Science

On September 7, Electronic Arts will release its long-awaited and much-anticipated Spore. For many, this will be the biggest video game event of the year, and possibly even the last several years.

Spore, which was first announced in 2005, takes players through the process of evolution, from simple cell-like creatures, step by step, on out into space, is the latest from The Sims and SimCity designer Will Wright.

There is little question that Wright is one of the industry's most important figures, as evidenced by the packed houses he always speaks to and the reverence everyone from gamers to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--"Weapons of mass destruction multi-agency exercise."

If I've ever covered an event with a more stark title, I can't think of it.

But there I was Saturday morning, along with several hundred firefighters, police officers, Army National Guard personnel, and members of other local, state, and federal agencies for a large-scale exercise designed to help train all these emergency responders how to deal with a major terrorist attack involving suspected chemical weapons or other bio-hazards.

As a bulletin announcing the exercise put it, the goal was for the agencies' personnel to "identify the … Read more

As was first reported here last month, Electronic Arts' hotly-anticipated new evolution game, Spore, was about to go "gold."

Now, EA says, the game from SimCity and The Sims designer Will Wright has indeed done so, meaning that development on it is finished, and Spore is off to manufacturing.

Now all that's left is for the Spore marketing operation to kick into high gear, getting ready for the game's September 7 launch.

It's hard to imagine that this video game, which was first announced in 2005, and which has had its ship date redefined several … Read more

After several years of waiting, video game fans will soon be able to get their hands on the long-awaited new title from legendary designer Will Wright, Spore.

But if the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, has its way, a much wider audience of fans may someday be exposed to the game. Or at least a version of the game.

That's because, according to a Reuters report Wednesday, EA is hoping that it may one day be able to license the film and/or TV rights to Spore. … Read more

TREASURE ISLAND, SAN FRANCISCO--When the co-host of a new TV show centered around conceiving of, designing, and testing prototypes of robots, gadgets, machines, and other things wears a T-shirt that says "It was on fire when I got here," you know you're in for a treat.

And that's the case with Terry Sandin, one of four hosts of Prototype This, a new Discovery Channel show that will debut its 13-episode first season on October 15, and which is being made here on this island in the shadow of San Francisco.

Sandin and co-hosts Zoz Brooks, Joe … Read more

When Electronic Arts' long-awaited Spore hits store shelves September 7, it will have the shadow of an extremely successful cousin looming over it.

Spore, of course, is the latest game from legendary designer Will Wright. And, as has been repeated more times than anyone can count, Wright's last all-new game, The Sims, became the best-selling PC game of all time almost overnight when it was released in 2000.

If all Spore had to deal with was that pedigree, it would already be facing huge expectations.

But Wright and his Emeryville, Calif.-based Maxis development studio have even more pressure … Read more

After more than three years of anticipation, Spore is almost finished.

Electronic Arts' evolution game, from legendary designer Will Wright's Maxis studio, is about a week from going "gold," I was told Tuesday by Thomas Vu, a producer on the game who gave me a demo Tuesday morning. Going gold, of course, means the game is about to be sent to manufacturing. EA has said that Spore will launch September 7.

As you probably know, Spore is designed to task players with evolving through a series of stages, from the initial cell stage, to creature creation, to a tribal stage, then onto civilization, and then out into space.

Over the last few years, I've had a number of opportunities to see the game in its various stages of development, and let me tell you: It's looking good. What was a fairly rudimentary system back in 2005 when I first saw it at E3 in Los Angeles is now a polished, slick game that looks just about ready for prime time. Its interfaces all seem to work, there were no obvious bugs and it just seemed like a game that is doing what it's supposed to.

"Thank goodness," is what EA must be thinking. Spore has been the industry's most-anticipated title for at least a couple of years. When I first wrote about it, during E3 in 2005, in one of the very first extensive interviews with Wright about the game, I penned these words: "Next year, Electronic Arts will release Wright's next attempted masterpiece, Spore."

Clearly, Maxis didn't release the game in 2006, nor did it come out in 2007, when it was also planned for launch. There have been all kinds of reasons for the delays, but whatever happened in the past, the game is definitely looking good and I think I would be willing to put some money on EA making its September 7 deadline. … Read more

LOS ANGELES--It wouldn't be E3 without Electronic Arts, the world's-largest video game publisher, weighing in with the best of its forthcoming lineup.

And that's just what happened Monday afternoon at the Orpheum theater downtown here: a boisterously loud, demo-heavy presentation of the cream of EA's 2008 and some of its 2009 lineup.

Topping the list--from this reporter's perspective, at least--is Spore, which is planned for a September 7 release.

On June 17, EA released the Spore creature creator as a free download. Now, after just three weeks, Will Wright, the designer of The Sims and … Read more

If some researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Singapore-based Gambit Game Lab have anything to say about it, gamers with serious vision problems won't have to take a backseat to their 20/20 friends anymore.

On Tuesday, the lab unveiled AudiOdyssey, a game for the Nintendo Wii that is based solely around sound and tasks players with mimicking a DJ trying to create a catchy beat that people can dance to.

The idea is that players--those with or without vision problems--can use the Wii's motion-sensitive controllers to get a rhythm going and then build more complex … Read more