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Spore and Galactic Adventures Now Fail on Multi-Processor Macs [Updated]

Zack Stern — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:34:25 -0500

This article has been updated with details from TransGaming below.

Don't open the shrink-wrap.

I enjoyed Spore at its launch last fall, even though I faced many bugs. So I was looking forward to the first real expansion pack, Galactic Adventures. (I'm not counting the weak Creepy & Cute cash-in.) Too bad the updated game--and even the original--won't launch on a dual-processor Mac anymore.

I'm playing on a loaded Mac Pro, and even though I couldn't find any official recognition on Spore message boards, EA told me that dual-processor Macs face this problem. A game update in the past few months introduced this bug, since I'd been playing fine before.

EA representatives admitted the issue and said that they're waiting for TransGaming--the Mac developer--to fix the problem. But other than saying that the companies are working on it, EA had nothing significant to add.

I have no idea when to expect a fix. And that's too bad if you just bought the game for your high-end Mac and had no warning. At least you can commiserate with me in the comments here.

Look, EA, TransGaming: fix this, and break this trend. Am I asking too much to expect games to be bug-free, especially from these show-stoppers? Sometimes, I actually wonder if I'm too demanding, given the record between those companies. Have gamers been so beaten down by buggy titles that they're more tolerant of problems?

EA had exited the Mac market before enlisting TransGaming and its Cider Engine to port over Windows software. Since Macs and Windows PCs run on essentially the same hardware now, the Cider Engine acts as a wrapper around the original Windows game code to translate those requests into Mac commands. With this approach, EA, Ubisoft, and a few others have shipped about two dozen Mac titles.

I want to play games on my Mac Pro, but if this is the typical result, I'm starting to reconsider. Why do I even bother? I can get a better experience on an Xbox 360 or even a Windows PC. Or maybe I should stick with smaller companies that seem to respect the Mac audience more.

Update 8-12: A TransGaming representative responded to this article, saying that the company had previously identified this problem. A patch "is in the deployment process and should be available to consumers shortly," according to the spokesperson.

Details from EA suggested that this bug would affect a wide margin of multi-processor systems, but the TransGaming representative has "confirmed this occurrence in less than a handful of cases" and says it's not a greater multi-processor issue.

I look forward to the patch and will update this post when Spore works again.

Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack

Zack Stern — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:37:00 -0600

We had trouble deciding, so here’s creepy...

Spore is packed to the gills with ways to customize creatures. But if the built-in menagerie of animal limbs doesn’t quite add up to the exact critter you want, the Creepy & Cute Parts Pack add-on mixes in a few dozen alternatives. It requires the full Spore game ($49.95) or the paid Creature Creator ($9.95), updating the creature-editing tool. While this booster pack also includes new animations, paint patterns, and backgrounds, its fun is short-lived. We wanted a full ecosystem of updates, but the Creepy & Cute pack gives us inert brine shrimp and calls them Sea Monkeys.

The expansion pack fulfills its most basic promise; you get 60 new body parts, 48 more paint patterns, and 24 extra animations. The parts and patterns fit the theme of the title, full of doe eyes, razor claws, rag doll stitching, and bloody-organ skin. And the new movements animate your creature in expressive ways, from new dances and gymnastics flips, to being struck by lightning or chased by bees. A couple extra backgrounds allow photos and videos in front of a rainbow-laden world or wasteland scene.

...and cute.

But while those numbers seem like a lot, they’re miserly when you get down to playing. The body parts are rationed across categories: 12 parts each to eyes, mouths, hands/feet, arms/legs, and decorations. And you get no new weapons, such as horns. We enjoyed building creatures with these new parts, but we wanted twice as many to justify the effort of installing the new software. And the new animations are entertaining, but we got tired of them in just a few minutes.

Other areas of the game remain untouched by this expansion pack. We wanted new building parts and new vehicle parts too, but those are absent. Worse, no new costume parts that decorate tribal, civilized, and other stages of creatures are added. And other than the creatures being compatible with the rest of the full Spore game, the expansion ignores that playground.

EA Announces Spore Galactic Adventures Expansion

Zack Stern — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:00:00 -0600

Create a range of new content, including mazes. (Click to embiggen.)

EA has spilled its Spore plans for 2009, announcing a Mac and PC expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures will ship in the Spring. The game will require the original Spore title, adding planet-level missions to the final, space stage. Pricing has not been announced.

Galactic Adventures will let gamers interact as a creature on a planet, like in areas before the space stage. EA will bundle various missions that follow the styles of story-driven adventure and role-playing games, for example. But extensive editing tools will let players create their own stories and winning conditions, just as they've already created more than 65 million creatures, buildings, and worlds.

