This is part of our best-of 2008 series, previously featured on our newsletter, Advance. Imagine, for a moment, a universe that does not yet exist. A flying saucer navigates a galaxy of oddly colored planets and moons teeming with life. The saucer slows upon reaching one particular world, and moves in closer. It is a lush green landscape, and scattered around the planet are cities – sculpted from Coke bottles. Moving closer, vehicles created from Coke bottle caps race back and forth between the buildings. And zooming in reveals the townspeople of this foreign land to be none other than the creatures from Coca-Cola’s "Happiness Factory" commercial.
This imaginary planet sits in a galaxy created by Spore, EA’s new hit game. Or rather, it could. There’s a trend beginning to hit mainstream in-video game design: User-generated content. September saw the release of EA’s aforementioned Spore. a "universe simulation" that allows players to create and share entire worlds with other players. In late October, Sony released LittleBigPlanet for the PS3, a highly anticipated title for all ages and both genders where the user generated content provides levels for sack-puppets to play through. Continue reading “Gaming’s next YouTube?”
