Last week I got the free trial download while I waited for my real copy to come in the mail so I’ve gotten some decent chance to really play with the software. To flesh this out, today I got my real copy of the game which allowed me to take a look at those parts that the trial didn’t come with, which was most of the parts. With that I thought I’d discuss what I thought of the game so far.
For those of you who might be looking to create creatures that are even remotely realistic, like myself, you are out of luck. The creatures you can create are way cartoony, which may not necessarily be a bad thing in and of itself, but I really wanted to be able to create more realistic stuff from a personal standpoint. For some reason I remember one of the devs, I think Wright himself actually, say something to the effect that you’d be able to make stuff as realistic that you want. Perhaps you can and this will be done with user mods, which kind of sucks, but at least it is something.
That being said, I do think the game still has an immense amount of process. The cartoony graphics do offer a lot of personality and fun to the game, even on just the Creature Creator. With this alone, I think Wright is really taking what people loved about City of Heroes and expanded upon it. I mean with that game, people would spend hours just sitting there and configuring the looks of their heroes… here too you can spend hours on just a single creature and enjoy every bit of it. And this is only the beginning of it. With the rest of the game we will also be able to design villages, buildings, weapons, spaceships, and worlds all to our liking.
Another complaint I had though was that of choice. The choices that are there are truly wonderful, there’s a ton of stuff to choose from to add to your creature to make what you want. Yet somehow it seems like the choices are missing some basic options. For instance, I for the life of me can’t figure out how to make a rhinoceros or a cow or similar creatures to that, yet there are 4 choices of pig mouths. The aardvark snout is great, and you can make some really unique animals with it, but when you lengthen it it still doesn’t quite give you the impression of an elephant because it still looks like an aardvark.
That isn’t to say these are major complaints. What has been done here is still a major accomplishmenet. The choices are astonishing, and while I would like the ability to do something more realistic, it isn’t necessary to have a good time playing around with it. Plus, the fact that the choices and realism aren’t complete just gives EA room for expansions, which to be honest was one of the things I wondered about how they’d do when this game was announced. Now we know, it is by holding back stuff. I could also see themes in the future… While you could do a dragon now, there is some mythical creatures that is a little more questionable that they could make easier in the future.
Overall, I do enjoy this game, even at just the creation level which bodes very well for the final product and my excitement for the final product remains fully in tact. September can’t come soon enough.