Creatures: The Albian Years

E-mail a friend about this product:

To:

Message:

Addresses will be only used to send this message

Send me a copy

Your message is on its way

Thank you for spreading the word. Do you want to send another e-mail?

Share it on the web:

Twitter

del.icio.us

Facebook

...or search in:

News

Support

genre

download size

avg. user rating

release date

compatible with

developer / publisher

available lang.

simulation / educational / virtual life

110 MB

based on 77 customer votes.

July 16, 2004

Windows XP & Windows Vista (32 & 64 bit)

Creature Labs / Kalypso Media Digital

English

buy for $9.99

or add to cart to buy more with one order

manuals (46 pages)

click on selected thumbnail to enlarge

Creatures: The Albian Years - screenshot

Discover a large, living landscape - the surface a world called Albia. You exist in this world only as a virtual presence, a sort of remote-control existence, which the computer portrays as a hand-shaped mouse cursor. In this world are a range of locations and strange creatures, related loosely (and with considerable poetic license) to Northern myth. You begin near to the long-abandoned home of a family of Norns (small furry creatures), where a few eggs, languishing in a broken-down incubator, are almost all that remains of the Nornir race.

The first game in this twin pack introduces you to the world of artificial life technology and the Norns of Albia. Than you can discover the all-new Norns, Ettins and Grendels.

Explore the Shee Laboratories and discover the all-new Norns inhabiting a vibrant, living eco-system - find the Genetic Splicer and defend your Norns against the vicious and disease-ridden Grendels.

Creatures: The Albian Years is a compilation of: Creatures, Creatures: Life Kit 1, Creatures: Life Kit 2, Creatures 2 and Creatures 2: Life Kit 1.
Pack also includes the official Object Packs: C1 Christmas Pack 1, C1 Object Pack 1, C1 Object Pack 2, C1 Christmas Pack 2, C2 Object Pack 1 and C2 Object Pack 2.

Age requirements: ESRB Rating: EVERYONE, PEGI Rating: 3+

Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.

Average customer rating 4.5 out of 5.0

An old game, but not a bad game by any means. (by WelshBastard

WelshBastard)

For many of us, our first introduction into the realms of artifical life, or for us around my age, introduction into sciences, was this game series. In a time where the artifical life & simulation genre was dominated by "The Sims", many of this games fans stood strong dispite the numbers, and still do till this day, dispite the lack of intrest we've been seeing. And... full review

0 comments

Was this review helpful to you?

(5 users agree with this review)

For kids? Not really. (by GilloD

GilloD)

Hooboy. Memories. I remember wanting this game so badly that I convinced my father to get us a new 500 MEGABYTE harddrive so I'd have the space to install it. I was totally taken in by the game, but to be honest, I never got that far. A lot of the logic behind creature development is obscured so that there's no way to tell if what you're doing is really doing any good. Add in enemy... full review

0 comments

Was this review helpful to you?

(8 users agree with this review)

Wonderful Idea, Inept Realization (by HazukiHawkins

HazukiHawkins)

I would very much like to see a game where you create, breed and interact with intelligent living beings in a computer game.... full review

Sadly, Creatures does not appear to be that game; a being that is as likely to go drown itself as it is to wander in a rightwards direction is not what I would call intelligent. Or how about starving to death because you haven't dragged the attention-deficit little cuties to a computer, found the concept for "eat" or "pull" and hammered the tiny little "repeat" button about ten times to make sure they've understood how to feed themselves? Perhaps dying of exhaustion because they can't tear themselves away from the excitement of wasting time with one or more other creature, ignoring all needs, urges and input from you? Or learning to call a lift "dada" like they did when they were a baby, because that's what their baby calls it? Perhaps learning to call a cloud "lift" because they looked away a second after you told them to look at the lift so you could teach them its proper name, again. Then there's my personal favorite, where you call their name to have them come to you, and they decide you must mean the cactus they're vacantly staring at! Then, next time you call them, they can't seem to process why you're telling them "cactus"...

Even if the issue of intelligence could be sorted, there are other flaws. The first game has a ridiculously small world without much of interest in it, while the second overcompensates with a very large world that few will have the patience to drag their knuckle-dragging fluffballs through; and just when you thought you'd found the path to that neuroscience kit you were aching to try out, you realize it's in the background and your creature is in the foreground. This lack of clear distinguishment between layers of traversible space is a flaw especially prevalent in the second instalment.

Even if you did find the neuroscience kit, would you know what to do with it? Judging by the regular science kit, I would say no; the information is all extremely technical and unless you are in fact a scientist (odds are slim I imagine), you probably won't get much more than a confused "henh?" out of most of the analytical tools at your disposal. The game manages to fail at many, many simple things while at the same time trying to incorporate concepts so complex that few players will find them useful. It seems that when you shoot for the moon and miss, you sometimes land in the compost pile rather than the stars...

So, in conclusion, the developers' claims that "these are real living beings!" and their insistence that this game allows you to create "artificial life" are found tragically lacking when it comes to real, functional gameplay, AI and general believability. The fact that this game was made is definitely a good thing, as the concept is well worth exploring; it's just a shame that it wasn't made better!