Posted on: May 25, 2010

ivant

Spiele: 540 Rezensionen: 8

Good experiment, bad game

It's just not funny. It's like playing Sims. You can spend a good hours (or minutes) at the beginning while you see your own creatures growing and thinking. But then... what else? That's all. Your creatures will keep on growing and eating and learning words and ignoring your orders. The interface is rudimentary enough to make it hard to play. You need a lot of opened windows (I mean Windows windows) if you want to see the evolution or changes affecting the creatures. You don't have a clear objective, you can't make them eat when they are hungry and you can't rise their low levels using the objects you have (unless they want to). There is a limited set of actions they can perform, and they will do them when they want. Anyway, it's exciting to think about what is behind the scenes and it's a very good AI experiment. I understand they wanted to convert this in a game with a friendly interface in which agents become hairy cute creatures who react to environmental stimuli. But this only thing is not enough to be a game. You *are not* any of those creatures, you are just a hand giving orders. They should have used this AI to construct something bigger. Maybe a character commanded by you that should learn while other creatures learn by themselves around you. A spectacular Artificial Intelligence exercise surrounding a plot with real objectives, not just watching what happens. It's nice to see one of those games by yourself, but not buying all of them, because there is no good reason to play them.

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Posted on: September 5, 2012

DiscoverAlbia

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: Rezensionen: 6

An Excellent and Unique Game Experience

To this day, there are no comparable games to Creatures. It creates a unique artificial life experience that seems so simple from some perspectives, but is exceedingly complex underneath. The Albian Years includes the first two Creatures titles: Creatures 1 and Creatures 2. I enjoyed playing these games when I was younger, yet I also feel that the game experience appeals to players of all ages. There is enough to keep a younger audience captivated, but there are also deep and complex elements that require additional research to understand. Just try delving into Norn genetics or COBs! It truly is unique. Of course, the games are not without their pitfalls. There are no set objectives, although this means that players can set their own. The main goal is to raise Norns throughout many generations, yet one could easily set out to achieve unusual genetic mutations. C1 and C2 can sometimes be monotonous at times. However, I find that it's very easy and enjoyable to play the games for ten minutes or a few hours, depending on what's happening. Norns, as well as Grendels and Ettins, have a complex biochemical and neurological network. They mirror living beings, although keep in mind that they're far from exceptionally intelligent! They can understand a basic vocabulary, but they're not capable of very deep thought processes. All the same, I feel that Creatures: The Albian Years delivers a rich game experience for anyone interested in artificial intelligence or life simulations. These games might seem old, but they still top my list of best games! The graphics are also surprisingly beautiful, and it's easy to fall in love with the world. I would highly recommend at least doing a bit of research online if Creatures sounds mildly interesting: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of third-party add ons, as well as a very active online community. Enjoy!

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Posted on: November 25, 2009

HazukiHawkins

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: 95 Rezensionen: 6

Wonderful Idea, Inept Realization

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

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Posted on: February 26, 2013

deswren86

Bestätigter Besitzer

Spiele: 12 Rezensionen: 1

Creatures: The Albian Years Game...

I used to play Creatures as a kid in the 90's on windows 98. I'm gonna get Creatures: The Albian Years, just so I can play Creatures 1 on Windows 7, I cannot wait!! Ive been looking for this game for years, and now that I've finally found a download that will work on windows 7, I'll be so happy to get it and play creatures 1 again, just like I used to as a kid.

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Posted on: September 25, 2013

nach_in

Spiele: 12 Rezensionen: 1

Love at first sight

I just signed to GOG and saw this game and I almost shed a tear. It's not just nostalgia for the game I played not hours, months, when I was younger. It's about the enrichment it gave me, I learned genetics and english thanks to this game, and the complexities of taking care of things. It's a very ambitious game and it has makes you connect with it as very few other games can :D

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