More on Spore and Life in General

OK, I know I just talked a lot about Spore in my previous post, but I just gotta say a little bit more on it. I now have the full version of the Creature Creator, and it adds a lot to the creation process. You now have access to carnivore only mouths, although herbivore mouths are missing from the set. You also get to have full-on human hands and feet, as well as a few new cool looking weapons and such.

HOWEVER. My big beef with the Creature Creator. The price. $10 is not a whole lot of money, I know. However, when you pay for the Creature Creator, you do not have access to the full creature creator, as promised. We were told that, for those who only wanted the Creator Creature part, or for those who couldn't wait until September for the game, that you could buy the full Creature Creator aspect of the game. You pay the $10, and it's still not the full game. Bullshit.

I have gotten to spend some good time with Grand Theft Auto IV, and I'm very impressed. Or rather, I would be impressed if all the supposed "new" gameplay elements hadn't been done before. Does anyone remember a little game called Saints Row? If not, here is a quick rundown. Saints Row was a GTA/sandbox game that came out early on in the life of the Xbox 360. It offered all the best parts of the GTA franchise, and so much more. Pretty much everything you had ever wanted in a GTA game, was in Saints Row.

Now, let's look at the parts of GTA IV that have been changed. The cell phone. GTA IV seems to focus quite a bit on the cell phone. You can call contacts to get missions, arrange meetings, and so forth. The phone is also how you put in cheat codes. Just dial a number and you have weapons, or body armor, or a car. And it even remembers the cheats for you in a nice little menu. How lovely. Saints Row already did it. In Saints Row, when a new mission was available, they would call you and tell you to meet them to begin the next mission. They also had you dial in cheats, and would remember them in a handy cheat menu on the phone. How lovely, again.

The retooled gunfight system. In GTA IV, you can now free aim or choose to auto-target different people. Also, you can aim wherever you want while driving as well. Once again, Saints Row did all of this already.

Cars. While driving, if you hit an oncoming car while going very fast, or if you smash into a wall, you will fly through the windshield, taking damage. Back in Saints Row, you could smash through your windshield in a crash, taking damage.

GTA IV now has online multiplayer. Saints Row had online multiplayer.

I think you get my point. But don't get my wrong, I like GTA IV. It's a very beautiful game, and it's well made. Most importantly, it's fun. I just can't help but feel like this has all been done before, and Rockstar saw how well it worked, so they took all the good ideas and wrapped it in Liberty City.