Spore is the highly anticipated, “massively single-player online game” by Will Wright.
The full game is slated to be launched this fall, but EA games announced that they would be releasing a creature creator next week.
Looks like the bit-pirates beat them to it.
You can already see dozens of creatures on Youtube as well as the EA site.
We have started adding regular video clips to our weekly web features. Entitled “In Their Own Words”, the clips are short and raw - much like something that you would find on YouTube. Sometimes, I do a little post production clean up, but all the video is shot and edited by the college writer, James Hill.
The latest video that James sent seemed off. It was really pixelated.
Even with the apparent poor quality, I decided to move ahead and loaded it into Adobe Premiere to boost the contrast. I did not do any other enhancements.
Thats why it was a shock to find that the pixelation had been magically cleaned up… Look for yourself: the original is on the right.
Now a video expert would know immediately what had happened. But, at first it looked like it had been run through some of that fictional FBI enhancement equipment that you see on CSI.
It was only when the clips were overlaid that the issue became obvious. Somehow James created the original using an incorrect pixel ratio. Exporting it from Premiere reverted it to the correct ratio.
No magic - but still a good lesson.
To quote the disgruntled Mr Fish:
“They said it could not be done, but 3 bottles of gin and 15 packs of marlbros later i overcame the dark side!! Will miss the game and all the coaching. Thanks to 2 iPhones and 3 grown adults, we beat an 18 year old game!!! Damn I had a great time, next step FF2!!!!”
And there you have it.
In his final hours as an Oregonian, Mr. Fish stayed indoors, mere inches from the enemies that taunted him from the other side of the TV screen. But, in the end he was victorious. He vanquished “Chaos” and basked in the light of the end game screen. Truly, one of the last American heroes!
Yet, the quest is not overI heard a whisper that Square Soft may have created a sequel….
So, Sam and I are now diving head first into FF2 for the SNES.
Like many of the games developed during the 90’s, there were versions created in Japan that were never released in the USA.Therefore, FF2 for the SNES is actually FF4 when you realize that there was also a FF2 and FF3 released on the NES.
It gets a bit confusing, but we have decided to stick with a geographically referential numbering system. Plus, I am not fluent in Kanji, which might make the alternative games a bit more challenging.
For all the torrid details of the FF numbering system, I recommend watching the Final Fantasy retrospective on YouTube.
Merry Channuka - Sam got me an iPhone!
This is the first of hopfully many entries from the new device. So far I am finding the on screen keyboard just a little hard to use, but not much. It is about the same size as the qwerty on my zuarus, but the lack of tactile feedback is slowing me down a bit. With time I am sure that I will adapt. Also, in safari, the wysiwyg interface on this blog was giving me a bit of trouble. However, in code mode - it works great.
And despite what I have heard, the wireless edge network is more then adequate for browsing, maps and youTube.
Flying cars be damned. THIS is the technology of the 21st century!