Love this series…it is timeless! Robert Hardy, Christopher Timothy, and all the Dalesmen and Daleswomen are so endearing. Makes me really miss northern England!
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  | |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  | ![Clogs - The Creatures In the Garden of Lady Walton [3/2] *](http://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/muze/music/T1302224.jpg) |
Amazing Pamphlets On Star Wars Digital Art
Authority On The Art And Making Of Star Wars
Learn More On Banksy Happy
Meaningful Tips On The Art Of Star Wars
Free Connected Guideline For Roman Emperor
Authority On The Art Of Star Wars Episode 1
Accommodating Hints On Poster Clone Wars
Complementing Info On Star Wars Side Art
Essential Problem Solver For Droids Misc Droids
Compelling Tips On Starwars Pictures
Essential Hint About Star Wars Pictures
Free Connected Info On Tatooine Mos
Grand Reports On Starwars Pictures
Free Supportive Guide On Star Wars Art Print
Instructions On Star Wars Prints
Cheapest Ebay Listings For Star Wars As Clasic Art
Free Indicative Guide On Clone Wars
Free Handy Hints On Droids Auth
Alluring Information On Base Hoth Auth
Striking Guidepost On Pit Droid
Compare Products Of Bounty Hunters Boba
Advices And More About Star Wars Clone Wars Art
Free Efficient Roadmap For Rare Banksy
Star Wars Line Art Truths Blog
Great Literature On Jabba Hutt Auth
Star Wars Episode 1 Art Free Relevant Info
Great Deals For The Art Of Star Wars Episode 1
Free Connected Guideline For Solo Carbonite
Great Information On Star Wars Graphic Art
Free Relevant Facts On Gungans Jar Jar
I bought this game when it was first released, and it has never ceased to amaze me… Because of the open-ended nature of gameplay, this title provides infinite replay value. As if the initial demonstration of very well constructed artificial intellegence (and hormone) systems wasn’t enough, the real pleasure of this game is attained through discovery of how much of the norn’s behavior can be controlled through both selective breeding and learning experiences. The social interactions are complex enough to keep you busy for a while, too. This title is still worth its initial price, and this reduced offer is certainly not one to pass up.
This game is amazing but worrying.
The game is 2-D, but that won’t matter, you don’t “control” the creatures. There are no pre-programed creatures or behavior. The artificial inteligence demonstrated by the norns (the species of the creatures in this game) makes furbees look like those dolls that have a string you pull to make them talk (no offense to furbee lovers, especially if I can’t spell furbee). Your role in this game is to be the “terrarium keeper”. You have to try to keep them alive, happy, and healthy in the world they live in, which, although it isn’t huge, will keep you happy. Your tool is the hand, with which you may pick up food, other animals, toys, interact with objects, and pet or dicipline your norns. You may have up to seven or eight norns in your world at a time, but you can export norns for future use, or give them to a fellow creatures player. The ultimate goal in this game is… well, I guess it is up to you. One goal is to create norns with strange or unique traits, such as colored skin or imortality. Also there is a score, affected by births, deaths, and your norns health. However, if you are interested in this game, there are two sequels, Creatures adventurtes, and other games with a similar premise, which you can find right here on Amazon.
The worrying thing about this series is the artificial intelegence, which sometimes almost seems alive. What does this say about us? If we can program a computer to emulate life increasingly well, including comunication, what is to say that someday we may create something that is a computer, and yet alive. It seems imposible, but if it will happen, it looks as though the day is close. Frightning, isn’t it?
I Did’nt like creatures cause I did’nt know what it was about till now it is the greatest game in the whole world!
So what exactly is Creatures?
It proclaims itself from the tutorial movie that came with it that it is “the most advanced comercially available life simulator in the world” (which is no longer true, because now there are sequels). Creatures is an A-life simulator, in which you are in charge of caring for Norns, fuzzy little things that their creators left behind on their home world of Albia as they went off to find a new planet.
This is a 2-D game taking place on a disk-shaped planet; the edges are where everything occurs in the game, while the “faces” of the disk are inhospitable and never explored. The game world has many things in it, such as toys, tools, herbs and poisonous plants, scavengeable food, and other creatures besides your Norns.
Norns begin their lives hatched from eggs, and you can start your world with eggs from the Hatchery or Norns you received from elsewhere. From the moment of a Norn’s birth, the complexity of biological life’s processes are simulated in it, right up to the time it dies. Norns have chemicals and neural networks just like real life does, and everything they do is in response to their environment and is not preprogrammed.
Norns must be taught how to survive. Above the incubator where you can hatch eggs is a learning computer where you can teach your Norns all the concepts they need to express themselves and communicate with you. Of course, Norns are born being able to speak a language of their own resembling gibberish, but you have to teach them English in order to figure out what they want and command them to do what you want.