Creatures will be outfitted with new weapons and charms. (Click to embiggen.)

In a recent demonstration of the tools, Maxis developers showed how to alter nearly everything. Gamers will be able to sculpt planets, then place creatures in the world. These characters can then be set with their own behaviors--such as to guard an area--and even dialogue. Many other tools will set objectives, such as returning an object to a character or slaying a monster. More options will unlock gates if the player has the right key, add helping characters, trigger ambient sound effects, upgrade your specific creature, and provide more rules if wanted.

Like the rest of Spore, user-created missions will be folded into all gamers' universes; instead of the current aliens' errands, you might beam down to a planet and embark on a player-generated quest.

Make the perfect town, then build a story around the structures. (Click to embiggen.)

Like the original game, Spore Galactic Adventures for the Mac will use Transgaming's Cider technology. An as-yet PC-only game, Spore Creature Keeper will follow in the Summer, and new Nintendo Wii and DS Spore games are scheduled for the Fall.

Spore Visual Bug: One Squashed, One Takes its Place

Zack Stern — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:56:58 -0600

A significant video bug initially infested my Spore ecosystem, grinding the ATI video card to an unplayable couple-frames-per-second. A then-upcoming Mac OS X update was supposed to fix the problem. And yes, since that OS update, Spore plays smoothly with the high-quality lighting setting.

However, just a few hours into playing again, I ran into another visual bug that affected a single planet. The surface was only partially wrapped around the planet shape, evoking the partly re-constructed Death Star.

Did someone drain out the sea, leaving this abyss? (Click to embiggen.)

Admittedly, this single-planet bug is minor and isolated, even though the planet contains delicious Yellow Spice. And Spore is deeply complicated, with infinitely branching paths that could introduce rare issues. But this just seems to be the sad, status quo for most titles. When was the last time you played a Mac game without any technical problems? Is that standard even possible?

Spore Origins

Zack Stern — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:39:25 -0500

All eyes are on Spore Origins for iPhone.

Spore Origins clips the first stage of the full Spore game and repackages it as an iPhone title. This transplantation gets a few iPhone-specific tweaks and retains some of the Spore playfulness. Unfortunately, Spore Origins mostly wades between dull and dumb; it’s the shallow end of the gene pool.

Tilt controls can be calibrated on the vertical axis, letting you steer your creature while standing, sitting, or in other positions. In this early-life game, you’ll swim around, eating tadpole creatures, avoiding attackers, and evolving new powers. We thought the game was a little too responsive, flinging us around quickly, but it also seemed forgiving when we got too close to enemies and tried to swim away.

After eating enough, in-between each of the 30 levels, you can customize the creature to suit your style. A few parts are available, such as fins to improve turning speed, and a jaw for biting attacks. The editor can even skin the creature with a photo, but it unfortunately lacks the robust variety of the Mac game; we always felt constrained.

While we were initially entertained, too much of Spore Origins repeats. Level objectives are nearly always about gobbling up food or finding your way around simple mazes. We also had problems with upgraded creatures. Super parts, such as an electric attack or shell defense all fire together with a screen tap. And you’ll waste time waiting for them to recharge whenever you double-tap the screen to pause.

Looking for Mac Love at PAX 2008

Omaha Sternberg — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:41:00 -0500

PAX 2008, the Penny Arcade Expo, is the true gamer’s paradise. Pulling in 58,500 attendees this year, PAX boasted an exhibition floor packed to the brim with developers and publishers displaying working builds or demos of their upcoming games; rooms full of consoles, PCs, and handhelds for gamers to play; and Rock Band and Guitar Hero marathons.

Big names in the industry attended to speak their minds at panels, from Ken Levine, who gave the keynote address, to Hal Halpin of the ECA, N’Gai Croal of Newsweek Technology, and Wil “Don’t be a Dick” Wheaton. And, of course, Tycho and Gabe, the benevolent founders of Penny Arcade.

With all of the console and PC love we found exuding throughout the Expo, we wondered if there was any love left for the Mac. (You know, assuming there was any there in the first place.) Not to worry, we found it, bubbling right below the surface.

Fallen Empire Legions is a first-person shooter played entirely online over InstantAction. A Mac-compatible InstantAction is in beta now.

We dropped by the GarageGames booth for some Mac InstantAction. Yes, the closed beta for the Mac by the developers of the 3D multiplayer gaming on the Web was available for play. Ian Tornay of GarageGames gave us a quick demo of the current games available (Rokkitball, Fallen Empire Legions, Marble Blast online, Think Tanks) and assured us that more were on the way. The open beta is set to launch in a matter of weeks, and the site to fully launch at the end of fall.

