A Dutch guy called Nique made a modern version of a classic SimCity 2000 song. It sounds very good. Brings back a couple of memories from the SC2000 era. Use the youtube video below to listen to it, or download the mp3s!
A lot of thanks to Nique for providing the mp3’s!
Nique- Simcity 2008 [3:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (66) Nique- Simcity 200(8) [1:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (51)This is a quick reminder that there are less than six days remaining to vote for us in the CU Planet Awards. So go over to cuplanet.com and vote! You have until March the 31th.
A new spore video showed up, this time it shows us quite a lot of the cell and creature stages. The game engine still looks very flexible, the editors are brilliant.
The Australia based British comedian “Yahtzee” reviewed Simcity:Societies in his weekly column in the escapist. He uses some strong words, so if you are easily offended, be careful.
New reviews by Zero Punctuation appear every Wednesday on the Escapistmagazine.com
A lot of new articles and videos spawned all around the internet in the last couple of days. Here’s a round up so you do not have to miss anything.
Articles
Interviews
Videos
Screenshots
Simphoni Spore screenshots thread:
Parts via
* update: Interview with Thomas Vu and Bit-tech hands on preview added.
Yesterday’s Newsweek article is not the only one appearing in the wake of the Spore release date announcement. IGN, Joystiq and Wired all wrote articles on Spore as well.
IGN had an interview with Maxis’ Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw and Senior Producer Morgan Roarty in which they explain some of the ways content will be shared among players. IGN tries to pry some details on the Wii version out of Lucy, but she is not willing to hint on a release date for that platform. In her words, someone “is holding a bazooka to her head”. According to Lucy she enjoys creating anthems for the creatures she makes:
As you arrive on a planet that you’ve colonized or have cites on, you’re greeted with your little national anthem which is a very fulfilling thing as you spread your empire into space.
She also reveals we have some stuff to look forward to in advance of the release:
We’re not releasing any underlying tools yet but what we will be doing is releasing a creature creator, a free trial version in advance of the game. That’s going to be not only to the community, but that’ll go wide.
In the Wired article, Will Wright talks a wired Journalist through the phases of the game. Beside the basic explanation of the phases, the article confirms that a music editor will also be available to the user.
Wright collaborated with musician Brian Eno to create the music generator, which also allows users to jump in and create their own themes by clicking and dragging musical notes. “I could put in the Star Wars theme if I wanted to,”Wright said.
Joystiq admits he had his doubts Spore even existed until he had a hands-on demo:
I imagined that Spore was the greatest illusion ever passed over gamers and journalists. From what I heard, it was just a series of unconnected tech demos. Will Wright could expertly misdirect his audience, leaving them thinking that they saw a game, not an idea. I was skeptical, even a little cynical.
After a full rundown of the game he concludes:
Spore is about scale, and it’s changing the way I think. Like Katamari Damacy on a microbe-to-galaxy level, I have a new perspective on size. I’ve had about two weeks to digest Spore, but I’m already hungry to play more. It’s going to be a long wait until September
We think no one here can disagree with that.
The new articles come with a collection of high resolution screenshots, so be sure to check them out!
Written by Gil and Jirnsum
A spore video just showed up. In the new 30 minute video Will Wright shows a crowd at the Nasa Virtual Worlds and Immersive Environments Workshop the space phase of Spore. I’ll stop talking so you can watch the new video.
In a new CUplanet.com blog entry , Monte Cristo’s lead artist Florent talks about the day and night cycle of Cities Unlimited. The new update includes a nice little video featuring the screenshot MC posted a couple of weeks ago. This time it’s the same scene, but shot during the day, from the first light to sunset. Worth a view!
click the image for a larger version
To celebrate the new year, Philippe posted a new Cities Unlimited screenshot on Cuplanet.com. It shows a low view over a medium sized city with some impressive snow covered mountains in the background. I am still amazed by the detail of the buildings and the light. The shadows are great and the low sun gives it a very winter like feeling.
And before I forget it, on behalf of the staff at SIMphoni I wish everybody a very happy 2008!
Monte Cristo updated their blog today with a post about roads. Nicolas, the lead programmer of the simulation part of the game, who wrote the update, talks about how they want the roads in Cities Unlimited to look like and to function. He confirms curved roads, just like in City Life and a great looking feature called “Multiple Lanes”.
The « Multiple lanes » feature allows players to define how streets are composed. In CU, streets are defined by a set of lanes placed alongside each other. You have the freedom to set the type of each lane (pavement or road) and its direction. This allows you for instance to create streets with only one road lane and pavements each side or a huge avenue made of 3 road lanes on one side, 5 others on the other side and no pavement.
At a later stage you’ll also be able to give a specific use to a particular lane by restricting the kind of vehicule that can use that lane. For example you will be able to define bus lanes or cycling lanes
The blog entry also features some screenshots showing how the “Multiple Lanes” functions within the simulation. Note that all those graphics are placeholders.
click the image for a larger version
More screenshots after the jump
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