Not that they’ll always do that; Norns have a free will of their own, just like us. However, just typing in a command and seeing your little pet do what you say is an absolute thrill every time it happens.
Norns learn by a system of punishment and reward, and can remeber past experiences and form simple concepts. You must teach your Norn how to live on its own by tickling it or saying “yes” to good behavior, or slapping it and saying “no” to things you want to discourage. Take the example of teaching your Norn to eat food for the first time. First you would show the Norn some cheese or a carrot and make sure he’s paying attention to it. Then you tell him repeatedly “food” until he learns what it’s called. Finally you tell him to “push food” in order to eat it. (The verb “eat” is used only in the sequels to this game; for now, you tell a Norn to “push” stuff whenever you want him to do something with it.) And once he eats the food, you reward him, and he links this reward to eating, and will be more likely and able to feed himself in the future.
After a few minutes, you and your Norn can set out the explore the world. There are vehicles your Norn can use to get around. Birds flutter about, fish patrol the ocean, and honey can be gathered from the bees’ hives. Your Norn may catch a disease and possibly pass it on to others. There are herbs he can eat to get better, or toxic look-alikes that will make him sick or even kill him. Toys of various kinds are scattered about the landscape. And of course there is the mean, ugly, nasty Grendel, whose only goal in life is to beat up your Norns, eat all their food, inject them with glycotoxin and spread disease. It is possible to teach and raise a Grendel just like a Norn…
Later, your Norns can breed and produce natural eggs. With each passing generation, Norns differ slightly from the previous generation, allowing them to continuously adapt, evolve, and improve. You can use various applets to monitor your Norns. And when they die, you can even set up a tombstone for them, complete with a picture of the Norn and an epithet.
This is a complex game, and not recommended for people who want simple, quick, and consistent results. This is a game that models real life, even if it does so in a way you cannot understand or don’t want to happen. There are many different chemicals and genes that affect how your Norns work…part of the fun is figuring out what they do.
This is a game I have been playing for a really long time now, and I definitely intend on getting the sequels sometime soon. If you can, be sure to at least give this game a try.
What kind of Norn will YOU raise?
Well I guess even in the fifties the third film failed. Yes, I didn’t even know there was a third and I wish I never did. Anyway just because you get a bad apple in the bunch doesn’t mean you won’t have a good time watching the other two. Of all the classic monsters the Gillman is the one that didn’t make it…in the fifties, but he is become more popular in today’s age. Some films do great and decrease with time, others do bad then and become more popular now. It’s real terror and real scares and above all a masterpiece! Product came at average time and came as show with the case and all. You rest easy knowing that this was worth your money.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon Legacy collection was an excellent purchase. I like the fact that I have all 3 creature features together and special interviews with actors from the movies.
Marsha Obusek
Silver Spring, Md.
For it’s time the special effects were fantastic, the creature was really believable and the suspense was equal to them, considering the methods now used this one would give the modern movies a run for their money
The #1 dvd dis was missing it was a set of two dvd dis we just got dis #2 so not to
good
Very good book. A great Book Club book or wonderful summer read. I have always enjoyed Tracey Chevalier writing, how she take these wonderful pieces of art work and turn them into involved, interesting novels.
I love when a book holds my interest so well that as soon as I finish, I need to know more. REMARKABLE CREATURES is one of those rare books for me. While all the characters are fictionalized, I wanted to know more about the real Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning, and their lives as fossil hunters and amateur paleontologists.
Elizabeth Philpot and her sisters, Louise and Margaret, are in need of a new home now that their brother is getting married. With no marriageable prospects — they are not known for their beauty — they take a tour of possible new homes and come to find they like Lyme Regis, a small coastal town known for its fossils. The town slowly becomes home to the sisters, especially Elizabeth, who finds she has a passion for fossils. During her walks on the beach, she meets Mary Anning, a local resident and fossil hunter, and the two become close friends. The odd pair can be seen walking the beach many days, heads down, looking for the small creatures they both love to search for.
When Mary comes upon a strange set of bones that she believes to be a crocodile, both Mary and Elizabeth are unprepared for the way their lives will change. The skeleton Mary finds turns out to be a complete ichthyosaurus skeleton, a creature unknown to science at the time and one that will change the way people think about the history of the world, what extinction means, and if it can, in fact, be a real concept. Mary’s find sets off a bomb in the science world, and it becomes a boon for her. The Annings are a poor family, but the discovery of the ichie, as Mary likes to call the ichthyosaurus, brings in a little money for the family. She begins spending more time on the beach taking other collectors and hunters out and showing them what to look for. In the following years, she finds several more ichthyosaurus skeletons and a new creature that becomes known as the plesiosaurus.
