Gizmodo: Spore

Jar Jar Gives You Another Reason for Spore Excitement

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:17:00 EDT

If getting Spore in the iPhone wasn't enough reason to get excited about its potential as a gaming platform (despite the naysayers), someone has created a Spore version of Jar Jar Binks. You know, so you can download it and kill the bastard with your own hands. Again, and again, and again. Now somebody create a George Lucas creature, pronto. Update: no, apparently you can't play with Jar Jar on the iPhone. Still, we would like to use the PC version to kill it multiple times. [Kezins via The Official Star Wars Blog]

Forbes: iPhone Could Kill the DS (Spore Shows Us Why They're Wrong)

matt buchanan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Forbes is running a frankly bizarre piece that the DS's greatest threat is the iPhone, because it has "the touch-sensitive screen of a Nintendo DS with the motion sensitivity of the Nintendo Wii" (the writer is absolutely hyped for this combo) and the upcoming App Store will in bring a flood of games. The primary goods he waves at is EA's Spore. Not only is he wrong on principle—the iPhone really isn't about games to start, and remember Apple's most recent gaming rennaissance?—but Spore actually just proves our point.

The DS version of Spore is already a very different, much smaller game than the truly galactic full-scale universe you're getting on the Mac and PC. It's like Spore Lite. And the iPhone version is even simpler than that—it's basically just the "spore" stage of Spore, totally top-down and 2D, extremely simple. In a way, it's just a glorified version of the cellphone games that people who'd pick up a DS or real portable gaming system would totally ignore. There's no crossover or competing audience with the DS version—it's basically just a distraction, and that's what most games on the iPhone will be.

Will games on the iPhone be better than most other cellphone games? Probably. It has the juice, the platform and the controls. But it won't knock a DS or PSP out of your bag by any means. It's just not the same space. [Forbes]

iPhone Getting Multitouch Games, Including Spore, Super Monkey Ball

Adam Frucci — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:44:17 EST

I've got good news and better news. The good news is that the iPhone is getting multitouch games that use the accelerometer and every bell and whistle of the iPhone for controls. The better news? Developers such as EA and Sega are on board. EA is bringing the insanely anticipated game Spore to it. All 18 levels. Yes, this is real, and it'll be released in September. Also, Sega is bringing Super Monkey Ball, and the App Store looks like it'll have a bunch of casual games available as well. Does this bring the iPhone up to DS and PSP levels? We'll have to see just how these games look and play, but it's pretty exciting stuff. UPDATE: iPhone Spore coming in September, says Kotaku.