Amar Govanni of Hudson Entertainment showed us some of their recently released iPhone games, such as Bomberman Legend, Puzzle Loop, and Aqua Forest. They intend to get more iPhone titles out at a rate of once a month, ranging from free to $9.99.

We want s'more Spore! This shot is from the Civilization stage -- check out our review here.

No one at the EA booth could get enough of Spore, which we think could be a gaming phenomenon on the order of The Sims. We also saw two other Windows games that would look great on the Mac. For Dead Space, think gritty, Alien-like FPS. Mirror’s Edge is more an anime-style, bright colored, action/adventure shooter.

Blizzard held a marathon of StarCraft II (aka Warcraft III in space…oops, did we say that?) with Blizzard staff. And the latest build of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was available for play. Unfortunately, there was no mention of Diablo III, not even concept art.

Wrath of the Lich King looks pretty cool so far.

We also stopped at the Destineer booth, owner of the MacSoft label. Destineer showed off their Wii and DS games, such as Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine and Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ (really, is there any better title than this?!). Jeremy Zoss of Destineer could not give us any hard and fast responses regarding these games for the Mac, but did seem particularly interested in the possibility of iPhone ports. Stoked, the successor to Drop Point Alaska, was displayed, but unfortunately the response to a Mac port was "No comment."

In fact, this was echoed by many developers and publishers we spoke to, such as Bethesda when we checked out Fallout 3; NetDevil, who showed off their MMO Jumpgate Evolution; and Bioware, who demoed their latest build of Dragon Age: Origins. Some, such as Bioware, expressed an interest in bringing their games to the Mac, but could give no other confirmation than that.

Others said, "If you want it on the Mac, go into our forums and tell us." We spoke to many smaller companies, such as Klei Entertainment, showing off Sugar Rush; Meteor Games, showing off Twin Skies; and D3 Publishing, showing off Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, and they all echoed the same thing. They are willing to try a Mac client (in the case of D3 Publishing, the original Puzzle Quest has both a Mac and iPhone client), but they need to hear from you first.

Want to see RPG Twin Skies on the Mac? Let the publisher know.

And last, but not least, we did hear a very strong rumor from the show floor that a certain ubershooter, whose sequel Microsoft displayed at the show, would be hitting the Mac in less than two months. It didn’t take us long to conclude that the sequel was Gears of War 2. Epic’s Mark Rein initially announced Gears of War for the Mac in July 2007, but nada has been heard since. Could it finally be time? We hope so…

Gears of War 2 looks amazing, but we poor Mac Lifers are still waiting for Gears of War.

Did anyone else go to PAX this year? What were you the most excited about?

Time to Find Sporn in the Wild: 2 Hours

Zack Stern — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:00:34 -0500

Click to embiggen

After the launch of the Creature Creator, some gamers have tittered their way to creating potentially offensive characters, dubbed "Sporn." Since Spore shuffles and deals these millions of player-generated assets into each game, you might encounter Sporn in your own universe. Sure, you can limit outside content to only your friends or official game assets, but you can also banish the occasional, offending creature.

Click to embiggen

I've only found one true Sporn creature in the wild, but he--and I'm sure it was a "he"--popped up quickly. After less than two hours playing, I came across this well-endowed Zaldo. I never provoked him, but given the parts used in his creation, he seemed to attack with his most prominent asset.

Fearing that he'd turn into a pivotal ambassador or something I'd keep seeing later in the game, I banned him. An auto-generated email appeared in my mailbox from EA, saying they'd look into the creature, suggesting he wouldn't appear randomly for other gamers.

Spore Graphics Bug Gripe

Zack Stern — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:55:34 -0500

Click to embiggen

Over hours of playing Spore for our review, I came across a few bugs, but none were as disappointing as the major graphical bug I cited. Apparently, a graphics driver update will be rolled into the next update of Mac OS X 10.5, but until then, gamers with ATI Radeon 1900- or 1600-based hardware are affected. Open About This Mac... from the Apple Menu, and click More Info to see what kind of video hardware your system uses.

Click to embiggen

If you're running with that ATI hardware, the Creature Stage and many other parts of the game move at an unplayable, 3-4 frames-per-second. EA's fix, to turn Lighting Quality from High to Low works to return to a fluid speed, but the visual hit disappoints.

Click to embiggen

These example pictures don't show the change as clearly as playing in the game, but compare the surface textures of objects. Also, with low quality lighting, background objects pop into view more often and are colored darker here. High quality lighting lets them appear more gradually as you get closer; you can see fog obscuring distant objects in the high quality comparison. Overall, I've found few other significant bugs in my testing, especially compared to other recent EA/TransGaming ports. But this graphics issue taints a stellar game.