During this time, Mary and Elizabeth find their lives colliding, oddly enough, over a man. Elizabeth, ever the one to voice an opinion, tells Mary what she thinks and knows will happen with this man. But Mary refuses to listen, hoping that the creatures she finds will not only change her family’s fortunes but also her own. When things go badly, they stop speaking, but it is Elizabeth, stubborn to the core, who fights for Mary when most needed. When a well-known scientist hints that the plesiosaurus skeleton of Mary’s may be a fraud, Elizabeth leaves Lyme Regis to confront the scientists in London and make sure that Mary is credited with the find.
REMARKABLE CREATURES is a wonderful story of two independent women who find themselves unlikely friends — an educated lady from London and an uneducated town girl — in the midst of one of the biggest scientific discoveries of their time. Elizabeth’s willingness to speak up for Mary ensured that the world knew who Mary Anning was and that she was credited with the finds that changed science. Lyme Regis itself is much like Elizabeth — cold, harsh and boney — and is in fact a very fitting place for Elizabeth, whose personality matches that of her surroundings. Mary, on the other hand, is a gentle, trusting soul who has an amazing ability to find bits of the past and an endearing way of making them real.
The two women are out of place for their time and for what they choose to do with their lives. They seem almost as alien as the creatures they obsessively hunt and hold so dear. While reading, I’ll admit that Elizabeth’s character took a while to grow on me, but she becomes immensely likable once you see what she is capable of. In the end, I found myself happy to see her embrace her tough side and carry on the only way she saw possible. It is a sad story to a degree — at times these two women spend days bemoaning their fate — but it is a wonderful tale in terms of the bonds they forge and the barriers they move to become figures in history next to their own fossils. These two women and the creatures they hunt certainly live up to the book’s title.
REMARKABLE CREATURES
I love Tracy Chevalier’s novels, everyone of them is a treasure. She brings history to life and then some. She makes learning interesting and fun. Chevalier transports readers back in time and brings characters to life. BRAVO!
REMARKABLE CREATURES is the true story of Mary Anning, a young woman living during the early 1800’s in Lyme Regis, a small coastal town in England. The region is loaded with fossils. Mary Anning collects these fossils for both her personal pleasure and income. During this time in history, fossils were very popular and the Anning family made their living selling them.
Mary Anning and her family are very poor and between her father’s wood working business and Mary finding fossils to sell, the family barely makes ends meet. However, Mary loves being on the beaches all day, getting dirty, finding treasures to help feed the family and for the pure joy.
Enter into Lyme Regis the Philpot sisters. The three ladies are from London and need to make a new life here. Of the three sisters, Elizabeth falls in love with fossil hunting, in particular finding fish fossils.
Mary and Elizabeth meet and become fast friends. Although not of the same class – which was very important in 1800 England — they become best friends. Mary and Elizabeth don’t let the difference in their class status or their large age difference deter their being friends. They share the same obsession and love, fossils.
Mary discovers a never seen before fossilized skeleton of a creature that sets the entire world of paleontology into a spin. This discovery also sets the worlds of both Mary and Elizabeth into total chaos. Join the two friends as their friendship is put to the test due to many factors — men, women being barred from receiving any type of credit where credit is due, becoming jealous of each other for many reasons, and town gossip.
Mary and Elizabeth’s friendship and lives are brought to life in stunning fashion by Chevalier. History and fiction are so perfectly blended in this book. This reader had never heard of either women, yet both of them played such an important and definitive part in the history of discovering extinct creatures.
Chevalier takes you, the reader, into the past and makes you want to stay there. There are many famous people brought back to life within the pages of this book. We learn so much about the importance fossils play in this history of the world. It is a shame to find out how Mary Anning, along with Elizabeth Philpot, never received recognition for their contributions to the fossil world until the future. As a matter of fact, Mary Anning would do all the labor and work, working long and hard hours, receiving a piddling of cash and absolutely no credit for any of her hard work.
This book is a must read. You will learn so much about fossils and yet, while fossil finding and the creatures discovered is so very scientific, Chevalier makes it so totally interesting and wonderful. The bond between Mary and Elizabeth is a friendship that is true and deep. Both of these women were strong and brave and didn’t care what others thought of them. Enter into their world where women don’t count for much but yet these two make history.
It’s also interesting that the tongue twister ’she sells seashells on the seashore’ was written with Mary Anning in mind. Another fun fact is that Jane Austin was one of the many historically famous who visited Lyme Regis. In addition, upon investigating further about Lyme Regis, there is a picture of the street lights there. They are shaped in the form of ammonites, a fossil, which is a hats off to Mary Anning and the many contributions she made to the world.
Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot lived exceptional lives. Ms. Chevalier makes their worlds come alive. I am so glad that I met them. This book is highly recommended.
Thank you.
Pam
the washington post gives a lovely, thoughtful review.
however, it forgets to tell you the skinny: this latest chevalier is worth your pennies. buy it for your collection. this is a subtle book, yet you will read it in several hours, and will be unable to put it down.