Rather than a blistering attack on Spore's neo-Darwinist pro-evolution agenda and pollution of our children's precious bodily fluids — a post to the site today revealed it was in fact an incredibly elaborate Rickroll.

In a post entitled "Understand my beliefs please" the creator of the site laid out a scripture-heavy exegesis culminating in the following nugget of pure genius.

But the Bible teaches us that God was not done with man. For we were His creation and He then spoke to Noah in Genesis 8:21-27 after the flood. “21. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never gonna give you up. 22. “Never gonna let you down.” 23.”Never gonna run around and desert you.” 24. “Never gonna make you cry.” 25. “Never gonna say goodbye.” 26. “Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.” 27.”Never truly believe anything you read on the Internet. There will always be cases of Poe’s Law.”

Poe's law, if you were wondering, states that "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing"

Kudos to you, sir or madam, although far from pouring oil on troubled waters you may only have inflamed further religious argument - the existence of that Rick Astley video being the best argument for Atheism Richard Dawkins never had.

Understand my beliefs please [Antispore.com via Dagbladet.no]

The site purports to be a protest against Spore and its 'attack on Christian values' and consists of several Creature Creator movies of Penis Monsters and other Spore grotesques, alongside posts about what the author claims is the game's pro-evolutionary agenda and corrupting influence on children.

Oh, and the fact that Will Wright is Evil.

Our first thought was "Ha! A clever satire on religious censorship and the intelligent design debate!" quickly followed by, "hang on, it's quite deadpan for satire, isn't it?"

I initially thought it might be some kind of quite funny, reverse-psychology marketing campaign.. but then I got to the bit about the Episcopalian Church being a 'perverted church' that endorses homosexuality and it seemed.. less funny.

The irony is that Spore is only nominally 'about' Evolution. If anything you as a player are an Intelligent Designer. Do you see? It is teaching the controversy!

Anti Spore -Resisting EA’s War on Creationism [Thanks to Scott Owens for the tip]

There is commercial pressure from Sony who want us to create a viable business product but we're more after the critical acclaim. I think there's less pressure now because when we were an independent developer we had the pressure of paying the wages every month. Now we don't have to worry about the next game or what we're going to be doing.

But if we have any corporate buyout specialists who'd like to run some numbers and post them in the comments, please, by all means. Until then, we'll get back to drooling on our laptops and coming up with catchy headline words like, "Moneystorm."

Evolution Set Sony Back £16 million [nextgen]

Has Pokemon evolved? No. It's added features. The article's solution? Make it 3D. And while I don't necessarily disagree that three dimensions could offer some unexplored gameplay elements, the precise problem with most tired franchises is that the "make it 3D" button has already been pushed (often to the cost of the series *cough* Sonic *cough*). So called "evolution" in the wake of 3D gaming seems a much tougher prospect, especially for games wishing to stay 2D—like Metal Slug (also on their list). I don't know that I have some profound point to make here, but the article does bring to question: how do you want to see your favorite games evolve?

Because my favorite "evolution" in the last five years was probably The New Super Mario Bros. The were excellent, there were a ton of new gameplay elements and honestly, for as long as I see Mario in 3D, I will know him in 2D.

Games that haven't changed in ten years [gamesradar]

Make the jump for a full explanation of the video from AllGames.com. Flynn De Marco

[via: Destructoid]

FROM ALLGAMES.COM
NOTES: This was produced for game developer DAVID PERRY. It had to be two minutes and thirty seconds long, for an audience of non-gamers, and was to show what games might look like 5 years from now. Thus why some pre-rendered PS3 videos, and cut scenes were used. We will be doing a series of these in the future, check back.

A short trip through the evolution of video games. From pixel to polygons, atari to HD, this is a visual ride through various video game genres as they evolved with new technology and talent from game developers.
The clip was produced for a presentation made by game developer David Perry at the prestigious TED Conference in Marin County. www.ted.com

For your Thursday lunchtime perusal, Next Generation's Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh has posted a decent read for whilst you're otherwise employeed stuffing a sandwich into your craw: "How the Console 'Losers' Really Won."

A curious thing about videogames is that, underneath the bluster, you'll nearly always find that the "losing" platforms - from the Sega Saturn to the Turbografx-16 - are in many ways either objectively superior to or subjectively more intriguing than what "won"; what they typically lack is balance. Like root beers or politicians, typically the top candidates rise to the top not out of pure excellence; they rise because they serve the basic desires of the greatest audience while offending the fewest.

Like many articles with an overarcing thesis, the author (a man with both two first names and two last names) tries a bit too hard at points. Still, he's right that many features inherent in failed consoles were then polished by competition until they shined on their own. Florian Eckhardt

How the Console 'Losers' Really Won [Next Generation]

Over at 1Up, they've got a wonderful Friday afternoon time killer in 'Playing With Power: Great Ideas That Have Changed Gaming Forever'. They look at a couple dozen gameplay conventions and trace them from modern usage down to their 8-bit progenitors.

Some of the great ideas that have shaped gaming are better than others — power-ups versus ice or life bar vs. canine companions — but it's just the sort of nostalgic retrospective gamers have so much fun spacing out reading. Florian Eckhardt

Playing With Power: Great Ideas That Have Changed Gaming Forever [1UP] (Thanks, Jane!)

The design of the Wiimote has continued to subtly change through the prototype and Kotakuite Randy was classy enough to send us a link to this image, comparing the earliest prototype with the latest. it's like one of those before-and-after ads for Hoodia, with a fatty on one side who, across the black dividing line, becomes a supermodel on the other.

Outside of a sveltening, the biggest change is obviously the speaker that they've added, as well as some relabeling of the buttons, probably for clarity reasons (it's hard to write instruction manuals when you've got two buttons designated by the same letter). Randy also noted the small clip hole to accommodate a wrist strap. FLORIAN ECKHARDT

Image Grabbed From Here