The guys at Shacknews got a wee bit of time with the upcoming Spore where they checked out the
civilization stage.
Quote:
I began the civilization stage by picking a pre-made creature from the Sporepedia--in this case the Max Rebo species, fashioned after the blue-colored piano player from Star Wars, recreated perfectly in the game by some anonymous creature artist. I then had a choice to make my Rebos into militaristic, religious or economic powerhouses. The thought of war-like Max Rebos was too much to resist.
You begin the civilization phase with a simple view of your circular city, a town hall marking the center of your empty metro area. From there you can place buildings on hard-point locations within the city walls. Houses increase the population, factories churn out money, entertainment centers keep the villagers happy, and turrets defend them--it's all fairly self explanatory.
Piecing together your own buildings is exceedingly easy, and more fun than I expected. The ease of use that Maxis has built into its creation tools can not be stressed enough; the fact that you can put together a structure that could pass for a professionally textured game asset, all in under ten seconds, is astounding. The control you have over the placement and size of each piece means that people will also be spending far longer tweaking their masterpieces.
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Looks like this one is coming along pretty well. I predict many hours of productivity will be lost at the helm of this title.
