005, in one of the very first extensive interviews with Wright about the game, I penned these words: "Next year, Electronic Arts will release Wright's next attempted masterpiece, Spore."

Clearly, Maxis didn't release the game in 2006, nor did it come out in 2007, when it was also planned for launch. There have been all kinds of reasons for the delays, but whatever happened in the past, the game is definitely looking good and I think I would be willing to put some money on EA making its September 7 deadline. … Read more

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video

For those of us eagerly awaiting the release of Spore, from The Sims creator Will Wright and his Maxis studio, Tuesday was a day for whetting the appetite.

That's because Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, released a little crumb for us, a video from the cell-stage of Spore.

The game, as you may already know, is an evolution game: It tasks players with growing their characters from little spore-level creatures step-by-step up the ladder to the tribe level and then on to cities, whole civilizations, and eventually on to the galactic level.

And it's clear that one of … Read more

'The Sims' franchise hits 100 million units sold

If you lined up the boxes of the 100 million units of The Sims products that have sold since Electronic Arts' monster-hit franchise first launched in 2000, they would stretch from New York to Moscow.

Forgetting for the moment that many of those boxes would become awfully soggy if lined up like that, it's worth giving a curtsy of respect and admiration to EA and The Sims franchise for reaching the 100 million units sold mark, which EA announced Wednesday.

Originally, The Sims was a not-well-loved stepchild of Will Wright's hit games, Sim City and its brethren. But … Read more

'MySims' is going to put some major cutesy into the Wii

We managed to get a sneak peek at EA's upcoming Wii The Sims game, MySims. It's cute. It's really, really, really, really cute.

Unlike the make-a-Sim/live-your-life gameplay of The Sims or The Sims 2, the Wii's MySims focuses much more on helping out friends and building up a village. The result is a game that's part The Sims, part Animal Crossing, and part Lego Star Wars (without the blasters or lightsabers). You can build structures--starting with your own home but eventually others' homes, stores, and even dance clubs--out of basic blocks. Once you have … Read more

Electric scooters invade Texas

You've heard a lot about electric sports cars. Now a new generation of electric scooters is coming to town.

The Maxi-Scooter from Vectrix, an all-electric scooter that can go from 0 to 50 miles per hour in 6.8 seconds, will soon be available in the U.S., Jeff Morrill, director of marketing for the Americas for the company, said at the Clean Energy Venture Summit taking place this week in Austin, Texas.

Like electric car companies such as Tesla Motors, Vectrix is attempting to show that electric vehicles are a practical option for getting around town and that … Read more